L ifestyle /C ulture
Books: ‘Tunnels’ Digs for Complicated Truth
B OOKS
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
IN GRAPHIC NOVELIST
Rutu Modan’s most recent
work “Tunnels,” published on
Nov. 2 by Drawn & Quarterly,
archaeologist Nili is hardly the
heroic and striking protagonist
Indiana Jones is in “Raiders
of the Lost Ark,” but their
goals are the same: find the
Ark of the Covenant, and do
it quickly.

The frumpy single mother,
followed closely by her first-
grader son Doctor, glued to
his mother’s iPhone, stumbles
upon an inscription to the
location of the Ark in the
possession of a clueless
collector, the catalyst of her
quest to avenge her archaeol-
ogist father — a man sickened
with dementia for the better
part of two decades — whose
scholarly contributions to the
field were wrongly eclipsed.

The task is both daunting
and familiar: Finding the Ark
would not only save her family
name, but it would be a contin-
uation of a dig she began with
her father 30 years prior.

In her perpetually worn
khakis and blue button-up,
accompanied by her apathetic,
but easily swayable Doctor,
Nili embarks with her humble
equipment to the site of the
dig, which, coincidentally, lies
at the crossroads of Israeli and
Palestinian land.

As she approaches the dig
site, she is joined by a gaggle of
eccentric settlers led by the jolly
Gedanken, who is keen on the
spiritual rewards promised to
whoever finds the Ark (and the
claim to the heavily-contested
land on which it’s found).

Out of nowhere appears her
brother Broshi, who is surrep-
titiously in cahoots with their
father’s academic nemesis
Rafi Sarid, and later, in the
tunnels, childhood acquain-
tance Mahdi, a Palestinian
man, digging a tunnel inter-
secting Nili’s, in hopes of
smuggling vegetables to the
other side of the wall dividing
the territories.

The more people interested
in the tunnels leading to the
Ark, the more the meaning of
the holy object becomes convo-
luted, and the more Modan’s
colorful “Tin-Tin”-esque
comic becomes an ensnaring
political allegory, 3,000 years
in the making.

The respective motives for
the characters’ finding of the
Ark — be it glory, vengeance
or an ideal bar mitzvah locale
— are completely contradic-
tory and, in the end, they don’t
matter. Alliances are forged
and broken, lives are put at risk
and the fate of the ark remains
— spoilers — slippery at best.

With smart color work,
clean lines and enthralling
backdrops, “Tunnels” is crystal
clear and consistent stylis-
tically. Its playful drawings,
exemplified best by the classic
cartoon expressions of hair
and eyebrows standing on
end to depict a surprised
character, pleasantly disrupt
the seriousness of the concepts
tackled, preventing the reader
from growing frustrated with
a heated and often-tackled
topic of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. Modan’s lesson is painted
with the same simplicity and
clarity with which she draws:
everyone’s right; no one’s right;
“Tunnels” by Rutu Modan, published Nov. 2 by Drawn & Quarterly
Courtesy of Drawn & Quarterly
it’s complicated.

On one particularly striking
page, Nili and Mahdi, face-to- it’s our tunnel,” Mahdi says.

the conflict.

face at the mouths of their
“Maybe this part, but from
Clearly rooted in today’s
respective tunnels, begin to there on out it’s the tunnel that day and age, the graphic novel
squabble: “With all due respect, my dad dug,” Nili retorts.

still feels timeless, for better or
The quarrel over the tunnel’s for worse, a snapshot of scenes
rightful digger continues. throughout history, likely on
Mahdi concludes, refer- disputed lands around the
ring to when the tunneling globe.

Through her plea for deeper
began several decades prior:
“Depends where you start understanding of the land’s
fraught history, brought to life
counting.” Even Modan’s biting satire by the conflicting core beliefs
of the pious settler Gedanken, of two groups of people who
fixated on and limited by his ultimately want peace, Modan
hatred for Palestinians, is offers no solace to the reader.

But with no questions answered
pointed, despite its silliness.

News for people
“Tunnels” greatest gift or political solutions proposed,
who know we don’t
is its ability to skirt the line “Tunnels” still remains satis-
mean spiced tea.

of satire and critique while fying in its art and characters.

“In these dark times,”
never explicitly crossing it. In
Every Thursday in the
a time when others politics Modan writes in her afterword,
JEWISH EXPONENT
are assumed, and honest and “I would happily settle for just
and all the time online
vulnerable conversations are the search.” l
@jewishexponent.com. few and far between, “Tunnels”
For home delivery,
offers an easy (or easier) entry- srogelberg@jewishexponent.com;
call 215.832.0710.

point to conversations around 215-832-0741
Chai. 18
JANUARY 13, 2022
JEWISH EXPONENT
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM