fivetonsofflax reviewed xkcd: volume 0 by Randall Munroe
Review of 'xkcd: volume 0' on 'LibraryThing'
2 stars
The blurb promises an "intensely personal invocation of the ancient Greek tragedy" of Sophocles' Antigone. It's certainly true that the poems collected in this book leave the impression of being written with a lot of personal emotional commitment, and that's what made them hard for me to enjoy.returnStripped of most of her social conditionality and of the tragic development of the original drama, Antigone, who speaks to the reader in pieces of thought and dark images, loses much of what made her such an impressive and timeless character and becomes less substantial. Much of what I could gather from the poems evoked vague impressions of deep sorrow and an utterly hostile world, but since I learned little more about Antigone in these poems, she left me more puzzled than compassionate. Maybe stronger links to the events of the drama would have helped me to relate.returnThere are some parts in this …
The blurb promises an "intensely personal invocation of the ancient Greek tragedy" of Sophocles' Antigone. It's certainly true that the poems collected in this book leave the impression of being written with a lot of personal emotional commitment, and that's what made them hard for me to enjoy.returnStripped of most of her social conditionality and of the tragic development of the original drama, Antigone, who speaks to the reader in pieces of thought and dark images, loses much of what made her such an impressive and timeless character and becomes less substantial. Much of what I could gather from the poems evoked vague impressions of deep sorrow and an utterly hostile world, but since I learned little more about Antigone in these poems, she left me more puzzled than compassionate. Maybe stronger links to the events of the drama would have helped me to relate.returnThere are some parts in this book that impressed me, though, and incidentally those were the poems that didn't revolve solely around Antigone's suffering but hinted at relations to and interactions with the world around her. For example, there's a bit about Antigone being afraid of the effect of her own voice because "If I utter this voice/ This great/ Aching scream// Its horror will echo forever." (p. LXIII)returnThe illustrations by Terrence Tasker, to whom the book is dedicated, accompany the poems very well, but unlike them, I think they are more able to stand on their own. They are portraits of grim faces and eyeless masks that convey pretty much the same emotions as the poems. I felt that in this case the focus on feelings of personal suffering just befit the medium of charcoal drawing better than poetry.
