Portugal by Pedrosa

I don't know if Cyril Pedrosa - who mostly goes by just his last name on his comics, in the European manner - really just does one big book every few years. That's been my experience of his career: Three Shadows over a decade ago, Equinoxes a few years back, and now Portugal (from 2017).

And it seems to be the life of his main character here, a Portuguese-French cartoonist named Simon Muchat: Simon had a reasonably successful career making "books," as his agent and girlfriend call them, but is in a slump as Portugal opens. He's teaching art in schools, doing some advertising freelance work, but feels completely unmotivated. About anything at all.

And that leads to the obligatory question of how much of Pedrosa is in Simon. The question is obligatory; the answer, though, is unknowable to any of us on this side of the paper. Pedrosa's grandfather immigrated from Portugal to France in the 1930s and stayed; so did Simon's. Portugal is largely the story of that family history - or, rather, how a chance trip to Portugal started Simon to re-engage with life, and led him to start trying to track back that family history. The focus is on Simon, and Pedrosa never drops into flashback to tell the stories of earlier generations: we see everyone and everything through Simon's eyes in the present day.

Portugal is loosely organized into three large sections, after a short prologue with Simon in the mid-70s, a young boy on his only previous trip to Portugal. Each of the three is named after a man in the family: first  "According to Simon" himself, then his father, then his grandfather. But that's not "according to" as in that's who is telling us the story, it's more of a sense of how far back in time Simon has gotten at that point.

That all makes it sound very deliberate: it's not. Simon is aimless when Portugal begins, and only slowly gathers any aim as the book goes on. He's still drifting until very deep into the book, still just going along with whatever happens, and only shows some interest in family stories and the details of life in Portugal. So this is the story of a reawakening, in a way: one connected to history and heritage in a very personal way.

Pedrosa tells this story at a distance, though small talk and background voices, with gorgeous watercolor panels that lend a slow, deliberate rhythm to this fairly long book. It took Simon a long time to climb out of his ennui; we'll see it happen slowly, and learn with him. This is a lovely book, with a quiet personal story told quietly and well - it may not be for all readers but those who can engage with it will find a lot to love.