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Description
The primacy of words over images has deep roots in Western culture. But what if the two are inextricably linked in meaning-making? In this experiment in visual thinking, drawn in comics, Nick Sousanis defies conventional discourse to offer readers a stunning work of graphic art and a serious inquiry into the ways humans construct knowledge.
User reviews
LibraryThing member paradoxosalpha
Unflattening is a book-length comics composition--hardly a "graphic novel," since it is a work of non-fiction. Author/artist Nick Sousanis adapted it from his own academic dissertation. The contents are highly reflexive, and consist for the most part of a discussion of parallax and its value in
Although the book has only eight short chapters, the individual pages are "long." There is an exhibition of parallax in the complementary but non-identical content of the the words and images, a phenomenon explicitly discussed in the course of the book. Part of the "distance" between the verbal and visual contents is the difference in the form of citation. When the text cites a writer (e.g. Buckminster Fuller or George Lakoff), Sousanis mentions the source at the site of the reference. But when the images cite precedent visual sources (e.g. the Mona Lisa or Doctor Who's TARDIS) these are usually just verbally identified in the endnotes, if at all. (There are some exceptions: "after Boticelli," "after Watterson.") One or two pages might be enough for a single sitting, if one "reads" them carefully--attending to the images, reading the words, and reviewing both to see the ways in which they inform one another. The reader should be attentive to the full page as the unit of composition, rather than allowing the gutters between panels to restrict attention. Sousanis emphasizes the value of simultaneity in visual presentation, as opposed to the linear seriality of text.
This volume encodes a lot of valuable concepts, but none of them were really new to me. It expresses an outlook with which I am in sympathy, and it does so in a manner that I think is really admirable.
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perception, epistemology, social change, and even biology. It is an inspirational book that is entirely free of supernaturalism or speculative "woo." Although its first and primary explanatory paradigm is the hypergeometry intimated by Edwin Abbott's Flatland, Sousanis does not insist on a fourth spatial dimension, only further conceptual dimensions beyond those of the reader's conscious orientation. Although the book has only eight short chapters, the individual pages are "long." There is an exhibition of parallax in the complementary but non-identical content of the the words and images, a phenomenon explicitly discussed in the course of the book. Part of the "distance" between the verbal and visual contents is the difference in the form of citation. When the text cites a writer (e.g. Buckminster Fuller or George Lakoff), Sousanis mentions the source at the site of the reference. But when the images cite precedent visual sources (e.g. the Mona Lisa or Doctor Who's TARDIS) these are usually just verbally identified in the endnotes, if at all. (There are some exceptions: "after Boticelli," "after Watterson.") One or two pages might be enough for a single sitting, if one "reads" them carefully--attending to the images, reading the words, and reviewing both to see the ways in which they inform one another. The reader should be attentive to the full page as the unit of composition, rather than allowing the gutters between panels to restrict attention. Sousanis emphasizes the value of simultaneity in visual presentation, as opposed to the linear seriality of text.
This volume encodes a lot of valuable concepts, but none of them were really new to me. It expresses an outlook with which I am in sympathy, and it does so in a manner that I think is really admirable.
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LibraryThing member Stevil2001
At its core, I'm sympathetic to this book. It's about ways of seeing, something I think about a lot, and about how having many ways of seeing is better for us-- to use Sousanis's term, it "unflattens" us, a term he borrows from Flatland, which he refers to a lot. Sousanis communicates his ideas in
Unfortunately, the book doesn't really add up to much. I imagine Sousanis meant to elaborate on this idea throughout the book, but instead it just feels like he repeats it again and again, never going deeply enough to really make it meaningful. There are a lot of metaphors for unflattening, but precious few examples of it in action, and I'm not sure his maps of how his wife varies her commute through New York City to work are really enough. The book seems to be making its case to someone who's never thought about any of these ideas before, but it's hard for me to imagine someone who'd never thought about these ideas before wanting to pick up the book. In essence, it's preaching to the choir. (In that regard, I felt like the book's optimum use might be as a textbook, which is where you can make someone read about a topic they have no fundamental interest in. It covers a lot of useful concepts pretty basically.)
Other times, it belabors or overstates its point, such as when it depicts all of society as trudging drones. Or puppets. Except for those enlightened few of us who read Unflattening, apparently (and modestly).
Sousanis's drawings are pretty good, and some of them are downright striking, but he doesn't always quite nail the grammar of comics: there are some pages where it's hard to figure out where your eyes should go. And his attempts to distill other people's complex ideas into single pages often over-compress; I had to reread the images he used in his synopsis of Flatland a lot before I got them, and I've read that book before!
Like a lot of weak books (because that's what this book it, not terrible, just weak) it reveals what worked well about other books in its failures: Sousanis narrates through nothing but caption boxes, which come across as vehicles for would-be profundity from on high. I definitely prefer Scott McCloud's self-deprecating, personal, on-panel narrator for the effect he creates. Reading McCloud feels like you're chatting with someone fun; Unflattening is being lectured at by someone overly serious.
I was pleased to see both Gene Kannenberg and Charles Hatfield cited/acknowledged, both comics scholars who received their Ph.D.s from my own institution, albeit before my time.
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comic book format, and part of the book advocates for the comic book itself as a means of unflattening, because of its combination of word and image.Unfortunately, the book doesn't really add up to much. I imagine Sousanis meant to elaborate on this idea throughout the book, but instead it just feels like he repeats it again and again, never going deeply enough to really make it meaningful. There are a lot of metaphors for unflattening, but precious few examples of it in action, and I'm not sure his maps of how his wife varies her commute through New York City to work are really enough. The book seems to be making its case to someone who's never thought about any of these ideas before, but it's hard for me to imagine someone who'd never thought about these ideas before wanting to pick up the book. In essence, it's preaching to the choir. (In that regard, I felt like the book's optimum use might be as a textbook, which is where you can make someone read about a topic they have no fundamental interest in. It covers a lot of useful concepts pretty basically.)
Other times, it belabors or overstates its point, such as when it depicts all of society as trudging drones. Or puppets. Except for those enlightened few of us who read Unflattening, apparently (and modestly).
Sousanis's drawings are pretty good, and some of them are downright striking, but he doesn't always quite nail the grammar of comics: there are some pages where it's hard to figure out where your eyes should go. And his attempts to distill other people's complex ideas into single pages often over-compress; I had to reread the images he used in his synopsis of Flatland a lot before I got them, and I've read that book before!
Like a lot of weak books (because that's what this book it, not terrible, just weak) it reveals what worked well about other books in its failures: Sousanis narrates through nothing but caption boxes, which come across as vehicles for would-be profundity from on high. I definitely prefer Scott McCloud's self-deprecating, personal, on-panel narrator for the effect he creates. Reading McCloud feels like you're chatting with someone fun; Unflattening is being lectured at by someone overly serious.
I was pleased to see both Gene Kannenberg and Charles Hatfield cited/acknowledged, both comics scholars who received their Ph.D.s from my own institution, albeit before my time.
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LibraryThing member DarthDeverell
In Unflattening, Nick Sousanis adapts his Ed.D. dissertation, "Unflattening: A Visual-Verbal Inquiry into Learning in Many Dimension," into a full-length graphic novel that explores the privileged place that text has long held in our culture, arguing that text and image must work together as an
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educational tool. Necessarily, any written review will not capture the point of this work, so any oversimplifications are my own. Sousanis writes of the history of comics, "At this juncture, it's time to attend to the intricacies, peel away and delve into the inner workings of this hybrid form (meant to be both read and viewed). First, it's name - ever a prickly topic. The one it came with conceals its potential. [comic books, comics] Hence, a quest for respectability: grander varieties put forth [graphic novel]; more descriptive titles adopted [sequential art]; each highlighting specific features [picture writing, image-text, graphein, commmix]. From different climates [manga], distinct offshoots arose [bandes dessinées, fumetti]. While often seen as a budding form, it's an evolving dialect, in constant cultivation. Its lineage runs deep. Its history our own. A means of grappling with experience before we had names for it. Comics, as I prefer, 'by any other name would small as sweet'" (pg. 60). As to their use, Sousanis writes, "Perhaps in comics, this amphibious language of juxtapositions and fragments - we have such a form" to fulfill Bertrand Russell's longing for a language that expresses "all relations by analogous relations" (pg. 67). In the course of his work, Sousanis draws upon other comics theorists like Scott McCloud, thereby contributing to the growing field of comics studies. Furthermore, Sousanis makes extensive use of Edwin Abbott Abbott's 1884 novella, Flatland: A Romance in Many Dimensions, which used metaphor and satire to open readers' minds to the role of dimensionality in our conception of the world. After summarizing the story, Sousanis extends this metaphor to the role of image and text in how we conceive of ourselves and the world around us, thereby engaging with theories of phenomenology. Sousanis concludes, "The means to rise up and upend our thinking are found in this tumbling of relations. Unflattening, we remind ourselves of what it is to open our eyes to the world for the first time" (pg. 151-152). Unflattening belongs in the libraries of any who study comics theory, cultural history, or phenomenology. Show Less
LibraryThing member livingtech
Every page is a work of art and, as with the best art, often illuminating some idea. It's a bit dense (in a good way!), and as is often the case with me and poetry, I had to read in short bursts so as not to be distracted from the current page by thoughts formed in pages I'd just read. I look
Highly recommended!
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forward to returning to it again and seeing connections and ideas expressed in the imagery that I no doubt missed the first time through.Highly recommended!
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LibraryThing member rivkat
Visuals and text work together in this volume to illustrate Sousanis’ argument that multiple perspectives are necessary for true understanding, and that perspectives do have to be understood in visual as well as textual form. Beautifully drawn, though maybe I’m already so convinced of the
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importance of the visual that I didn’t find myself in need of further persuasion. Show Less
LibraryThing member JonArnold
Essentially a dissertation in (mostly) visual form on the medium of comics. There might not be a great deal for those who’ve read Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics but otherwise it’s a thoughtful piece on the ways visual storytelling works and can illustrate modes of thinking in a superior
Now if only I could’ve thought of a way to write this review as imaginatively as this book…
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way to the ‘straight line’ logic of text. Familiar images and pop culture references pepper the book in ways which serve the point being made rather than dropped in because the author wanted to draw them; to connect them. The tone might be necessarily academic (and therefore didactic) at times because of the piece’s origins but as a thoughtful meditation on the strengths of visual storytelling presented in an imaginative way it’s a great way to stimulate the mind regarding a familiar form.Now if only I could’ve thought of a way to write this review as imaginatively as this book…
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LibraryThing member R3dH00d
This book successfully does through its existence what numerous books have attempted to do through hundreds of pages of writing: explain the unique nature of comic art and the impact it can have on its "reader".
LibraryThing member villemezbrown
As he tries to justify comic books/graphic novels/sequential art as a legitimate art form, Sousanis certainly manages to throw in everything and the kitchen sink: history, science, math, philosophy, pop cultural references, and foot tracings. Tying comic books to the obscure classic "Flatland" is
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simultaneously novel and too on-the-nose. While there are certainly thought provoking passages, it is a bit of a slog. Sousanis tries to keep it interesting by playing with page layouts (reminiscent of Dave Sim's Cerebus dream sequences or the long exposition sections of Alan Moore and J.H. Williams' Prometheus). In the end, all we have here is a more erudite/pretentious version of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. It seems to have been a doctoral thesis and is certainly worthy of garnering a degree. Show Less
LibraryThing member Rex_Lui
Another lazy analog describing that somehow Homo sapiens are unenlightened robots waiting to be free. Scientists have been proving again and again that we are here because of compassion and cooperation. But at least the author concluded the work with a positive vision that learning is the way to be
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more contributive to the society. Show Less
LibraryThing member thisisstephenbetts
A lot of effort went into this book, and sadly I think it was largely wasted. A bunch of cod philosophical statements haphazardly strung together. There is little overall message, nor any single insight that lingers once the book is closed. Pretentious and overwrought, and rather too didactic in
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some of its pronouncements (it strikes me as unfair to pull example out of context, but there is no shortage). Some of the art is nice, but, to paraphrase someone reading over my should "just because you did a picture doesn't make it more profound". That said, if it hadn't been a work of comics I don't think it would have got any attention whatsoever, but I don't think it is a particularly good use or example of the medium. Show Less
Publication
Harvard University Press (2015), Edition: 1st, 208 pages
Awards
Lynd Ward Prize for Graphic Novel of the Year (Winner — 2016)
PROSE Award (Winner — 2016)
Penn GSE's Best Books for Young Readers (Special Mention — Comics & Graphic Novels — 2015)
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
10.2 inches
ISBN
0674744438 / 9780674744431