Con una mayor vocación satírica, la menor atención al elemento fantástico hace que, al menos para mí, resulte menos fascinante que las entregas anteriores. ( )

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3125257.html

There is actually a comics shop in downtown Brussels named after this volume, and I had assumed for some reason that it was originally in Dutch and a standalone tale. In fact it was originally in French (but I read the Dutch translation) and it's the fifth (at least; counts vary) in a series of works with the overall title Les Cités Obscures, which sort-of translates to "The Obscure Cities", set in a succession of parallel conurbations which are closely related to those on our own world. There's no doubt whatsoever as to which city Brüsel refers to, particularly since my edition is prefaced with an angry and well-illustrated essay about how urban development has destroyed communities and heritage in the real Brussels.

It's a book of polemic rather than plot. Our hero, Constant Abeels, is a florist who has switched from real flowers to plastic ones. He gets drawn into the steampunkish world of the urban developers of Brüsel, led by the sinister Mr De Vrouw (whose name means Mr Woman); at the same time he is subjected to medical treatment for a condition similar to but not entirely like tuberculosis; and keeps encountering the enigmatic Tina Tonero, whose clothes have a tendency to fall off at strategic moments.

I found this sufficiently intriguing that I will try and find the rest of the series, starting from the beginning, in the original French. ( )

I really liked the subtle link between progress in surgery and construction as if the city was a patient and as usual the great scenery and compositions ( )

Brüsel is the obscure city which most obviously parallels a city in our own world, and Brüsel is the album which is perhaps most directly a satire on the ‘real’ world.

The main target is ‘Brusselisation’ (bruxellisation), a term applied, in Wikipedia's apposite citation, to ‘the indiscriminate and careless introduction of modern high-rise buildings into gentrified neighbourhoods’. It takes its name from the way Brussels bulldozed half of its historic heritage in the 1950s so they could ‘modernise’ ahead of Expo 58. Most notoriously, Viktor Horta's art-nouveau masterpiece the Maison du Peuple was replaced by a beige skyscraper.

François Schuiten grew up in Brussels and his parents were both architects; in Brüsel the whole story is magnified and retold as it were through a fairground mirror. Brüsel, as the story begins, is a pretty town with crooked streets and a tram network, surmounted by the Palais des Trois Pouvoirs. But ‘progress’ is in the air. The city authorities are in thrall to smarmy town planner Freddy de Vrouw, and city funds are drained and redirected into realising his futuristic vision of what a modern city should be like.

Of course, things do not quite work out according to the blueprints. Running alongside this architectural satire is a general critique of misdirected ‘progress’ – one main character is a ‘plastic florist’ who makes synthetic flowers – and all of it is funneled into a Kafka-esque medical thriller too, involving an underwritten female lead who contrives to lose her clothes every time she trips over.

‘Nous avons tous été malades…’ one character says. ‘Oui, malades du progrès !’ comes the reply. One of Schuiten's most Schuitenesque albums, beautifully drawn, this is another solid entry to the series. This 2008 reissue includes an introductory essay about Brussels in which Benoît Peeters outlines some of the main points of Brusselisation, and explains the key transformations that served to turn Brussels into Brüsel. ( )

Peeters og Schuitens serie Hemmelighedsfulde byer er fyldte med arketyper og drømmende scenarier. Det er også tilfældet i dette bind, hvor forlægget tydeligvis er Bruxelles, og hvis nogen skulle være i tvivl, så forklarer Peeters sammenhængen i en interessant indledning om belgisk byudvikling.

Den er åbenbart præget af hensynsløs modernisme, hvor gamle kvarterer og bygninger rives ned i fremskridtets navn, og hvor det ene megalomane projekt afløser det andet. Det er hovedpersonen Constant Abeels egentlig indforstået med.

Han læser populærvidenskabelige magasiner og har netop besluttet at skifte de traditionelle blomster i sin butik ud med nogle nye af plastik. Han bliver opsøgt af professor Dersenval, en af modernismens helte, og snart er han statist i spillet om et nyt Brüsel, der skal være imponerende nok til at kunne være hovedstad for de hemmelighedsfulde byer.

Hospitaler, Constants butik, ja selv kirker må vige vejen for planerne, der er som taget ud af Fritz Langs Metropolis – bare uden Langs menneskevarme!

I sidste ende er det hele bygget på sand. Byen er fuld af halvfærdige bygninger, som ingen vil bruge, folk protesterer og til sidst er pengekassen tom. Sympatien ligger hos den oprørske Tina, der gør hvad hun kan for at sabotere fremskridtet og som Constant er tiltrukket af.

Brüsel er en på en gang mærkelig og genkendelig advarsel mod at kaste alt væk i fremskridtets navn. ( )