Alexander von Humboldt himself would doubtless have approved. A pleasure for students of science, art, and their...
A delightful recounting, in word and image, of the work of a pioneering scientist and world traveler.
“Do you really remember all the plants you’ve ever seen?” “Of course!” So replied Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), the famed explorer and naturalist, to a colleague’s query, adding, “I can remember even the smallest detail for years—from the shape of a leaf to the color of soil, the layering of a rock or a temperature reading. Why wouldn’t I?” Humboldt wasn’t bragging unnecessarily. Neither does his biographer, Wulf (The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World, 2015, etc.), when she points out that he was the first naturalist to ask some of the critical questions that would later guide scientific investigations into plate tectonics, evolution, geomorphology, vulcanology, meteorology, and countless other fields—to say nothing of the fact that just about every continent bears names that honor his presence, intellectual or physical. In this “work of graphic nonfiction (for want of a better term),” Wulf teams with illustrator Melcher, whose work is whimsical, even a touch primitive—deliberately, one presumes, to fit the exploratory mood of the text. There are hidden depths in the artwork, however, for Melcher does wonders with collages and renderings that would do Joseph Cornell proud, making use of contemporary illustrations, modern photographs, and excerpts from Humboldt’s own handwritten manuscripts. (In one charming aside on a certain pelagic bird, Wulf notes, “I just wanted to note that Lillian Melcher didn’t draw the penguin…it looks very similar to her style, but I assure you that I sketched it in Callao.”) Readers new to Humboldt will surely find themselves fascinated by a man who went everywhere, saw everything, and spoke with the luminaries of his time, from Jefferson to Napoleon. And those who have already read and admired The Invention of Nature will enjoy this delightful graphic presentation.
Alexander von Humboldt himself would doubtless have approved. A pleasure for students of science, art, and their intersections.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4737-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2019
All dissertations should be this much fun. (35 photos and illustrations)
An amusing compilation of deceptions dating from the Middle Ages to the aftermath of September 11, morphed into print from a Web site initially created to store the author’s thesis research.
Boese, a grad student at UC San Diego, defines a hoax as a “deliberately deceptive act that has succeeded in capturing the attention (and, ideally, the imagination) of the public.” Included under this broad heading are the Jackalope, a species of antlered rabbit able to mimic human voices; a South African crop circle made by extraterrestrials that featured the BMW logo; and Snowball, the 87-pound kitten whose size was due to its mother having been callously abandoned near a nuclear lab. Actually, Snowball wasn’t intended as a hoax; the cat’s owner manipulated the photo and sent a few friends the image, which eventually made its way around the world with an accompanying narrative. (Boese similarly stretches his own definition to include Orson Welles’s radio broadcast The War of the Worlds, even though the program wasn’t meant to trick listeners.) The author believes that while folks have always been gullible, the form and function of hoaxes change over time. For example, during the 1990s, people began to feel anxious about how technology and the Internet were affecting their daily lives. This anxiety fueled the success of a 1994 hoax in PC Computing magazine, which published an article “reporting” that Congress would soon make it illegal to drive drunk on “the information highway.” When a 1998 Internet posting by a New Mexico physicist claimed that the Alabama legislature had voted to change the mathematical value of pi from 3.14159 . . . to “the Biblical value” of 3.0, a bewildered legislature was swamped with calls from angry citizens. Despite its origin as thesis material, the work is not meant to be academic, and there is no analysis of any kind.
All dissertations should be this much fun. (35 photos and illustrations)Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2002
ISBN: 0-525-94678-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Brilliant, passionately rendered reportage.
The true story of French animator Delisle’s two-month gig in North Korea.
The author accepted an assignment to work with a team of North Koreans hired to draw a cartoon series. This graphic novel depicts his time there, mostly in the capital city. Delisle stays at one of the three hotels in Pyongang permitted to take foreign guests. The 50-story Yangakkdo is mostly empty; the only floor with its lights turned on is the one with foreigners on it. Accompanied everywhere by at least one or two government assigned “guides,” the animator sees pretty much only what the powers that be want him to see. Even that limited view, however, reveals a fascistic and surreal landscape: a “phantom city in a hermit nation.” Delisle is a good guide through this overly ordered world. He genuinely likes the North Koreans and has no ideological axe to grind; he brings along Orwell to read, but doesn’t let it restrict his thinking. His sharp eye captures many telling details: a monstrously luxurious subway station (marble walls, chandeliers) that seems to be only for show; the empty restaurants; the “volunteer” civilians obsessively cleaning everywhere he looks; and always the passionate reverence for Kim Jong Il, whose portrait hangs “in every room, on every floor, in every building” throughout the land.
Brilliant, passionately rendered reportage.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 1-8965970-89-0
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
PERSPECTIVES
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