Review: "The Initiates", by Etienne Davodeau

This is my review of The Initiates, as seen also at Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/880110337

There are obvious parallels between making graphic novels (writing, drawing, printing and distributing to readers) and making wine (raising, fermenting, bottling and distributing to drinkers): Each is a job that can be easily misunderstood.  Each is a form of art which many people fail to recognize as art.  Each is practiced by an assortment of masters, mediocrities and eccentrics not even their peers can understand.  Each has its own arcane practices and occult jargon, incomprehensible to the uninitiated.
There are obvious parallels between reading graphic novels and drinking wine: Some people enjoy them in prudent moderation, while others become obsessives who allow something meant to enrich their lives to take over their lives.  Some people despise anyone who has anything to do with them (using, respectively, the slurs "subliterate" and "drunkard").
Etienne Davodeau and Richard Leroy don't really "exchange jobs", as the subtitle claims.  Rather, they exchange insights into their jobs: Etienne shows Richard his drafting tools and takes him to the editorial offices and the printing press where his unique art is turned into a mass product.  Richard puts Etienne to work pruning vines and draws samples from his barrels to show him how fermenting wine progresses towards the form in which it will be bottled.
Richard offers Etienne tastes of Poulsards and Chardonnays, while Etienne showers Richard with Art Spiegelman and Alan Moore.
I'm amused by the fact that the English title, "The Initiates" stands opposite to the original French title, "Les Ignorants", but at the same time, the underlying principle is the same.  Rather the way that the English word "mammal" compares with its German equivalent, Säugetier.  The one means "milk-producer", while the other means "milk-drinker".  Etienne and Richard both nourish, and they both are nourished.  Reading this book, you will be nourished.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "It will be up to you to nourish others with your own talent and labor."\\