When I first put this on my graphic novels syllabus in 2017, it was because I was interested in testing the limits of the form — is this really a graphic novel, or is it an illustrated book? Also, what kind of book is it? The sheer weirdness of it makes it fun to assign, because I like introducing students to books they aren’t so likely to find and read on their own. All of those reasons still hold, and contribute to making this a very teachable text, but now, just 6 years later, it’s also jarring to me to notice how differently I think about weather and what it means. I told my students that it was strange to reread the chapter on fire and remember how distant and remote the part about increased wildfires seemed to me back then, versus reading them now after having experienced all the smoky days this summer.
So for their short informal weekly writing assignment, I asked them whether the book feels dated; whether they think it would be written differently today, etc. And interestingly, about 1/3 of them said it didn’t feel dated at all. Another 1/3 said that although it was noticeably from an earlier time, in that there were all kinds of things from the last 5 years that it certainly would have mentioned if it were written now, that really only went to show that it wasn’t actually dated or obsolete; quite the opposite, it sort of proved how prescient the book was, in that everything that’s happened since only further illustrates its points. And then a final 1/3 said yes, definitely dated, the book would be completely different if written today (much less cheerful and optimistic, someone said — more apocalyptic). I do think that the book is interestingly withholding, in some ways — careful not to make explicit claims that would noticeably date it. It sort of floats in an in-between space, reporting on what others say without really taking any positions. This is all the more curious, when you consider that the logic of assemblage is really, at the end of the day, the author’s idiosyncratic tastes. My students thought that it seemed like a textbook, but I suggested that it was more like someone’s scrapbook of clippings from various textbooks and magazines.
But in another way, I think, it’s a book that is really interested in the idea of myth. There’s a cosmological bent to it — the opening chapter being called Chaos; the way it collects stories and seeks explanations; and most fascinatingly, perhaps, in the very ambiguous final image, which my students thought seemed like a primeval Edenic scene, fair enough, but then what’s with the massive buildings??
Anyways. It’s a weird, cool book, and one that’s a lot of fun to think about, and with.
Kasia Reads 