"The Man Without Talent" by Yoshiharu Tsuge; Translated and Introduction by Ryan Holmberg (New York Review Comics)

ISBN: 978-1-68137-443-7

I'm always fascinated by people who want to disappear in literature.  Yoshiharu Tsuge, the ultimate cult manga artist/writer, seems to be a fellow who wouldn't mind disappearing into the mist.  His manga masterpiece "The Man Without Talent" is a somber journey of rejecting society by staying in tune with one's intuitive choices - whatever it's good or bad.  The series of stories is all about one character that we are lead to believe is the author, with a small son and wife.  The wife is frustrated with her husband's lack of common sense, and the son picks up the tragedy of it all just being there.  He's the little boy who tells his father, "it's time to come home."  

Tsuge's main character decides to open up a 'stone' store by the river.  These are not unique stones by any means, and they all come from the local river.  Anyone can pick up these stones, but Tsuge chooses his inventory carefully so that he can sell them.  Still, a stone is a stone. The absurdity is like people who sell junk, knowing that they are junk, yet, it has a value of some sort. Usually not in a currency sense.  So, his stone selling business is non-existent, yet he works hard daily by being there and selling his stones, that no one buys.   In a sense, he's commenting on his role in life, which is existence on a very absurd term.  There's no humor (at least for this Westerner) here, but Tsuge's work is very much like the films of Robert Bresson in that the artist captures the everyday existence of someone who lives day-to-day. There's a purity of his attempts to achieve his dream, which is basically to disappear.   

As someone who collects vinyl records and books, I find his rock collection interesting as well.  For him, those rocks are priceless or have a price, but to the world, it means nothing to them.  The same goes for his camera collection (in real life as well as in his work), where he buys old cameras cheaply and fixes them up to sell more expensively.   Yet, this is also a dead-end, because eventually, the marketplace will have no need for used broken cameras. 

Ryan Holmberg's introduction (as well as being the translator) is very informative.   I don't know if Tsuge's life is 'exactly' like the way he portrays his main character, but still, it's a skillful method of being in the world of someone who has a hard time dealing with the culture around them.  A remarkable manga.