{"id":672,"date":"2009-05-12T17:22:45","date_gmt":"2009-05-12T17:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog-test\/?p=672"},"modified":"2024-01-23T22:35:46","modified_gmt":"2024-01-24T03:35:46","slug":"sfar_cat2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2009\/05\/sfar_cat2\/","title":{"rendered":"Sfar, Joann: Rabbi’s Cat 2, The<\/cite>"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rabbi’s Cat 2<\/cite><\/strong> is the unexcitingly-named sequel to Joann Sfar’s charming The Rabbi’s Cat<\/cite><\/a>. It collects two volumes originally published separately in France, “Heaven on Earth” and “Africa’s Jerusalem.”<\/p>\n

I didn’t like this as well as the first volume, though it still has a great deal of charm and wonderful moments. The first story features Malka of the Lions, which can only be a good thing and which I enjoyed tremendously. But its very end contains what appears to be an explicit political comment on Israel, and then I get all dithery about not knowing enough to evaluate the comment. Your mileage obviously will vary.<\/p>\n

The second story is introduced thusly:<\/p>\n

\n

For a long time I thought there was no point in doing a graphic novel against racism. That stance seemed so totally redundant that there was no need to flog a dying horse. Times are changing, apparently. Chances are everything’s already been said, but since no one is paying attention you have to start all over again.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Which rather spoke to me.<\/p>\n

The story is a road trip through Africa in search of a rumored Jerusalem with an intact Temple. The cat’s master is initially dubious about the idea of black Jews (“look: blacks, they have slavery; Jews, they have pogroms. It’s a lot to bear. Now imagine a people that had both at the same time. It just can’t be.”), but he and a number of companions eventually set out on the quest. I again enjoyed this to the end, though I have difficulty judging its didactic level. As for the end, I read it in a radically different way from a friend, who suggested<\/a> (spoilers, obviously) that it was a particularly Jewish mode of storytelling. Her reading makes more sense to me, and I suspect that it is more consistent with the author’s intention, but that ambiguity is worth noting.<\/p>\n

Recommended if you like the first one, but not quite as strongly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rabbi’s Cat 2 is the unexcitingly-named sequel to Joann Sfar’s charming The Rabbi’s Cat. It collects two volumes originally published separately in France, “Heaven on Earth” and “Africa’s Jerusalem.” I didn’t like this as well as the first volume, though it still has a great deal of charm and wonderful moments. The first story … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Sfar, Joann: Rabbi’s Cat 2, The<\/cite>“<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,15],"tags":[380],"class_list":["post-672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comics","category-sf-and-fantasy","tag-sfar-joann"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2549,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions\/2549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}