Edifice: A Graphic Novel

by Andrzej Klimowski

Genres: Graphic Novels

296 pages, Hardcover

Published January 21, 2025

About the author

Andrzej Klimowski, who was born to Polish parents in London, retains strong links with Poland, where he lived and worked for some years. During his career he has made films and written graphic novels. He has designed theatre posters and book covers for leading publishers. He was head of Illustration at the Royal College of Art for many years, and is now Professor Emeritus. He continues to produce graphic novels with his wife Danusia Schejbal, and works in graphics and produces illustrations. He also makes films. His work has been the subject of a retrospective at the National Theatre, London.

Reviews

[Jonathan Hawpe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrzej Klimowski's Edifice exists among that rarified strata of the surreal that includes David Lynch films, Leonora Carrington paintings, and Haruki Murakami novels. It enlists you in its mystery, seduces you with symbolism, collapses your rationality with dream-logic. It is somehow both enlightening and confusing, arousing and disturbing, a dark nightmare of the soul and a warm comedy of human confusion.

[Rick Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in an imposing apartment building on the wintery days leading up to Christmas Day, Edifice crafts a hazy, hallucinogenic series of inter-connected vignettes that showcases the disturbing expressionistic vision of Polish cartoonist Andrzej Klimowski. Opening to a man seemingly returning from a trip to his apartment, he sets upon his mantle a sphynx statue he had in one of his suitcases. Sitting a while to admire the statue, the man observes it rapidly morphing into the shape of a naked woman. Switching perspectives to the woman now, she observes the resting man morph into an obelisk structure that serves as the centerpiece for the series of dream logic tales to follow. The sphynx-woman then wanders the labyrinthine hallways of the edifice with more transformations to occur, all rendered in Klimowski's garish art style.

Edifice doesn't really construct a narrative more so than it just induces atmospheric tension with respect to the various denizens of the building experiencing harrowing hallucinogen dream logic visions. The murkiness of the mundane-turned-surreal visage works well in contrast to the staggering backdrop of the Brutalist edifice, one that feels decidedly unearthly. The film Nosferatu plays in one sequence, but the dark clouds and a caped figure also stalks the surroundings of the building, questioning the concept of reality completely. It's a fascinating exploration of the subconscious, with Klimowski couching in several challenging ideas about the dormant psyche of mankind in rather subtle fashion.

The artwork is the driving force here since much of Edifice is wordless. Klimowski's style is roughly hewn, with scratchy lines used to cultivate intriguing lighting effects. The lines are bold when needed, particularly in the design of the edifice itself as well as it's interior claustrophobic hallways that captured the "trapped" sensation well. The backdrops of individual panels tend towards being more sparse and minimalistic, inducing a feeling of being in an asylum. The eerie sensation doesn't pass for the entirety of the book, allowing the reader to fully commiserate with the plethora of nightmarish visions depicted by Klimowski.

[Sam Portelance · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rather oblique piece of expressionism, I still only have a hazy understanding of its logic after a couple of readings.
The narrative isn't nonsensical but it cuts before moments of consequence rather than immediately afterwards in a frustrating way.
It's fixated on gender in a way that made me wary at first, but does allow for fun symbolism and an interesting blending of archetypes and characters. A couple becomes a mother and son pair, then a piano teacher and his old student. They're all shown as different characters, but juxtaposed in such a way as to highlight their similarities
The opening scene serves as both a codex of recognizable symbols to read the rest of the book with and an complicated jumping off point for the book's overall message
On the whole, I'm mixed on the symbol heavy 'plot' but the gorgeous, detailed, and expressive drawing always draws me back in for further study. Not my usual cup of tea but I find myself enjoying it more the more time I spend with it.

[Magnus Bergström · Rating 3 out of 5]

Complex, but the ending hinted in a specific direction so I will absolutely return to it at some point!

[Leah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm just very confused and felt nothing after reading this.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

As soon as I started this I knew it was exactly my speed of story. Bats , hair clouds, women with pointy hair, moths and Nosferatu

[Kelsea Klassen · Rating 3 out of 5]

such a weird Ray Bradbury style world