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Les Cités obscures #10-11
La Théorie du grain de sable
Brüsel, 21 juillet 784. Constant Abeels compte les pierres qui s'accumulent mystérieusement dans chaque pièce de son habitation. Chacune pèse la même chose : 6.793 grammes. Au même moment, dans un immeuble voisin, une mère de famille constate que du sable s'amoncelle chez elle... Ce grand format rassemble les deux volumes avec en plus des textes, documents et illustrations sur la maison Autrique.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
May 11, 2016
A corpulent restaurateur, Maurice, finds to his surprise that he is losing weight. Not getting slimmer, mind you – just getting lighter. So much so that soon he needs to wear lead-lined shoes to stop himself floating away…and friends can take him for a walk around town on a string, like a balloon…
Meanwhile, nearby, a mild-mannered florist finds a series of stones appearing in his apartment. They come from nowhere, and each weighs exactly 6,793 grams (a prime number).
What links these, and other strange circumstances overtaking the city of Brüsel? On the case is Mary von Rathen, the hero of L'Enfant Penchée, now grown up, healthily perpendicular, and working as a freelance ‘collector of unexplained phenomena’. Readers seeking further information about the links between the Obscure world and our own will be interested to note the presence in Brüsel of the Maison Autrique, one of Victor Horta's art-nouveau masterpieces, which at some point here will end up transposed to Brussels….
Schuiten's trichrome artwork (black-white-tan) is as involving and as formally creative as always, and the story, with its air of mystery and its callbacks to earlier instalments, makes a fine end to the series (so far, at least). It seems pretty clear that Les Cités obscures is one of the great achievements of comics as a medium, doing things that couldn't be done in other formats, and if there were any justice Schuiten and Peeters would be as well known as Alan Moore or Frank Miller. The few English translations now trickling out should increase their audience; meanwhile, I am now facing the prospect of beginning a fruitless search for anything else that can come close to their particular blend of beauty, depth and dreamy, Belgian weirdness.
Meanwhile, nearby, a mild-mannered florist finds a series of stones appearing in his apartment. They come from nowhere, and each weighs exactly 6,793 grams (a prime number).
What links these, and other strange circumstances overtaking the city of Brüsel? On the case is Mary von Rathen, the hero of L'Enfant Penchée, now grown up, healthily perpendicular, and working as a freelance ‘collector of unexplained phenomena’. Readers seeking further information about the links between the Obscure world and our own will be interested to note the presence in Brüsel of the Maison Autrique, one of Victor Horta's art-nouveau masterpieces, which at some point here will end up transposed to Brussels….
Schuiten's trichrome artwork (black-white-tan) is as involving and as formally creative as always, and the story, with its air of mystery and its callbacks to earlier instalments, makes a fine end to the series (so far, at least). It seems pretty clear that Les Cités obscures is one of the great achievements of comics as a medium, doing things that couldn't be done in other formats, and if there were any justice Schuiten and Peeters would be as well known as Alan Moore or Frank Miller. The few English translations now trickling out should increase their audience; meanwhile, I am now facing the prospect of beginning a fruitless search for anything else that can come close to their particular blend of beauty, depth and dreamy, Belgian weirdness.
February 7, 2017
This book is an art object from of considerable beauty, a work of fantasy from the eighties, part of by two long term Belgian collaborators, Schuiten and Peeters taking place in Brusel, a parallel world Brussels, set on a counter-Earth, featuring Mary, “the leaning girl, “ from a previous “Obscure Cities” fantasy story series the authors developed. Mary is investigating strange occurrences in the context of “a theory of the grain of sand, the tiny element that can change everything.” One woman finds sand everywhere in her apartment. Another, who helps her dump some of the sand, finds rocks accumulating in his apartment; another guy, a baker, is losing weight no matter what he eats, and we see him floating rather than walking in his restaurant. Eventually he has to attach weights to his feet so he won’t float away. Jung speaks of synchronicity; Mary tries to find the links, causal if possible, between these strange events. We get to know these characters, and an “exotic” stranger who comes to town peddling art objects.
The key to the mystery seems to be a “nawaby,” an elaborate art object brought to Brusel by said stranger. Prime numbers also seem to be involved, somehow. We travel to Pâhry and the “exotic” city of Boulachistan, the land of the Bugtis and the Moktars. The nawaby must be returned to the Moktar Fortress where it belongs, to set things right in both countries.
The story here is solid fantasy, but the artwork is the center piece in this work, really wonderful. The house that becomes the focus of the Brusel tale is based on The Autrique House in Brussels that Schuiten and Peeters actually bought and restored. The impressive artwork focuses on architecture throughout. A classic comics series restored and translated, thanks to IDW Press.
The key to the mystery seems to be a “nawaby,” an elaborate art object brought to Brusel by said stranger. Prime numbers also seem to be involved, somehow. We travel to Pâhry and the “exotic” city of Boulachistan, the land of the Bugtis and the Moktars. The nawaby must be returned to the Moktar Fortress where it belongs, to set things right in both countries.
The story here is solid fantasy, but the artwork is the center piece in this work, really wonderful. The house that becomes the focus of the Brusel tale is based on The Autrique House in Brussels that Schuiten and Peeters actually bought and restored. The impressive artwork focuses on architecture throughout. A classic comics series restored and translated, thanks to IDW Press.
April 3, 2025
تصویر گری این دوجلد حرف نداره. شخصیتهای اصلی با دقت و مهارت تصویر شدن که قابل پیشبینی بود ولی جزییات پس زمینه بی اندازه زیاد و قوام دهنده داستان.
مشکل اما همین داستانه.
عناصر متافوریک داستان پیترز به جای رمزآمیز بودن گُنگ هستن و پلات داستان به ایده اصلی اجازه پرداخت شدن نداده.
نه خبری از عنصر آشوبگر -مثل جلد دوم و مکعب- وجود داره و نه حوادث داستان به طور پله پله منجر به وقع حادثه بعدی میشن.
مشکل اما همین داستانه.
عناصر متافوریک داستان پیترز به جای رمزآمیز بودن گُنگ هستن و پلات داستان به ایده اصلی اجازه پرداخت شدن نداده.
نه خبری از عنصر آشوبگر -مثل جلد دوم و مکعب- وجود داره و نه حوادث داستان به طور پله پله منجر به وقع حادثه بعدی میشن.
March 12, 2023
The only other of Peeters and Schuiten's Obscure Cities I've read is the reissued Walls of Samaris, their first sustained narrative back in 1983. This, the most recently completed, originally in 2006, maintains the special sense of oblique mysterious narrative and architectural invention of the early work (as well, their short pieces for Heavy Metal in the earlier 80s) while operating with vastly greater subtlety -- the interceding years offered much space for refinement. The artwork here is exacting and graceful, even as it captures the unexplainable, the characters as precisely drawn in line as in dialogue (and based on real people for an even greater fidelity -- filmmaker and Akerman-collaborator Eric de Kuyper is cast here charmingly alongside a returning lead from another of the cities) and the story gives and withholds in a nice balance. Much is left open, but enough it given to work with even as it is pointed out as unimportant (themes around over-focusing on symptoms over roots) and the whole manages to be gripping in a "weird stories" mode without succumbing to genre. It's more conceptual concerned with the terrors of the numerical realm (exponential growth) and legacies of colonialism in the Western art world.
September 8, 2018
The Theory of the Grain of Sand (2016; originally published in 2007-2008 in France) is the 13th entry in Franco-Belgian collaborators Schuiten and Peeters's series of graphic novels, Les Cités obscures. It is the first I've read, so there is much that is still, appropriately, obscure to me. Even so, this book impressed me as a thoughtful, subtle, charming narrative, with stunning art in a mode that may be unfamiliar to newer American comics readers used to the more cartoonish style favored by "literary" graphic novelists like Ware, Satrapi, Clowes, Bechdel, or Drnaso.
As the Calvino-esque title of the series implies, The Obscure Cities offers a kind of catalogue of distinct and quasi-fantastical urban spaces that are nonetheless refractions of this-worldly realities. As Wikipedia summarizes, "In this fictional world, humans live in independent city-states, each of which has developed a distinct civilization, each characterized by a distinctive architectural style."
The architectural emphasis suits artist François Schuiten's graphic approach: a style of remarkable grace and precision, not only in building design and backgrounds, but even in figure drawing, a beautifully rendered ink-swept romantic realism so evocative of the old cities that the march of universally leveling commerce are removing from the world. On this theme, Wikipedia elaborates: "An important motif is the process of what [Schuiten] calls Bruxellisation, the destruction of this historic Brussels in favor of anonymous, low-quality modernist office and business buildings." Lovers of the urban romanticism, whether in its utopian or dystopian guises, that characterizes certain older European literature from Balzac and Baudelaire to Woolf and Benjamin will admire this book.
The Theory of the Grain of Sand tells the story of Brüsel, a fantastical city much like Brussels, that undergoes an escalating series of strange events: rocks, each weighing exactly the same, begin appearing in an old man's apartment; a single mother's apartment is slowly filling with sand; a chef weighs less and less each day until he levitates into the air.
These odd happenings coincide with the appearance in the city of a warrior from the Bugti, a desert people, who attempts to sell a religious artifact captured from the chief of his tribe's rivals, the Moktar. His prospective buyer is a woman who lives in the Horta House, an Art Nouveau marvel, and she too is drawn, this time by guilt rather than happenstance, into the mysterious plot.
Mary von Rathen, apparently a recurring character in the series, comes to the city to investigate. With the help of the afflicted citizens (and the man who runs the Gallery of Distant Worlds), she helps to solve the mystery while warning that not everything can be explained. The conclusion involves a journey out of Brüsel and into the desert, there to replace the Moktars' plundered artifact and end the chaos.
While the above summary makes the book sound a mystery or adventure, even a colonial adventure, the pace is leisured, like a stroll through a walkable urban core of Old Europe, and the tone, characterized mostly by gentle and precise dialogue, is droll, even when the city is literally being crushed under the weight of sand and stone.
Thematically, Schuiten and Peeters implicitly criticize imperial blowback for destroying the irreplaceable aesthetic of the European city: the wars fought between Bugti and Moktar in the desert are revealed to have been escalated and goaded by arms trading from Brüsel, so that the metropole's own partial destruction via magic from the periphery is logical and even just.
Moreover, the book's writer, Benoît Peeters, is also the biographer of deconstructionist philosopher Jacques Derrida, so we can expect that a point is also being made about the permeability of all boundaries. The damage wrought in the city by sand and stone even inspires a spirit of collectivity and produces some changes in the citizens' lives that are not all bad. Inside and outside interpenetrate, like speech and writing, like self and other.
But Peeters leaves behind his deconstructionist commitment to inherent alterity when his narrative sets out from his fanciful Europe for the frontier. At the graphic novel's denouement, the replacement of the Moktar's stolen artifact in the center of a desert citadel restores peace. Not all centers are as arbitrary as Derrida famously suggested, apparently. In a more cynical mood, we might accuse Peeters of upholding a typical patronizing postcolonial penitence that is not so different from the colonialism it purports to supplant: deconstruction for me, stasis for you. An enliveningly dangerous supplement for the citizen is the immobile totality of the natural order for the native.
Let's saunter over the quaint cobbles to a happier subject, then: Schuiten's extraordinary artwork, which I have already mentioned. It is very different from what we see these days in the most acclaimed graphic novels. Literary aspiration or even just the aspiration toward a mainstream audience in the Anglophone graphic novel has come to be associated with a cartoonish style relying heavily on abstraction and, often, cuteness.
We can trace this fact to a number of influences: the roots of the non-superhero American comics tradition in the great comic strips like Krazy Kat, Pogo, and Peanuts; the increasing importance of manga, a national aesthetic often reduced in loving stereotype to a cutesy style; the hyper-canonization, especially by those outside the superhero tradition, of Jack Kirby as almost the only artist in that mode worth discussing; the belief, derived from Scott McCloud's theories, that an iconic style of facial and figure drawing enables reader identification; and the desire to appeal both to non-comics-reading audiences who are familiar with cartoons and to critics who have absorbed the art world's century-long loathing of mimesis.
A style aiming at precision, a gift for realism, however heightened or stylized, becomes associated merely with the superhero slums. The idolators of Kirby barely ever even mention Wally Wood or John Buscema or Neal Adams; the stylistic effect of sad economic necessity, the need to churn out pages in a hurry, is unjustly elevated to the dignity of an aesthetic principle; and work that looks like it was produced by Charles Schulz on quaaludes is up for literary prizes in England.
Another factor at work in the demotion of styles like Schuiten's is the belief that detailed art slows the reader down. But what is wrong with that? Comics is not cinema or animation, not meant to be read like a flipbook. The whole advantage of comics over cinema is that it provides a visual narrative whose pace is controlled by each audience member rather than passing at a fixed rate. Artists or even writers who make us linger by favoring the high style are not betraying the medium but exploiting one of its greatest potentials. My point is not that only work like Schuiten's should be celebrated, but that such work deserves higher esteem in general than it usually ever receives from serious critics. Even in crude economic terms, you might think that a fast-paced style would sell better, but, as I see it, artists who give us more to look at are offering better value for our money.
In The Theory of the Grain of Sand, Schuiten creates a city and citizens so detailed and solid I felt like an authentic flâneur, and Peeters's script gave me much to think about as I meandered over the stone flags. The book's titular theory, by the way, holds that one grain of sand, one tiny detail, added or subtracted, is enough to change everything: a daring proposition for a book so rich with details as to resemble the vast and rolling desert where it comes to its climax.
As the Calvino-esque title of the series implies, The Obscure Cities offers a kind of catalogue of distinct and quasi-fantastical urban spaces that are nonetheless refractions of this-worldly realities. As Wikipedia summarizes, "In this fictional world, humans live in independent city-states, each of which has developed a distinct civilization, each characterized by a distinctive architectural style."
The architectural emphasis suits artist François Schuiten's graphic approach: a style of remarkable grace and precision, not only in building design and backgrounds, but even in figure drawing, a beautifully rendered ink-swept romantic realism so evocative of the old cities that the march of universally leveling commerce are removing from the world. On this theme, Wikipedia elaborates: "An important motif is the process of what [Schuiten] calls Bruxellisation, the destruction of this historic Brussels in favor of anonymous, low-quality modernist office and business buildings." Lovers of the urban romanticism, whether in its utopian or dystopian guises, that characterizes certain older European literature from Balzac and Baudelaire to Woolf and Benjamin will admire this book.
The Theory of the Grain of Sand tells the story of Brüsel, a fantastical city much like Brussels, that undergoes an escalating series of strange events: rocks, each weighing exactly the same, begin appearing in an old man's apartment; a single mother's apartment is slowly filling with sand; a chef weighs less and less each day until he levitates into the air.
These odd happenings coincide with the appearance in the city of a warrior from the Bugti, a desert people, who attempts to sell a religious artifact captured from the chief of his tribe's rivals, the Moktar. His prospective buyer is a woman who lives in the Horta House, an Art Nouveau marvel, and she too is drawn, this time by guilt rather than happenstance, into the mysterious plot.
Mary von Rathen, apparently a recurring character in the series, comes to the city to investigate. With the help of the afflicted citizens (and the man who runs the Gallery of Distant Worlds), she helps to solve the mystery while warning that not everything can be explained. The conclusion involves a journey out of Brüsel and into the desert, there to replace the Moktars' plundered artifact and end the chaos.
While the above summary makes the book sound a mystery or adventure, even a colonial adventure, the pace is leisured, like a stroll through a walkable urban core of Old Europe, and the tone, characterized mostly by gentle and precise dialogue, is droll, even when the city is literally being crushed under the weight of sand and stone.
Thematically, Schuiten and Peeters implicitly criticize imperial blowback for destroying the irreplaceable aesthetic of the European city: the wars fought between Bugti and Moktar in the desert are revealed to have been escalated and goaded by arms trading from Brüsel, so that the metropole's own partial destruction via magic from the periphery is logical and even just.
Moreover, the book's writer, Benoît Peeters, is also the biographer of deconstructionist philosopher Jacques Derrida, so we can expect that a point is also being made about the permeability of all boundaries. The damage wrought in the city by sand and stone even inspires a spirit of collectivity and produces some changes in the citizens' lives that are not all bad. Inside and outside interpenetrate, like speech and writing, like self and other.
But Peeters leaves behind his deconstructionist commitment to inherent alterity when his narrative sets out from his fanciful Europe for the frontier. At the graphic novel's denouement, the replacement of the Moktar's stolen artifact in the center of a desert citadel restores peace. Not all centers are as arbitrary as Derrida famously suggested, apparently. In a more cynical mood, we might accuse Peeters of upholding a typical patronizing postcolonial penitence that is not so different from the colonialism it purports to supplant: deconstruction for me, stasis for you. An enliveningly dangerous supplement for the citizen is the immobile totality of the natural order for the native.
Let's saunter over the quaint cobbles to a happier subject, then: Schuiten's extraordinary artwork, which I have already mentioned. It is very different from what we see these days in the most acclaimed graphic novels. Literary aspiration or even just the aspiration toward a mainstream audience in the Anglophone graphic novel has come to be associated with a cartoonish style relying heavily on abstraction and, often, cuteness.
We can trace this fact to a number of influences: the roots of the non-superhero American comics tradition in the great comic strips like Krazy Kat, Pogo, and Peanuts; the increasing importance of manga, a national aesthetic often reduced in loving stereotype to a cutesy style; the hyper-canonization, especially by those outside the superhero tradition, of Jack Kirby as almost the only artist in that mode worth discussing; the belief, derived from Scott McCloud's theories, that an iconic style of facial and figure drawing enables reader identification; and the desire to appeal both to non-comics-reading audiences who are familiar with cartoons and to critics who have absorbed the art world's century-long loathing of mimesis.
A style aiming at precision, a gift for realism, however heightened or stylized, becomes associated merely with the superhero slums. The idolators of Kirby barely ever even mention Wally Wood or John Buscema or Neal Adams; the stylistic effect of sad economic necessity, the need to churn out pages in a hurry, is unjustly elevated to the dignity of an aesthetic principle; and work that looks like it was produced by Charles Schulz on quaaludes is up for literary prizes in England.
Another factor at work in the demotion of styles like Schuiten's is the belief that detailed art slows the reader down. But what is wrong with that? Comics is not cinema or animation, not meant to be read like a flipbook. The whole advantage of comics over cinema is that it provides a visual narrative whose pace is controlled by each audience member rather than passing at a fixed rate. Artists or even writers who make us linger by favoring the high style are not betraying the medium but exploiting one of its greatest potentials. My point is not that only work like Schuiten's should be celebrated, but that such work deserves higher esteem in general than it usually ever receives from serious critics. Even in crude economic terms, you might think that a fast-paced style would sell better, but, as I see it, artists who give us more to look at are offering better value for our money.
In The Theory of the Grain of Sand, Schuiten creates a city and citizens so detailed and solid I felt like an authentic flâneur, and Peeters's script gave me much to think about as I meandered over the stone flags. The book's titular theory, by the way, holds that one grain of sand, one tiny detail, added or subtracted, is enough to change everything: a daring proposition for a book so rich with details as to resemble the vast and rolling desert where it comes to its climax.
April 3, 2025
mysterious, exotic, and radiant. i liked especially the beige-grey-white color scheme that allowed me to see the enchanted ‘light,’ which only a very few characters could perceive.
February 5, 2017
I had been reading about Lord Elgin's theft of the Parthenon Marbles directly before reading this and I think that that true-life tale of cultural and imperial expropriation affected my understanding of this title to some degree. I know this book is about more than that, for example the theme of the effects of war being visited on us at home is very strong; the idea of the sand and stone being representative of our forays into "exotic" lands to steal minerals struck me hard. But I keep returning to the Nawaby, the jewel at the heart of this story, as a symbol of the disastrous impact of imperialist conquest; this made all the more complex given the circumstances in which the jewel was handed over in the story.
Of course a more direct reading is also possible, and is probably more philosophically accurate - that we are all of us only grains of sand on the winds of time and that the great edifices that we build and the power that we seek out for ourselves will all crumble away into nothing eventually. I find that an uplifting thought as I contemplate the continuing victories of the sorts of people who seem bent on causing the maximum pain for the largest amount of people.
Of course a more direct reading is also possible, and is probably more philosophically accurate - that we are all of us only grains of sand on the winds of time and that the great edifices that we build and the power that we seek out for ourselves will all crumble away into nothing eventually. I find that an uplifting thought as I contemplate the continuing victories of the sorts of people who seem bent on causing the maximum pain for the largest amount of people.
January 11, 2025
"La teoría del grano de arena" de Schuiten y Peeters es una entrega fascinante de la serie Las Ciudades Oscuras que explora temas de sincronicidad, equilibrio y los misterios de lo inexplicable. La trama se desarrolla en Brüsel, una versión paralela de Bruselas, donde una serie de eventos aparentemente inconexos comienzan a alterar la vida de sus habitantes. Un restaurador que pierde peso inexplicablemente hasta empezar a flotar, arena y rocas que aparecen de la nada en apartamentos, y otros fenómenos extraños llevan a Mary Von Rathen, una investigadora de lo paranormal, a buscar las conexiones entre estos sucesos.
El álbum destaca por su reflexión sobre la permeabilidad de las fronteras entre lo racional y lo inexplicable, así como por su crítica implícita a las consecuencias del imperialismo y la intervención extranjera. Visualmente, Schuiten despliega su maestría habitual, creando imágenes detalladas de arquitecturas imposibles y escenas urbanas que complementan perfectamente la narrativa surrealista de Peeters. La obra invita a los lectores a considerar la interconexión de eventos aparentemente aleatorios y a cuestionar la necesidad de explicaciones puramente racionales para todo lo que ocurre en el mundo. Como es característico en la serie, "La teoría del grano de arena" combina elementos de fantasía, crítica social y reflexión filosófica, consolidándose como una adición valiosa al universo de Las Ciudades Oscuras.
El álbum destaca por su reflexión sobre la permeabilidad de las fronteras entre lo racional y lo inexplicable, así como por su crítica implícita a las consecuencias del imperialismo y la intervención extranjera. Visualmente, Schuiten despliega su maestría habitual, creando imágenes detalladas de arquitecturas imposibles y escenas urbanas que complementan perfectamente la narrativa surrealista de Peeters. La obra invita a los lectores a considerar la interconexión de eventos aparentemente aleatorios y a cuestionar la necesidad de explicaciones puramente racionales para todo lo que ocurre en el mundo. Como es característico en la serie, "La teoría del grano de arena" combina elementos de fantasía, crítica social y reflexión filosófica, consolidándose como una adición valiosa al universo de Las Ciudades Oscuras.
March 4, 2019
Поки це найкращий альбом у серії, що спонукає до багатьох роздумів. Насамперед, історія дуже чітко та ясно прочитується. У Брюзелі починають відбуватись дивні речі: в одній квартирі поступово з'являється/тече пісок нізвідки, а в сусідній квартирі месьє Абельса так само з'являються камені однакової ваги. Також власник ресторану раптом починає втрачати вагу. Він не те, що худне, а швидше стає прозорим, легким, тому в якийсь момент часу чіпляє на себе залізні важелі, щоб раптом не полетіти геть. Увесь цей магічний антураж крутиться навколо вже відомої Марі фон Ратер, яку ми зустріли в "Дівчині, що падає". Тепер вона вже не маленька дівчинка, що блукала між складними геометричними конструкціями, а зважена, поміркована жінка, що спокійно дає поради чиновникам. Саме вона намагається віднайти ключову причину усіх цих загадкових подій, які можуть погубити ціле місто й навіть цивілізацію.
Початок нагадує кращі зразки магічного реалізму, зокрема прозу Кортасара, Маркеса й навіть Сарамаго, трохи віддаленого від латинських авторів. Однак сама графічна історія значно глибша, цікавіша, аніж заявлені умовні рамки жанрової стилістики. Це блискуча історія про взаємозв'язок подій, а ще краще - структуру світу, його тонку й невидиму механіку. Метафора (хоча для жителів Брюзеля це цілком загрозлива реальність) піщинки відсилає до Аристотеля, який у своїх логічних роздумах намагався завдяки їй осягнути природу універсуму. Завдяки піщинкам інші філософи намагались осягнути "ціле", що також уособлює буття, його нерозривність. Тому втрата одного елементу неминуче тягне за собою втрату іншого, що, зрештою, відображується у катаклізмах сусіднього королівства.
Попри ерозію, розпад буття, автори працюють зі строгими принципами архітектури, немов протиставляючи раціональність та організованість жителів Брюзеля усьому тому хаосу, що відбувається навколо. Світ Брюзеля дуже близький до нашого, місцями ідентичний (іронічно ще й те, що Скойтен і Петерс займались складною реставрацією одного з будинків Брюсселя, який був відтворений на сторінках коміксу), але все ж відмінний. Різниця не тільки в різних часових відліках, але й своєрідній архітектурній "аурі", створеній на межі неокласицизму, ар нуво та раннього модерну. Все як у Брюсселі. Тим більше дивним видається характер магічних, дивних подій на фоні строгої бюргерської раціональності. Скойтен і Петерс не просто прописують, а вибудовують архітектурний вигляд міста: балкони, вікна, вулички, тераси, ліхтарі, інтер'єри, меблі, картини виписані деталізовано й скурпульозно. Відчуття повної присутності, хоча все це створено лише олівцем, пером, без жодних спецефектів. Проте архітектура, якою б вона досконалою не була, не може подолати більш фундаментальні процеси. Марі фон Ратер навіть пропонує побудувати стіну, але цього замало - піску все прибуває і прибуває. Читачі здогадаються у чому причина відразу ж, хоча кінцеве розв'язання усієї проблеми виглядатиме просто чудесним.
Нарешті, стиль усього графічного роману просто ідеальний. Читав російське видання, адже знав, як скурпульозно видавництво Zangavar (чи не єдине, яке мене цікавить на сусідньому ринку) підійшло до формату коміксу. Вперше зустрічаю такі цупкі, темнувати сторінки, на тлі яких добре вимальовується пісок, сіль і усе, що білизною вирізняється від сірого, чорного й коричневого. Як і Моріс, що літає над дахами будинків міста. Зрештою, як і вирізняється будинок Віктора Орта, в якому відбуваються усі події. Просвічування "білого", звісно ж, ще одна фішка авторів, яка на естетичному рівно просто вражає, гіпнотизує від першої сторінок до останньої. Це той випадок, коли матеріал має значення, деталі мають значення, усе має значення для роботи фантазії та розуму. Роздуми про час, універсум, порядок, людську необачність, архітектуру, міста - лише частина того щастя, яке може дати цей графічний текст. Це абсолютна, дивовижна класика для поціновувачів жанру, а ще більше - для вибагливих естетів, для яких "Теорія піщинки" спокійно займе чільне місце в бібліотеці мальованих історій.
Початок нагадує кращі зразки магічного реалізму, зокрема прозу Кортасара, Маркеса й навіть Сарамаго, трохи віддаленого від латинських авторів. Однак сама графічна історія значно глибша, цікавіша, аніж заявлені умовні рамки жанрової стилістики. Це блискуча історія про взаємозв'язок подій, а ще краще - структуру світу, його тонку й невидиму механіку. Метафора (хоча для жителів Брюзеля це цілком загрозлива реальність) піщинки відсилає до Аристотеля, який у своїх логічних роздумах намагався завдяки їй осягнути природу універсуму. Завдяки піщинкам інші філософи намагались осягнути "ціле", що також уособлює буття, його нерозривність. Тому втрата одного елементу неминуче тягне за собою втрату іншого, що, зрештою, відображується у катаклізмах сусіднього королівства.
Попри ерозію, розпад буття, автори працюють зі строгими принципами архітектури, немов протиставляючи раціональність та організованість жителів Брюзеля усьому тому хаосу, що відбувається навколо. Світ Брюзеля дуже близький до нашого, місцями ідентичний (іронічно ще й те, що Скойтен і Петерс займались складною реставрацією одного з будинків Брюсселя, який був відтворений на сторінках коміксу), але все ж відмінний. Різниця не тільки в різних часових відліках, але й своєрідній архітектурній "аурі", створеній на межі неокласицизму, ар нуво та раннього модерну. Все як у Брюсселі. Тим більше дивним видається характер магічних, дивних подій на фоні строгої бюргерської раціональності. Скойтен і Петерс не просто прописують, а вибудовують архітектурний вигляд міста: балкони, вікна, вулички, тераси, ліхтарі, інтер'єри, меблі, картини виписані деталізовано й скурпульозно. Відчуття повної присутності, хоча все це створено лише олівцем, пером, без жодних спецефектів. Проте архітектура, якою б вона досконалою не була, не може подолати більш фундаментальні процеси. Марі фон Ратер навіть пропонує побудувати стіну, але цього замало - піску все прибуває і прибуває. Читачі здогадаються у чому причина відразу ж, хоча кінцеве розв'язання усієї проблеми виглядатиме просто чудесним.
Нарешті, стиль усього графічного роману просто ідеальний. Читав російське видання, адже знав, як скурпульозно видавництво Zangavar (чи не єдине, яке мене цікавить на сусідньому ринку) підійшло до формату коміксу. Вперше зустрічаю такі цупкі, темнувати сторінки, на тлі яких добре вимальовується пісок, сіль і усе, що білизною вирізняється від сірого, чорного й коричневого. Як і Моріс, що літає над дахами будинків міста. Зрештою, як і вирізняється будинок Віктора Орта, в якому відбуваються усі події. Просвічування "білого", звісно ж, ще одна фішка авторів, яка на естетичному рівно просто вражає, гіпнотизує від першої сторінок до останньої. Це той випадок, коли матеріал має значення, деталі мають значення, усе має значення для роботи фантазії та розуму. Роздуми про час, універсум, порядок, людську необачність, архітектуру, міста - лише частина того щастя, яке може дати цей графічний текст. Це абсолютна, дивовижна класика для поціновувачів жанру, а ще більше - для вибагливих естетів, для яких "Теорія піщинки" спокійно займе чільне місце в бібліотеці мальованих історій.
December 26, 2017
I liked it to some extent, but less so than other graphic novels in the series.
December 25, 2018
A worthy addition to the fictitious world of Obscure cities.
February 3, 2018
"The Theory of the Grain of Sand" is mentioned, and given that it's the title of the book, it seems important, but what exactly this theory entails is never explained nor even hinted at. It feels like a massive, deceptive red herring.
That's really my only complaint--otherwise this book is outstanding. The way surreal happenings are accepted matter-of-factly to the point where many, while acknowledging that fantastic things are happening, absolutely deny that there is anything fantastical about them, reminds me of Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros. And apart from the red herring I mentioned above, the plot and characterizations feel recursive, so that everything (and everyone) feels important and connected to everything (and everyone) else.
That's really my only complaint--otherwise this book is outstanding. The way surreal happenings are accepted matter-of-factly to the point where many, while acknowledging that fantastic things are happening, absolutely deny that there is anything fantastical about them, reminds me of Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros. And apart from the red herring I mentioned above, the plot and characterizations feel recursive, so that everything (and everyone) feels important and connected to everything (and everyone) else.
March 24, 2021
While the artwork is striking, and boasts excellent background and architectural work, the book itself is a mass of frustration. It meanders through its plot, mistaking being vague for being mysterious. You can tell it wants to be a supernatural Agatha Christie story, but it's so languid and cagey with ANY information that I quickly lost any interest in unraveling the mystery. I also didn't help that the book felt reluctant to even divulge the names of its characters in a timely manner, a problem compounded by two main characters being essentially visually identical.
December 1, 2017
Again returning to the fore, the interlocking anxieties and discordant curiosities of adults -- near and far -- whose survival rests on their affection for getting through life with only the most tolerable compartmentalization of human despair. The Obscure Cities is a delightful series of fantastical graphic fiction that teeters longingly on the edge of the unexpected, chancing an encounter with the supernatural or the unknown before a fear of common fate pulls everything back down to Earth.
In THE THEORY OF THE GRAIN OF SAND, readers encounter a fuller, cleverer thrust of intrigue, for in the City of Brüsel, strange things are happening: stones are appearing out of nowhere, a restaurant owner is drifting into the air, and sand of unknown origin has abruptly manifest in a towering apartment complex. Indeed, who should local officials summon to tackle such odd and seemingly unrelated events but the one and only Mary Von Rathen?
It is difficult to explain the overwhelming but underreported need for comics of European origin of this caliber in the United States. Shuiten and Peeters are masters of their craft, and THE THEORY OF THE GRAIN OF SAND is a textbook on expert visual storytelling. The many different threads of the book's splinter plots bend and weave together with casual and sometimes comical ease, while the overall narrative's trajectory yet twists and turns, itself an animal in the throes of finding its path to freedom.
Elsa Autrique, a selfish peddler of counterfeit wares, loses part of herself whenever a facet of her marvelous home vanishes into nothingness. Constant Abeels, a lonely academic, finds purpose in deciphering the inexplicable. Gholam Mortiza Khan, a warrior and village chief, loses his life doing nothing more than crossing the street. Each of these characters are unrelated but for the singular fact that they are, on their own, tiny grains of sand that set into motion an array of conflicts and commentary on the quality of life humans lead and the consequences they inherit along the way.
THE THEORY OF THE GRAIN OF SAND is beautiful and intricate, and most always unapologetic in its razor-guided criticism of societal ego, of the facile origins of war, and of good old fashioned human greed. These cultural-philosophical observations on commerce, power, and more are fed by Shuiten and Peeters's brilliant and suspenseful use of sparse dialogue. There is a lot of story in this graphic novel, and yet, rarely will one feel as if they are burdened by needing to read too much. There are no chapter breaks, but alas, it is a minor price to pay for such an enveloping story.
The art is perhaps worthy of a book all its own. Demonstrative stippling and clever, if not jaw-dropping gradients quickly and immediately transform a warrior's beard into a cascade of gothic shadow. Extraordinary detail on facial expressions and their relationship to character intuition mark a sense of confidence and familiarity no matter the frequency of their occurrence. Magnificently articulated buildings, day or night, exhale the commotion of a city on the brink, and yet somehow retain their natural, inviting, old-world charm. The art of THE THEORY OF THE GRAIN OF SAND is exquisite.
This is not a graphic novel for everybody, but that's okay. Because, to be frank, not everybody deserves to own a book of this caliber.
In THE THEORY OF THE GRAIN OF SAND, readers encounter a fuller, cleverer thrust of intrigue, for in the City of Brüsel, strange things are happening: stones are appearing out of nowhere, a restaurant owner is drifting into the air, and sand of unknown origin has abruptly manifest in a towering apartment complex. Indeed, who should local officials summon to tackle such odd and seemingly unrelated events but the one and only Mary Von Rathen?
It is difficult to explain the overwhelming but underreported need for comics of European origin of this caliber in the United States. Shuiten and Peeters are masters of their craft, and THE THEORY OF THE GRAIN OF SAND is a textbook on expert visual storytelling. The many different threads of the book's splinter plots bend and weave together with casual and sometimes comical ease, while the overall narrative's trajectory yet twists and turns, itself an animal in the throes of finding its path to freedom.
Elsa Autrique, a selfish peddler of counterfeit wares, loses part of herself whenever a facet of her marvelous home vanishes into nothingness. Constant Abeels, a lonely academic, finds purpose in deciphering the inexplicable. Gholam Mortiza Khan, a warrior and village chief, loses his life doing nothing more than crossing the street. Each of these characters are unrelated but for the singular fact that they are, on their own, tiny grains of sand that set into motion an array of conflicts and commentary on the quality of life humans lead and the consequences they inherit along the way.
THE THEORY OF THE GRAIN OF SAND is beautiful and intricate, and most always unapologetic in its razor-guided criticism of societal ego, of the facile origins of war, and of good old fashioned human greed. These cultural-philosophical observations on commerce, power, and more are fed by Shuiten and Peeters's brilliant and suspenseful use of sparse dialogue. There is a lot of story in this graphic novel, and yet, rarely will one feel as if they are burdened by needing to read too much. There are no chapter breaks, but alas, it is a minor price to pay for such an enveloping story.
The art is perhaps worthy of a book all its own. Demonstrative stippling and clever, if not jaw-dropping gradients quickly and immediately transform a warrior's beard into a cascade of gothic shadow. Extraordinary detail on facial expressions and their relationship to character intuition mark a sense of confidence and familiarity no matter the frequency of their occurrence. Magnificently articulated buildings, day or night, exhale the commotion of a city on the brink, and yet somehow retain their natural, inviting, old-world charm. The art of THE THEORY OF THE GRAIN OF SAND is exquisite.
This is not a graphic novel for everybody, but that's okay. Because, to be frank, not everybody deserves to own a book of this caliber.
May 10, 2020
La teoría del grano de arena vuelve a Brüsel y recupera a algunos de los personajes de anteriores Ciudades Oscuras. Mary Von Rathen se ha convertido en coleccionista de fenómenos sin explicación y llega a la ciudad para desentrañar algunos de los misterios que afectan a varios de sus ciudadanos y ciertas áreas de la ciudad: granos de arena que brotan de la nada, piedras en el camino que aparecen sin cesar, personajes que se elevan, otros que quedan envueltos en brumas y algunos que viven en casas tomadas...
Schuiten y Peeters despliegan todo un catálogo de símbolos al servicio de una historia que se desarrolla a partir de la necesidad de restablecer el equilibrio roto en la ciudad (y en el interior de cada uno). Para ello, los personajes tendrán que aceptar la sincronicidad como un hecho, superar la necesidad de buscar explicaciones racionales a todo lo que sucede, reconocer el papel de lo sombrío y lo brillante en la vida y resistir la tentación de centrarse en el análisis de las consecuencias para trabajar en las raíces profundas de los problemas. Como en tomos anteriores de las Ciudades Oscuras, encontramos trazos de arquitecturas imposibles, personajes arquetípicos, simbología jungiana, psicología analítica y maravillosas ilustraciones. La teoria del grano de arena es el penúltimo volumen de la serie y contiene algunos guiños que permiten entender cómo hacer el tránsito a través del espejo y conectar el mundo de las sombras y las ciudades oscuras con el lado más luminoso de la existencia. Imprescindible una segunda o tercera relectura para captar todos los guiños, conexiones entre personajes y detalles que los autores han ido desgranando a lo largo de este tomo y la serie entera.
Schuiten y Peeters despliegan todo un catálogo de símbolos al servicio de una historia que se desarrolla a partir de la necesidad de restablecer el equilibrio roto en la ciudad (y en el interior de cada uno). Para ello, los personajes tendrán que aceptar la sincronicidad como un hecho, superar la necesidad de buscar explicaciones racionales a todo lo que sucede, reconocer el papel de lo sombrío y lo brillante en la vida y resistir la tentación de centrarse en el análisis de las consecuencias para trabajar en las raíces profundas de los problemas. Como en tomos anteriores de las Ciudades Oscuras, encontramos trazos de arquitecturas imposibles, personajes arquetípicos, simbología jungiana, psicología analítica y maravillosas ilustraciones. La teoria del grano de arena es el penúltimo volumen de la serie y contiene algunos guiños que permiten entender cómo hacer el tránsito a través del espejo y conectar el mundo de las sombras y las ciudades oscuras con el lado más luminoso de la existencia. Imprescindible una segunda o tercera relectura para captar todos los guiños, conexiones entre personajes y detalles que los autores han ido desgranando a lo largo de este tomo y la serie entera.
October 20, 2017
A man comes with a sacred token to a city where it shouldn't be; a train happens, an accident, and at the same time... a series of unpredictable and odd events overtake the same city. A mystery? No, but a tangled relationship to be sure, and an excuse to produce beautiful conceits and marvellous visions. There's a nice little story here sprung from the roots of an architectural project gone rambling. At times, the story rambles too, and its little divagations – the details that make the magic of design – might feel a touch too light, a little underwhelming. In the end, it's the big idea of cultural dispossession that creates world-imbalance that motivates the flight of fancy at the core of this story, but what lingers most is the sense of care and interest in the world of the Leaning Girl even in this late adventure.
July 11, 2019
This graphic novel was recommended to me. As I finished it I had to wonder why. This is a story based in fantastical realism. An artifact is lost and that starts a chain of strange events. Many characters come together to solve the mystery of these strange events.
I wanted to like this story more than I did. The characters were interesting but we never really got beyond surface motivations. Perhaps that is a limitation on my imagination. But the biggest mysteries seemed to be out of reach: Who is Mary "The Leaning Girl"? What did Constant see and do in Boulachistan? Where did Elsa and her house go? Maybe if this story is supposed to spark my imagination to dream up the answers to these questions I guess I never got invested enough in these characters to do that.
I wanted to like this story more than I did. The characters were interesting but we never really got beyond surface motivations. Perhaps that is a limitation on my imagination. But the biggest mysteries seemed to be out of reach: Who is Mary "The Leaning Girl"? What did Constant see and do in Boulachistan? Where did Elsa and her house go? Maybe if this story is supposed to spark my imagination to dream up the answers to these questions I guess I never got invested enough in these characters to do that.
September 5, 2017
I first read the work of François Schuiten many years ago and it blew my mind, but his comics are so hard to come by here in Australia. His artwork is exquisite and it was a treat to read this book with his regular collaborator Benoît Peeters. The plot is fairly simple, but they create a strange and mysterious world that pushes all the right buttons for me, including a real house by Belgian architect Victor Horta.
July 15, 2021
I wanted to explore the city/world more! The story itself has some issues but I can see how they were trying to tie things together. I'm not sure if it needed simplifying or expanding but the story needed something. The art showed expression and movement well! Very detailed illustrations of the settings/locations but several of the characters look very similar and it would have been nice to have more variety of people.
October 9, 2017
Hermosa historia con dibujos increíbles como siempre, la edición es hermosa y enorme y se pueden ver bien los dibujos, me acuerdo todavía de haberlo visto en la comiqueria sin saber que esta serie existía no pude creer los dibujos y no me lo pude sacar de la cabeza hasta que me lo compre, fue todo un acontecimiento, me alegra tener el privilegio de tener este libro en mi biblioteca.
July 16, 2024
I don't know why I thought that I'd read all Schuiten & Peeters. Yet I found this one, the last one I guess, in my local library.
I went with it to the beach and couldn't do anything but devour it. A masterpiece in dialogues, characters, images, drawing perspectives... A story that I definitely need to buy, only to add it to a library that will be destroyed after my death.
I went with it to the beach and couldn't do anything but devour it. A masterpiece in dialogues, characters, images, drawing perspectives... A story that I definitely need to buy, only to add it to a library that will be destroyed after my death.
January 22, 2018
via NYPL - Great illustrations and a peculiar, but compelling metaphysical mystery that drags a bit in places. The Theory of the Grain of Sand isn't essential reading, but it's enjoyable enough and looks great.
April 8, 2018
The artwork by Schuitnen is worthy of 5 stars but the plot dragged a bit with more multidimensional fantasy, rather than Sci-fi. Good solid graphic novel though. The restoration history at the back of the book leads one to discover several designs / designers of the Art Nouveau style.
January 12, 2020
Stumbled upon this one in one of the local comic / graphic novel shops. What an amazing find.
This is another one that appeals to the imagination and sense of wonder. I've since learned there are many others available for The Obscure Cities.
This is another one that appeals to the imagination and sense of wonder. I've since learned there are many others available for The Obscure Cities.
September 3, 2017
het typische ontwerp van de bevreemdende stad, met daarin een zeer intrigerend verhaal gesitueerd.
November 13, 2017
I'm not entirely sure what happened, but it was a fun journey.
January 8, 2019
Utrolig og fascinerende historie. Tegningene er i en klasse for seg.
November 4, 2019
The plot of the book has a very dreamlike quality, which also means the narrative is not straight forward, to say the least. It's a beautiful work, with the art and design the dominating elements.
March 21, 2020
Mystical and intriguing, a story about the clash between Western and ancient knowledge. Perfectly written and majestically drawn! A true artwork!
April 13, 2020
Another fabulous tale in the Obscure Cities series. I think this should be read after The Leaning Girl volume.
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