Schematics: A Love Story

by Julian Hibbard

What can a triangle tell us about love? In A Love Story , author Julian Hibbard uses schematic diagrams to meditate on love, memory, and the way time links them. Every spread of the book pairs a quietly unfolding, enigmatic narrative with a visually arresting illustration drawn from old diagrams. Whether they illustrate simplistic dance steps or chart the process of chemical decomposition, the illustrations play off the text, coaxing out new hints of meaning from what at first glance appears simple. As the story unfolds, the schematics draw readers in, revealing more and more of the paradox that is love. Schematics includes an index explaining the sources of the original diagrams, adding another layer of intrigue to this short but memorable fiction.

80 pages, Hardcover

First published October 25, 2011

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked the concept of Schematics more than I liked the execution of it. It sounds so promising: the back cover describes it as a “sparse, meditative, and enigmatic narrative embroidered with schematic diagrams,” and in an essay at the end of the book David LaRocca says that “Throughout Schematics Hibbard demonstrates the persuasive power of apposition: how evocative words, poetic phrasing, and primordial insight can transform an inherited, seemingly irrelevant, schema into something that feels necessary, essential, eternal.” Which sounds so good, right? The problem, for me, was that I didn’t find the words particularly evocative, the phrasing particularly poetic, or the insights particularly primordial or even insightful. The text did strike me as enigmatic, but in a way that hovered between intriguingly odd and just banal, but tipped too much toward the latter. And while the banality may have been intentional, may be part of a statement Hibbard is making about love and life and the universe, I just wasn’t that interested. Example:

I miss you.
I would reach out and touch you,
if I could.

[Brooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

The amount of work to figure out what each diagram was trying to say was too much for the meager story that was there.

I kind of like the idea, it just needed more meat to make it truly work.

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whimsical in a nerdy physicist way but way too deep for the common man. Or maybe the author just missed.

[Jason Das · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not that successful, but it is a rather nice object and c'mon! It's a board book for grown ups.

[Christina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I dont think I was the target audience... Totally have no idea what happened.