Goliath

Tom Gauld isn’t challenging the 1 Samuel 17 account of the events at the Valley of Elah, but he is asking us to consider our assumptions about Goliath of Gath. The truth of the matter is that he’s not even really interested in the historical person Goliath; instead, he’s interested in the reality and prosecution of war.

Neither Goliath nor the rest of the Philistine army seem to have much idea as to why they’re at war with the Israelites; instead, they, like armies throughout history, wait for the fighting to erupt under a vague sense of foreboding. Goliath himself ends up at a post he didn’t choose, under orders devised by an ambitious young captain. Back in the camp, some other soldiers have tied up a bear which they force to fight various other animals for sport and gambling; that literal bear becomes a metaphor when it runs away.

I always read comic books at least twice (mostly because I can’t keep myself from quickly turning pages to read dialogue, without paying sufficient heed to the art). On my second read, I made sure to go through the whole book in a single sitting so as to track Gauld’s development of the atmosphere without interruption. A plot summary cannot convey the melancholy tones conveyed by Tom Gauld’s monochromatic, cartoonish line drawings. Why doesn’t Goliath also run away? Why does any soldier in any war remain at his post, when he is at best a mere cog in a machine and a disposable weapon for a cause which means precious little to him personally? When Goliath must finally enter battle, the war is settled, but his death resolves nothing for him as an individual.

In Goliath, Tom Gauld asks us to join him in reflecting on what it means to ask men to go to war. In our time as much as any, it’s an invitation we all should accept.