Source of book: I own this
It isn’t too often that I actually read one of my Christmas books before the end of the winter school break, but this time I did. The Mysteries is a really short illustrated book, so it was easy to read in about 10 minutes in one sitting. (And that includes staring at the illustrations, which are most of the point of the book anyway.) My wife got this book for me for Christmas.
Bill Watterson should need no introduction. His long-running comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes is arguably the greatest short-form strip of all time. For my wife’s generation, it seemed every young boy wanted to be the next Bill Watterson, just like every teen girl of mine wanted to be a marine biologist. Few strips have ever demonstrated the philosophical depth of Calvin and Hobbes, and none to my knowledge have combined that depth with the whimsy of childhood and the hilarity of unexpected zaniness. One might have to look back to, say, Mark Twain for this kind of combination of the serious and the humorous.
When Watterson retired, it was a day of great sorrow for many of us. Coming to the end of the line was a real loss. I for one hoped that Watterson would be like Berkeley Breathed (of Bloom County), who tried to retire, switched the name of the strip to Outland, even though it was pretty much the same thing, and eventually just gave in and re-started Bloom County. (Another underrated strip, but lacking either the innocence or zaniness of Calvin and Hobbes.)
Alas, Watterson has stayed retired, never returning to the comic pages. It is a loss, although perhaps, like Sibelius and Rossini, he decided the well of inspiration was running dry, and thus chose to go out on top.
John Kascht, on the other hand, is relatively unknown. He is an artist best known for his caricatures. I had no idea who he is, and I suspect that he gets mistaken for John Kasich, the former governor of Ohio, who is the first Google suggestion when you look up Kascht. Ouch.
According to the publicity blurb, Watterson wrote the story - essentially a modern fairy tale - and the two of them collaborated on the illustrations, which look nothing like the best-known work of either artist.
One could say that both decided to say, “Now for something completely different,” and did it.
The story itself is a modern fairy tale about the loss of mystery and the destruction of technology, at least as I read it. It addresses climate change, although not in so many words. But also the loss of mystery that came with science.
Don’t suppose, however, that the authors think science was an unmitigated evil. Let me explain a bit. The premise is that once upon a time, people believed that the world out there was filled with “mysteries,” these strange and malevolent beings that caused unexplained things to happen. Nobody ever saw these mysteries, but the fear of them caused people to built walls around their lives. The fear consumed people, influencing art and society in negative ways.
Then, the king sends his knights to capture a mystery. Most fail, but eventually, after many long years, one is captured. And it turns out to be something…ordinary. We never see one, and we are never told what it is. However, more and more mysteries are captured. So many that they eventually cease to even make the news.
The loss of mystery causes positive effects - less fear, fewer walls - but also negative ones, such as pollution, and the illusion of control. Eventually, it is implied, humanity itself disappeared.
But the mysteries lived happily ever after.
So, what to make of this?
One could see this story causing consternation for people of very different viewpoints. On the one hand, the book seems to be a bit negative on religion - aka superstition - the need to explain the natural world using supernatural means. But also, the loss of the mysteries brings its own loss, so non-religious people might also take issue with the premise.
As someone who has a bit of a mystic bent, I think I can see what Watterson and Kascht are getting at. The loss of mystery in the sense of wonderment has been lost for a lot of people. However, this isn’t really a matter of religion, but of something in the psyche. Oddly, I haven’t found that scientists lack this sense of wonder, of mystery. Often they have it most of all, and they don’t tend to see exploring the secrets of the universe to be a matter of capturing and taming in that sense.
Perhaps more so, the people who lose the mysteries are those who focus on control - something alluded to in the book. When people have the illusion that they can control everything, whether due to technology, or through theology, they lose that sense of wonderment, of mystery. And they tend to destroy themselves and everything around them.
The authors are correct that whatever humans choose to do, even commit suicide as a race, the universe and its mysteries will be just fine. Whether we believe we have control or not, the universe doesn’t need us.
If what the authors are getting at is that we should retain and embrace the mysteries of the universe, but without fearing them as malevolent beings or expressing our fear in building walls and hating each other, then I am fully on board with that. Explore the universe with humility and respect, but not paranoia and superstition.
I’m not going to say this is particularly original - hubris and its results, the need for mystery, and so on. But it is an interesting take on the idea.
Oh, and the pictures are wonderfully dark and weird.
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