Monsieur Lambert

Summary

Monsieur Lambert takes place in a small cafe located in a quiet town in France. Each day four gentlemen meet for lunch and discuss the upcoming and past greats of football. One day their youngest friend, Lambert, does not show up for lunch. Soon he tells them that he has met a woman. They begin talking about all their past loves and interludes revealing unexpected facets of their own lives and personalities.



History

When this woman enters Lambert's life she has and affect on him as well as their friends. As Lambert tells them of his dates with this lady, all the gentlemen begin reminescing of the loves throughout their lives. Each one has a story to tell of when they were younger, and they really begin to find out each others' personalities and lives. They rediscover their own history with the help of Lambert's lady friend.



Objective
The style of this graphic novel presents a laid back or casual feeling. The illustrations are very loose with minimal detailing in the face and some lines that aren't even finished. They create a sense of a care-free life, which is sort of how the characters in this book live. They don't appear driven by tight schedule and they come and go as they please. When Lambert begins skipping out on lunch or arriving late, his friends don't become irritated and upset as would be a normal response towards a guy ditching his friends for a girl; at least in America. I think the illustrations are a representation of french culture. The text in this graphic novel is a different from graphic novels today and possibly old fashioned. There is a narrative throughout the story along with bubbles. The narrative helps to move the story along and the bubbles bring the reader closer to the characters in the story help them to identify each character's personality.

Subjective
The loose illustrations and text make this for a very enjoyable read. It reminds me much of a stroy book that I might of read when I was younger, but deals with mature issues. Most of the text is written from a man's point of view and is very male driven. As a female I found it quite amusing to read how they dealt with there problems, and it reminded me of a male version of "Sex and the City". The style of the text, bringing the narrative and bubbles together is intriguing and I like how they work together. If the narrative didn't exist I would still be able to follow the plot of the story through the bubbles, but the narrative does create an objective backbone to the story, which brings out details in the story that the bubbles don't cover.

Connections
This book contains a lot of french culture and i would say this small cafe is France is reminescent of the show Cheers in America. Everyone in the cafe socializes with each other and it's always the same people that come to lunch everyday. The waitress is personable with the gentlemen that come in and one in particular that always seems to be in a hurry. Throughout the book she is on his back about taking it slower and enjoying life more. Lambert reminds of Norm. One day he comes in dressed up with a tie and all the men start making comments like "Looks like he's got the woman's touch", and "Hey! How you doing Casanova".