Au coeur des solitudes

by Lomig

1867, une scierie tourne à plein régime dans un bruit effroyable quand soudain, des ouvriers courent secourir un homme à terre. Il s'est blessé gravement aux yeux. John Muir a déjà 29 ans et il est confiné dans une chambre obscure : il est probable qu'il restera aveugle. Mais miraculeusement, après des mois d'une convalescence quasi mystique, il recouvre la vue. C'est décidé, il va tout quitter et embrasser son rêve de toujours : partir plein Sud à la rencontre de la vie sauvage. Armé de son seul courage, de sa jeunesse, d'une loupe et d'une presse botanique, il parcourra ainsi des centaines de kilomètres, à pied de l'Indiana à la Floride. Imaginez une nature sauvage presque inviolée, où seuls rôdent quelques dangereux soldats du Sud en déshérence et d'anciens esclaves jetés hors des anciennes plantations...

Genres: Bande Dessinée, Graphic Novels, Nonfiction, Biography, Comics, Nature, History

176 pages, Hardcover

Published September 6, 2023

Reviews

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I conjure John Muir in my mind, I imagine a respected, aged naturalist who argued passionately for preserving America's natural wonders.

This book tracks the launch of his botanical research and serves up a man in his late twenties who goes walkabout from a successful career after a work injury to go tramping through the countryside looking at plants while burning through his savings, taking odd jobs, and begging food and shelter off some of the poorest people in the country, folk still recovering from the recently ended Civil War.

Slowed down by malaria picked up by wading through the Everglades, he becomes dependent on the kindness of strangers in Florida before recovering enough to resume his trek on the other side of the country in California.

His passion for nature comes through, sure, but he also comes off more than a little barmy.

An interesting portrait served well by some nicely rendered landscapes filled with detailed flora and fauna.

(Best of 2025 Project: I'm reading all the graphic novels that made it onto one or more of these lists:

• Washington Post 10 Best Graphic Novels of 2025
• Publishers Weekly 2025 Graphic Novel Critics Poll
• NPR's Books We Love 2025: Favorite Comics and Graphic Novels

This book made the WaPo list.)

[Priscilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnifique roman graphique, qui retrace des périodes de la vie de John Muir, un des grands penseurs écologistes américains.

Avec un beau dessin en noir et blanc, Lomig arrive à nous plonger dans les immensités des paysages, dans la luxuriance et la beauté de la faune et de la flore, à travers différents États et pays.

Un parcours unique en son genre, on le voit aux rencontres qu'il fait, la plupart ne comprennent pas son point de vue ni la raison de ces voyages, à la limite de la pauvreté parfois. Et pourtant, il y a une vérité essentielle dans son parcours et son discours : l'harmonie, la paix, la nécessité de protéger la nature et la biodiversité. On a plus besoin d'elle qu'elle de nous...

Enfin, il y a des pages à la fin qui retrace la biographie de John Muir, accompagnées de photos, d'archives de ses carnets, c'est vraiment passionnant ! Une figure qu'on connait assez mal en France, mais qui a toute son importance, au même titre qu'Aldo Leopold, Thoreau ou Emerson.

[Sarah AK · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the art in here, the nature scenes especially, but the text didn’t have the same effect. There were so many speech bubbles and conversations that felt clunky and bogged everything down. I think if the story had stuck to Muir’s own words (which I’m assuming are what makes up the small amount of narrative bits that aren’t speech bubbles), I would have found a lot more beauty in it.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Muir: To the Heart of Solitude surprised me in that I actually learned a great deal about John Muir from its pages. Namely, that Muir undertook a thousand-mile journey across the post-Civil War south. This journey encompasses much of the book, and I found it absolutely fascinating, particularly in the way that the author quietly shows how unsettled the American landscape was just over 150 years ago.

For one thing, it's mostly wilderness! To my mind, it makes sense that Muir's explorations in the Sierra Nevadas would be into uncharted territory because, well, the West was really far away! It surprised me, therefore, that during Muir's time in Florida, the state was basically one big, untenable swamp! Not exactly a vacation destination.

The book eventually moves on to Muir's journey to the West, then concludes with a nice little biography that expands on the book's contents. There's perhaps a bit too much romanticizing of Muir, and quite a bit of forced philosophizing, but the overall package is a splendid celebration of Muir's life and interests, and a fascinating at post-Civil War America.

[Pascale Roy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Non mais quelle BD magnifique sur la vie de John Muir! Il y a un travail énorme là dedans. On sent l’émotion dans les traits de John. On voit tous les détails dans les paysages. C’est fabuleux. Je vais assurément surveiller le travail de Lomig à l’avenir.

J’ai emprunté cette BD à la bibliothèque, mais c’est le genre d’ouvrage que j’aimerais bien avoir à moi! Comme à toutes les fois où je lis à propos de John Muir, j’en veux plus. Je vais assurément poursuivre mes lectures à son sujet et, un jour peut-être, fouler ses pas dans la Sierra Nevada!

[Chris Brook · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice little graphic bibliography of sorts about John Muir's thousand-mile walk to the Gulf of Mexico - then eventually his trip to San Francisco and the Sierra Nevadas. Headed to Sequoia later this summer, saw this and thought it would be a nice complementary read.

[Stella · Rating 4 out of 5]

A graphic novel about John Muir's walk from Indiana to Florida, then boat trip to Cuba, New York, and on to California. The illustrations of nature are magnificent!

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnifique, contemplatif, histoire vraie.

[Tiffany Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

STARS:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to NBM Publishing for this advanced copy, I won this in a giveaway, and all thoughts are my own.

If the lights went out and you lost sight today, and you were left in the darkness of your mind, what memories would you have to reflect on? Would you wish there were things you had seen? Things you would have done?

Would all there be to reflect on is the day to day MONOTONOUS of a work day, day in and day out to pay the bills? The view of cubical walls? This books take on this was powerful and inspirational for me.

The book itself is beautiful and the artwork was spectacular. It really transported me back into that time period. I felt like I was going back in time to walk with my genealogy ancestors. Oh how it made yearn for my natures love - the Tennessee mountains!

This is my first Graphic Novel and first introduction to Lomig’s work.

The book reminded me of the joys we could find in our childhood when we spent our innocence out in nature.

Highly recommend everyone going on this journey with John Muir and slow down the fast pace of day-to-day life!

[Bladelor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cette BD grand format propose un extrait de la biographie de John Muir, citoyen américain de la seconde partie du XIXème siècle - ainsi que du début du XXème - et écrivain/botaniste/écologiste/explorateur, pour ne citer que ses activités les plus marquantes.
Ce personnage hors normes, en avance sur son temps, passionné par la nature et les grands espaces, épris de liberté, effectua de nombreux voyages aux Etats-Unis et à travers le monde.
Au cœur des solitudes retrace l'un d'entre eux, celui qu'il réalisa après qu'un accident faillit le laisser aveugle. Remis de cette grave blessure, il entreprit à pied un périple de l'Indiana à la Floride.
Lomig rend ici un magnifique hommage à cet homme. Ses somptueux dessins au critérium invitent à la contemplation.
Un magnifique ouvrage qui m'a permis de découvrir le destin de ce personnage que je ne connaissais pas.

[Émilie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un coup de coeur pour débuter l'année, pourquoi pas?! Un roman graphique de toute beauté, qui retrace la vie passionnante de John Muir, un célèbre naturaliste écossais que j'ai découvert avec plaisir grâce à ce document (un carnet biographique tout aussi intéressant complète l'ouvrage). Wow!

"Vous allez me prendre pour un sacré original, mais je souhaiterais que les médecins prescrivent ne serait-ce que quelques semaines dans ces grands espaces sauvages à tous leurs patients. Je suis sur qu'ils s'en trouveraient déjà en bien meilleure santé. Et peut-être que leurs agissements changeraient naturellement, suite à cette expérience". Extrait p. 146, John à son nouveau compagnon de voyage Scottie Chilwell.

[Maurine · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5 ⭐

[Bargain Sleuth Book Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Edelweiss and NBM Publishing for the digital copy of this book; I am leaving this review voluntarily.

If you’ve heard of John Muir, you may know the story of his life as an environmentalist who wanted to protect the national parks and founded the Sierra Club, too. However, many people don’t know why or how Muir came to embrace this passion for nature and the environment.

John Muir was a very smart guy who worked in factories, developing and fine-tuning machinery to run more efficiently. One day he was at work and there was an accident that blinded him, and he was taken care of by a couple, and it took months for his eyes to heal. It was while he was lying in bed and talking to the wife that he realized he never wanted to work in a factory again. He wanted to go back to embracing nature, just like he did as a child in Scotland, and later, when his family immigrated to southern Wisconsin.

This graphic novel does a great job of telling the story of Muir’s long trek, originally intended to go to Florida, then South America. He walked for hundreds of miles, meeting nice and not so nice people along the way. He had a notebook where he drew flora and fauna and animals that he encountered. His progress was hampered when he got near Florida, walking through swampy land and catching malaria. When he recovered, he discovered a ship that would take him to California, so he decided to go there instead of South America.

Through beautiful illustrations that highlight the beauty of nature and of all the animals Muir encountered, you get a feel for how being out in the natural environment can be healing for the soul. Some of the detail in the drawings are simply gorgeous! This is the sort of graphic novel that transcends age and can be read by young and old alike. Highly recommend!

[Clint · Rating 4 out of 5]

Filled with beautifully pastoral scenes of mid1800s American landscape, primarily the forested swamps of the southeast and then the tall trees and mountains of the pacific west. Muir’s story starts in his late 20s as he recovers from a near-blinding industrial accident that spurred him to start living now the life among nature he’d been saving for some ambiguous future day. Across his travels that follow, we get a fair look at the transcendent wonder and loneliness and occasional hardship that accompanies his months-long walks in the wilderness.

It’s an inspiring story, and I also appreciated passively learning about the time (immediately following the Civil War) and places Muir lived it.

“There are many voices around us telling us what we are supposed to do. But we often forget to listen to ourselves. And we end up losing our way.”

“It’s already close to a month that I’ve been walking alone and I’m starting to lose the concept of time. Sometimes I even forget my own existence. I’m simply a witness to what is.”

“I realize how much I’ve freed myself, in a short space of time, from my enslavement to the codes and institutions of society. Everything liquified within me before evaporating, noiselessly, effortlessly, and without the slightest awareness of loss. Only the laws natural to my heart remain.”

“People are filled with fear in these troubled times. They suffer so much that they’ll do anything to make money, even if it means destroying their environment. They only see it as a source of profit and threats. They believe themselves to be at the center of everything, and forget the wonder of what lives around them.”

[Deanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful graphic novel. The art is gorgeous, and the story of Muir's early life and rambling interesting. When I think of John Muir, I think of him as an old man who was the primary influence of saving much of the Sierras that are now national parks and forests. Here I learned of why and how he started a walking journey from Wisconsin towards Florida in his 20's and just after the Civil War. His ostensible motivation is to collect plants, and he sleeps under the stars when he is not depending on the kindness of strangers for a meal and a roof for the night. Eventually he ends up on a boat to California's west coast and a new ramble in the Sierra mountains and valleys. The story ends with Muir falling in love with the Sierras. The book was a joy to read and look at, and I learned a lot about Muir. There is a nice mini bio of Muir at the end of the book which fills in some of the other facts of his life not covered in the graphic novel.

[S.Matt Read · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the closest narrative I have found to capture the beauty and discovery of a long hike. I assume the author excerpted Muir's journals, diaries, letters, because there is a real heartbeat to the passages. The illustrations are wonderful and capture big views with big emotions -- this is no easy feat. Unless you have been on a long walk yourself, you might not appreciate that the walk itself stitches together such random encounters, and this in turn equals the meaning of the hike, whatever that is to the person. For this reason, it's very hard to communicate the takeaways. It's just so personal. But this book does a fine job, and I recommend it to anyone thinking about hiking the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, or to someone striking out in their own unique direction, destination unknown.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! Finished it in a couple of hours, and approaching the end, I felt a little bittersweet as I wanted to keep traveling alongside Muir. His journey after his sawmill accident made an engaging narrative as he was constantly searching for something. I found it interesting that the parts that scared me most were tense encounters with strangers in war-torn towns.

The artwork is gorgeous, and I liked how the writer balanced it with the text with decent pacing. There’s enough writing to keep the story flowing and plenty of space to get immersed in the visuals. Felt like I could actually hear, see, smell, and even taste the animals, forests, rivers, stinky swamps, dark skies, mountains.... Definitely worth a reread every once in a while, and, whenever I just want to escape.

[Rachel Adrianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

After thinking about this for a day, I lowered my original 4 star review to 2.5. At first read, I loved the background of John Muir and his dedication to discovering nature, but I don't know why the author/ illustrator made certain choices. For example, because this time of Muir's life took place just after the Civil War, he encounters formerly enslaved people as he travels south... but they look and sound too stereotpical. (One black man uses the term "massah" when speaking to a white man.) The book also makes John Muir out to be a faultless person, and doesn't at all touch on his problematic connection with eugenics or his own racist terminology when writing about his travels in the southern US.

He did a great thing- creating the National Parks- but I think it's more important to tell his whole story rather than a whitewashed version of it.

[Noelle Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

“And I to the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” John Muir

Title: John Muir: To the Heart of Solitude
Author: LOMIG

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is a Biography told in Graphic Novel format.

This book uses beautiful art work to tell part of the life story of John Muir.

I picked this book up this past June in a little independent bookstore that still used dial up internet. It was the perfect find for me. I like finding unique treasures that were never on my radar.

From this book I learned that Muir lost his eye sight for a while in a machinery accident. I never knew that before. I highly enjoyed this book. I give the art work 5 ⭐️’s it is gorgeous.

[alexia_fse FESTE · Rating 4 out of 5]

on suit l’histoire de john muir qui est devenu aveugle pendant un temps suite à un accident de travail

lorsqu’il retrouve la vue il part voyager car il ne veut plus vivre à travers le travail et aime tellement la nature qu’il veut encore plus la découvrir

il va parcourir plus de 1500km aux USA

la BD est super! j’ai beaucoup apprécié ma lecture, on avait envie de savoir où il allait, quand il allait arriver là où il voulait, etc.
je mets pas 5 car j’avoue les dessins étaient tellement magnifiques genre wtf ?? mais du coup l’histoire était presque poussée au second plan

mais vraiment si vous voulez vous regaler visuellement foncez

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A moving graphic novel tribute to the integral years in which John Muir traveled around the country after a life-altering accident almost completely took his eyesight from him around the age of thirty. After time convalescing, he traveled around the country to specific areas like the mountains and swamplands meeting people, sleeping in cemeteries, going hungry but being fed by the natural beauty of the world.

The muted brown with white are the sole colors of the graphic novel biography and it works so well to focus on his moving thoughts on the wonderment of nature.

[Annette · Rating 5 out of 5]

“John Muir: To the Heart of Solitude is a 2025 graphic novel biography by French artist Lomig, published by NBM Comics Biographies. The book explores the life of the pioneering environmentalist John Muir, focusing on the pivotal moments that shaped his character and led him to become a champion for wilderness preservation. It details his early life-changing trek from Indiana to Florida and his later journey through the Sierra Nevada, which inspired him to found the Sierra Club and advocate for national parks.”

[Mary K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not much of a graphic novel enthusiast, but couldn’t pass this one up. The story of one of America’s greatest naturalists, as told through Lomig’s beautiful and exquisitely-detailed illustrations, was a wonderful way to become more deeply acquainted with the man, his life, and his legacy. The additional biographical section in the appendix was much appreciated, helping to fill in more details about his life, as well as photographs and Muir’s sketches! What a treasure this book is, and has led me to add a few more titles to my Want to Read list.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

These sepia toned illustrations are beautiful. And the story of John Muir's first trek down the eastern seaboard into Florida and Cuba was fascinating. The short biography of Muir's life in the back of the book makes me want to read more about his life and that of his wife. She must have been a remarkable woman to encourage him to continue his wandering.

There is so much detail in the drawings. I'd like to know more about the author, but couldn't find anything other than that he is self-taught and lives in Rennes, France.

[Heather Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This graphic memoir was a bit unlike some of the other graphic memoirs I've read, as it focused solely on Muir's journey into what we know and love him for today. His impact on environmental issues in the formation of the Sierra Club, as well as his voracious appetite for knowledge about the flora and fauna of the United States is unparalleled. This memoir is expansive and paints a picture of Muir's adventures and hardships.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

"And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul"--John Muir

John Muir was one of the greatest naturalists, a self-made adventurer, inventor, and lover of the wild, the founder of the Sierra Club, and a chronicler of his walks in the great outdoors.

Lomig's loving portrait replicates Muir's love of nature in his fine, delicate drawings of many places Muir's path took him.

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The art in this story of Muir is beautiful. The detailed pencil sketches seem perfect for his story and I enjoy the graphic way of bringing a personality to life. This is nice intro to Muir, though it leaves major aspects of his life out. It covers the first part of his life and awakening as an early environmentalist.

[Meagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This graphic novel is a beautiful nod to Muir's writing. It was a truly glorious jaunt into nature through a book, and one I look forward to picking it up again to live in the reminder of how magnanimous nature truly is some day.

[Kristina Variano · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel inspired to change my life to a more natural surrounding after reading his book. It was a great to see his emotions through this book. I thank the author for this powerful introduction into his life and passions.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of life.