Who watches the watchmen?
While you go through this novel, you notice how different kinds of watching are meant. In the beginning the watching to be sure they don't hurt themselves or don't get hurt and later on in the novel the watching to make sure they don't do anything mischievous.
Of course neither kind happens in the novel which is the point the author is trying to make.
The novel writes about a very uncertain time, many of us can't contemplate. The cold war and its arm's race is almost as ancient as WWII but still many have memories of being terrified of The Bomb.
Countless movies and books have been written with this veil of fear hanging over it, varying from embracing the fact that we are going to die and not worry about it or trying to fight what seemed inevitable at the time.
Watchmen deals with the latter, superheroes are dying and world is at the verge of atomic holocaust. How can normal people with extraordinary skills save the bunch of us?
It doesn't help that the superheroes themselves are emotional wrecks of themselves and not the superheroes Marvel throws at us. They don't have the confidence, they don't even have the high technological knick knacks, with the exception of the Nite Owl. They just try to survive in a world that has condemned them and while they do this, they still want to save the ones that cast them aside.
The writing is of course very different of a normal novel, this being a graphic novel, but I didn't mind it. It isn't my first either, but it's definitely written in a peculiar style.
It doesn't feel glamorous or stylish, but makes you feel you're reading about the girls next door, because how well do we know our neighbours?
Different story lines are being interwoven, even a completely different story about pirates, supposedly written by someone in the novel itself.
I can see how they created a wave of awe when it came out. It must have inspired many to undertake paths in sketching and creating a graphic novel, that must have seem like amped fantasy before this.
Considering its style and content, I have to admit that I still didn't see why so many of us feel this is the only superhero novel worth mentioning.
It wasn't bad, but I wasn't emotionally moved or anything. I read it, much like I read comics when I was younger, without much thought.
But I'm glad I tried it.
