80 CAGES
Cages runs to nearly 500 pages, and is McKean’s longest solo work to date. Th e
book off ers an extended rumination on art and life, as well as a showcase for the artist’s
singular compositional skills and intense dreamscape imagery. Th e images are largely
based on pen-and-ink drawings, but some of the pages feature ink-wash brushwork,
airbrushed photography, and white-on-black woodcut-like illustrations. Much of the
book is in black-and-white, with splashes of bluish-grey, but a few pages are saturated
in reds, greens, and blues, to intriguing eff ect. While the bulk of the text consists of
conversations between two or more people that take place within a tightly organized
three-by-three grid pattern, the narrative occasionally dissolves into wordless imagery
that often has a vaguely disorienting quality. At a few points the story gives way to men-
acing cityscapes or puzzling abstractions. Rather than insisting on the primacy of plot,
McKean launches a full arsenal of visual fi repower to force the reader to consider an
emotional landscape that exists beyond the range of ordinary language. Th is is a book
that is meant to evoke raw feelings as much as to tell any particular kind of story.
Th ere is a particularly impressive example of McKean’s manipulation and
re-conceptualization of narrative about one-third of the way into the book, when the
painter, Leo Sabarske, gets into a deep conversation with Karen, an attractive neigh-
bor he was introduced to by Angel, the musician. “God, I could talk all night about
my painting,” Leo says, as they sip wine in a local jazz club. For the next 12 pages the
dialogue is placed on hold as the music pulls them out of their cages and into a swirl
of abstract fi guration, musical notes, and wine glasses. In certain respects, Cages could
be described as the love story of Leo and Karen, except that for whole chunks of the
text their story takes a backstage to other dramas and confl icts. Apart from playing
the saxophone and piano, Angel spends quite a few pages trying to fi nd a rock with a
specifi c inner vibration, one with the power to change history. Furthermore, the writer
character Jonathan Rush has his own problems, namely thuggish literary critics who
want to string him up for something he wrote in his last novel. Th is is very much
London from an insider’s perspective, with a local’s sense of pride combined with an
awareness of just how miserable life can be in a densely populated conurbation.
Perhaps the most aff ecting sequence involves a bit player, Edie, who talks to herself
and her parrot as she waits for the husband who left fi ve years earlier. “Kaw! Bill’s not
home yet,” screeches the bird, as Edie’s face liquefi es into mute despair. Further into her
monologue, the parrot relentlessly mocks her: “Bill’s not home yesterday. Bill’s not home
day before yesterday. Bill’s not home last week. How long since he came home?” Th e
question mark in this last sentence is stranded outside the grid system, as if the world
itself is asking the question. “Never even said goodbye—and you know why? He was
bored shitless!” Undoubtedly she is only imagining the words coming out of the parrot’s
beak, but it is nevertheless diffi cult to think of a crueler pet in the history of comics.
Abandoned in middle age, it seems likely that Edie will spend at least a couple of more
decades talking to herself and burning things on the stove. Th e fact that Leo and Karen
reach a state of ecstasy in the closing pages of Cages does not really off er much of a
happy ending for poor Edie. McKean sympathizes with his characters, but he does not
