Wednesday, January 27, 2016

On the Coffee Table: Box Brown

Title: Andre the Giant: Life and Legend
Writer and Artist: Box Brown
via Amazon
I'll admit upfront, I am not even remotely a professional wrestling fan.  My curiosity about Andre the Giant stems instead from his appearance in The Princess Bride.  We picked up a copy of this book when we went to a screening of the cult classic a couple years back.

Brown's book follows the life of Andre Rene Roussimoff from age 12 onward.  The early stories reveal the difficulty of walking through life as, well, a giant.  Already 6'3" and 240 pounds, he measured 7'4'', 520 lbs. in adulthood.  A wrestling promoter discovered him in Paris when he was 17.  At first essentially a novelty act, he reached the top of the profession after ten years.  By the time Princess Bride came along, he was already a superstar.  The film guaranteed his legacy beyond the ring.

Andre does not come across as especially likable.  Hard drinking, arrogant and generally rude, he's a far cry from Fezzik.  But there's no denying he lived a colorful, unusual life.  The presentation style reminds me of Chester Brown's Louis Riel: sparse and simple.  The book doesn't do much to spark my interest in wrestling generally, but perhaps in the individual.  Box Brown is a genuine fan of wrestling.  He is candid about the sport's staged elements but those elements have clearly done little to dampen his own enthusiasm.

10 comments:

  1. I have never seen the interest in pro-wrestling, either, but with Trump running for President, I have read more about the sport in the past few months than in all the rest of my life. I don't want to read anymore and this one won't be added in my tbr pile.

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    1. Trump... His history with pro wrestling actually does a lot to explain the nature of his campaign.

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  2. I've never been interested in one or the other.
    Boxing, a bit, but never wrestling.

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    1. Neither sport for me, really. Though boxing has an interesting history in film.

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  3. You make it sound a lot like The Wrestler, the Mickey Rourke movie that explored a fading star's life and was supposed to net Rourke his big comeback Oscar. In his review of the film, the late Roger Ebert admitted he was a fan of wrestling for the same reason I am: its elaborate artistry. The best of them truly are artists. Take Dwayne Johnson, for example. Without wrestling, he would never have developed the personality that led to his successful film career.

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    1. Tony, I thought of you as I put this post together as you are the biggest wrestling fan I know in the 'sphere. I've always been puzzled by the appeal but I can understand it from the theatrical standpoint. The whole sport/non-sport discussion one hears around pro wrestling is, I realize, kind of beside the point for the fans.

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    2. I'm pretty sure, as with most things, I have a somewhat unique impression.

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  4. I know nothing of his life but I always felt sorry for him being that people can and are very cruel.
    Your posts are always so interesting because you read just about everything.

    cheers, parsnip

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