Watchmen... my first graphic novel.I had not read a comic since 7th grade...and reading this novel-well it brought back those memories.I cannot rate it to its full potential...because I had it in the form of ebook (actual and legal one costs 3000+). I was not able see why is it so critically acclaimed, in the beginning. But as I approached the end,the picture became clearer ,and I started re-reading it ...then I realised..there were so many hidden things and clues and facts that I missed- Mostly because of the fact that I kept reading it...without focussing any attention to the graphics.The novel is set in alternate history,and the elements of our history embedded in it makes it grave and murthful at the same time . I would recommend against reading it(or any grahic novel) in ebook form.I read half the book,then re-read it,and then finished it..and in all the 408 pages book took about 15 days !)..
The book provided different views of the world(from each character)...and is implanted with great quotes ,which just fit in the situation in the story at that point. The ending is good,and unpredicatble.Its nt a typical Hero-saves-the-day ending, and the book highlights the philospohy that in every hero ,theres a villain and vice versa.
In addition to the main story line (already interlaced with multiple flashbacks), each chapter also includes supplemental material from the Watchmen universe – newspaper clippings, book excerpts, copies of letters, police documents, etc. Also interwoven into the story is the pirate-adventure comic Tales of the Black Freighter (which is being read by one of the characters as the story of Watchmen unfolds).
I've decided to put some excellent snippets from the book,which really moved me:
(wasnt able to upload in comic book style with images):
Rorschach: Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night. Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else. Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. Itâs us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world. Was Rorschach. Does that answer your Questions, Doctor?
Doctor Manhattan: Thermo-dynamic miracles... events with odds against so astronomical they're effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such a thing. And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that exact daughter... Until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged. To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold... that is the crowning unlikelihood. The thermo-dynamic miracle.
Laurie Juspeczyk: But...if me, my birth, if that's a thermodynamic miracle... I mean, you could say that about anybody in the world!.
Dr. Manhattan: Yes. Anybody in the world. ..But the world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget... I forget. We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from the another's vantage point. As if new, it may still take our breath away. Come...dry your eyes. For you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly.
The 12 quotes of Watchmen (the ones that occupied the last panel of each chapter):
At midnight, all the agents and superhuman crew go out and round up everyone who knows more than they do- Bob Dylan
And I'm up while the dawn is breaking, even though my heart is aching. I should be drinking a toast to absent friends instead of these comedians- Elvis Costello
Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?- GENESIS chapter 18, verse 25
The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...The solution to this problem lies in the heard of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker- Albert Einstein
Tyger, Tyger burning bright,In the forestsof the night,What immortal hand or eye,Could frame thy fearful symmetry-William Blake
Battle not with monsters lest ye become a monster.And if you gave into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you.-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
I am a brother to dragons,and a companion to owls.My skin is black upon me,and my bones are burned with heat- JOB chapter 30, verse 29-30
On Hallowe'en the old ghosts come about us, and they speak to some, to others they are dumb- Hallowe'en ,Elanor Farjean
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being- C.G. Jung ...MEMORIES,DREAMS,REFLECTIONS
Outside in the distance a wild cat did growl, two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl- Bob Dylan
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!- Ozymandias....Percy Bysshe Shelley
It would be a stronger world, a stronger loving world, to die in- John Cale
