I love these enormous graphic novels that almost become cinematic as you turn several hundred pages. Such a beautiful physical object with thick sheets and a thick spine and overall serious rectangular heft contrasted by the open white expanse inside, a desolate territory offering a house, an old woman, an idiot, a plane that crashes into the house, the pilot, plenty of wonderfully named finches, an innocuous old snake, an owl, an underground afterworld, a bunch of catty crows (also wonderfully named), a pair of swans, and I think that's it. The story is totally organic and light, somehow despite morbidity and bursts of violence. Despite the title, I didn't really feel like this was as explicitly philosophical or idea-ist as most graphic novels I've read. It also, thankfully, wasn't as sad (I'm thinking Ware). Definitely loved time spent reading it -- was certainly charmed but maybe wasn't totally rapt or moved. Or maybe the enervating idiot and the mean-spirited pilot seemed too one note for me? Maybe if they were more human I would have raved a bit more? Anyway, absolutely an awesome Xmas gift for all your friends who read these fancy picture books. I just finished this book during a thunder storm and about 30 minutes before visiting some friends after hearing about the death of one of our high school classmates just one year after finishing senior year. Anders Nilsen spent 15 years on this project and I've finished it in two days, and this is a book that's a bit hard to talk about or, for me, to even organize my thoughts about. It's not because it blew me away that I can't figure out what I think, but because there's just a lot in here. On one hand, you have birds with their philosophical musings, slapstick, and heartbreak, on another you have the cynical crows and their morbid laughter and jokes over all deaths, on another, the snake, which I still haven't figured out yet, the idiot, the grandma, the pilot, etc., but the one aspect of the book that stuck out to me was the picture it painted of the artist himself.In the afterward, Nilsen explains how he got started on the project and some of the things that happened during its completion. In reading it, you see him figuring out his art, what he loves, and what he believes. I'm losing time typing this because I need to get going to see my friends, but this is a book that's worth reading. I had my issues with it at first and even thought that it was pretty "try-hard" at the beginning, but as the story panned out, as the birds all went through an impressive amount of character development, something started to grow on me and I was left with an odd silence after finishing it that I think will stay with me for a couple of days. Simply put, the art is an amazing demonstration of minimalist drawing and the story contains something special in it with the characters and with the author himself that might leave you feeling the same way I do after finishing it today.
What do You think about Große Fragen (2000)?
This book is as much a work of art as it is a story. Sort of a Waiting for Godot with birds.
—JuliannKaniss
loved it! i love long graphic novels. hard to hold tho.
—Tiana
