Catch Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness (Pantheon Graphic Library) Compiled By Kristen Radtke Textbook
is a lot of helpful information on loneliness in this graphic book, At times the author's personal experience was front and center, She would describe a personal situation that led to her loneliness, Other situations were more of a local or national insight into loneliness, Sometimes personal, local, and national perspectives were presented and it was not totally clear how much of each would interact,
I will have to let these ideas settle for a while, Then I think it would be helpful to do a reread, This grim study of loneliness wounds the psyche, and offers no break in the clouds, The subdued twilight color palette of bluegrays, dusty browns, hazy oranges hushes the atmosphere, A sense of eerie alienation resounds,
Seek You is part listless memoir, part fervent reporting of gloomy research both fact and factoid including a relentless, horrifying downward spiral into sadistic animal research torture,
Radtke is perceptive, and I see some truths here, But her world view is resolutely pessimistic, Between the lines is an unnecessarily harsh judgment and mistrust of others, If deep loneliness is contagious, like Radtke says, this book is spreading it,
The cover illustration is gorgeous and evocative, The title is lovely, but no, I did not like this book, Insightful, depressing, inspiring. In the first pages of sitelinkSeek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness, Kristen Radtkes sophomore work, she explains that radio operators call out across frequencies with what is known as a “CQ call,” named as such because “CQ” sounds like the first syllable of sécurité, or “pay attention,” in French.
In English, radio users took to calling it “seek you, ” In this graphic work of nonfiction, Kristen Radtke explores this concept of reaching outward, turning the CQ call into a metaphorical representation ofst century American existence,
With a muted palette of mostly blues, greens and oranges, Radtke illustrates a series of graphic essays, each devoted to a different sociological study or phenomenon or observation on loneliness.
You can read my full review sitelinkHERE on BookBrowse and you can read a piece I wrote about graphic works of nonfiction sitelinkHERE, I didn't feel lonely until I saw how my rating is so different from others!!!
Jokes aside I am not someone who feels lonely very often, I am, like the author points out, one of those people who "is only lonely when she thinks she is, " But if this book made a person like me feel worse I can only imagine the effect it may have on others,
At first I thought this book was a solidstars, I did wish that it had woven in some more pertinenttothetimes information with what was probably written/drawn long before, But other than that I was amazed at how much was resonating with me and were things I had been pondering this pandemic,
HOWEVER, the Harry Harlow section near the end just broke me, I had known about the main experiment but I did not know about some of the other details spoiler: pit of despair, rape rack, motherless mothers, etc, and to see them visualized through the drawings, . . for nearlypages I fell into my own pit of despair,
To top it off I felt like it just ended there, There wasn't a real conclusion Casey Kasem does not count or advice going forward, there was no light at the end of this tunnel, The light turned out to be a train heading straight for you,
I think it's dangerous to put out a book like that at a time like this, The loneliness epidemic is real and it's killing people alongside the virus, To leave us without resolution, or even hope, is a risky choice that I'm surprised was made, If all I can do is dedicate you who reads this a song, I am doing it, But as the last line states, to hear a voice calling back to me would be miraculous, : We need something more tangible than miracles,
Sad dedication: sitelink youtube. com/watchvCAYF
Slightly less sad dedication: sitelink youtube. com/watchvhIeEm
Helplines organized by countries: sitelink opencounseling. com/suicid
Great forums as well as free listeners when you need: sitelinkcups, com/forum/
I don't know if this is one of those situations where I have too much to say and so can't settle in on exactly what to say, or whether it's because I just haven't sat and tried to write with real thoughtfulness about a book in a while, but I have been trying to get to the heart of what I think and feel about this book since reading it for the first time in August and I am still struggling.
But I'm returning it to the library today and so I must come up with something,
Well OK to get started, it's another memoir/survey, a format I am very into in theory, and which was also the structure of Radtke's first book, Imagine Wanting Only This.
In that earlier work she set out to understand something of what it means to go to ruin, the decay inherent in existence, the weird feeling you can get if you meditate on a place in time after your own death.
It's an interesting exploration, and if it's a little selfabsorbed, a little clunky, a little gradschooly, you or I can extend her the benefit of the doubt: She's only thirty when that book comes out.
I thought it was impressive and I fought people about it and still will,
In this book, she sets out to tackle the somewhat less theoretical subject of American loneliness, rooting the exploration in her own experience as a Midwest preteen in the late nineties seeking connection through the internet, stories about her father operating a ham radio in his own youth, and her time living in Las Vegas and New York City, weaving in more journalistic sections that touch upon cowboys, television's male antiheroes, Hannah Arendt, Yayoi Kusama, and Harry Harlow's demented animal torture, all in an effort to crystallize something of loneliness, what it means to long to belong.
I think this is brave and important work, but I find her efforts here garbled and unfocussed, She is still learning how to train the eye outward, and then inward, and then outward again and as a result the book lists, bulges, drags, and staggers its way through what might largely be an issue of too much material.
I picture a version of this book that spends less time and space arranging headlines, more time digging in to its primary subjectRadtke's own loneliness, and the pain of it, trusting readers to connect to her through their own pain without the bolster of statistical and psychiatric/medical "proof" that loneliness is painful.
And so then as far as the art I maybe have complicated feelings, I really don't like the art this time, even though it is made the same way she made Imagine, This time for whatever reason I felt the stiffness and artifice of the grayscale digital tracery pushing my eyes away from the pages, I resented its use of imagery as symbolmake a drawing from a photograph of a real person who is alone and the drawing you've made is now of no one.
This doesn't "show" loneliness in any meaningful way, any more than showing someone in a crowd shows camaraderie, and page after page of it was, . . well if nothing else it was boring, And then sometimes for my money the imagery brutally and unearnedly punishes the reader, Fuck the monkey stuff in this book, This book brings neither the depth nor the perspective that could forgive its rubbing its readers' faces in cruelty like this,
Anyway if the art weren't digital, I realized, but still clumsy like this, I would probably be pretty defensive of it, I love clumsy selfish immature handmade stories, it's my basic art philosophy that we all on some level need to make them in whatever form in order to peel them out of our hearts like the sour clogs they can fuck us up by being.
So maybe digital tracing is just not my comics aesthetic,
And so then I read it rather quickly about a week ago in anticipation of getting together with a couple friends and talking about it, and I didn't dislike it as strongly.
Maybe it should be read quickly, Maybe it's a better book if you read it on your phone, I don't know.
In conclusion, I'm not mad at this book but I am disappointed,
Oh and then one other kind of related thing, the Bad Art Friend stuff is making its way through my internets right now, and this morning I finished the Times article so I could talk to Megan about it and this really struck me: "I feel instead of running the race herself, she's standing on the sidelines and trying to disqualify everybody else based on minor technicalities.
" I really feel this quote, I am jealous of Radtke! I want to publish my selfabsorbed pretentious comics memoirs about all my theories and feelings, lol, And she has written two! To no little acclaim, I want to do that, too, So to the extent that that blinders me,
I am just putting my cards on the table,
Anyway I hope this is not a shitty review, I am TRYING to learn how to be more forthright about my negative opinions without needing to couch them in blustery hilarity or spiteful painful privacy or whatever other twisted ass ways I have sucked down and/or blasted all over you rudely my gripes.
Please accept this effort as my best for today, “Perhaps we see loneliness in others simply to feel less lonely ourselves”
I was really taken this nonfiction graphic novel, Kristen Radtke uses a blend of relevant anecdotes, science, history, and cultural analysis to form a well balanced meditation on loneliness, This book doesnt seek a solution to loneliness, It instead provides the reader with information on the ways in which loneliness creeps into our lives and an exploration of why it is a central part of the human condition.
There are many things in life that cause loneliness, but its almost for certain that physical and emotional connection is not really a want, but rather a need for humans in what seems like our endless journey toward living a meaningful life.
The illustrations are really gorgeous and the prose is profound,
In all, I found myself to be very reflective of my own experiences and better informed while reading this graphic novel, If youve ever pondered your own feelings of loneliness and want a more serious and quick read I would definitely recommend this one,.Stars Lots of good things to mull on in this, though I'm not sure it has a cohesive thesis in the way I expected it might Oof, I really thought I would like this a lot more, Near the beginning I thought it would be five,
Exploring loneliness was the center of the book of course, but for me it was trying to merge waaay too many other things together at once and didn't always transition between them well.
Vegas, city life, psychology, attachment theory, personal anecdotes, internet culture, aging, etc, All of these things can definitely relate back to loneliness but it just felt like a info dump at times and just felt very tedious, The voice of the writing was also a bit dry and scientific, which didn't engage me, Discussing something as emotional as loneliness should have felt a bit more personal and less clinical, I ended up skimming at times,
That said, I did find some of it really insightful and interesting, There are many reviewers who rated it higher than me, so I would definitely say it's still worth checking out, 'I want us to use lonelinessyours, and mineto find our way back to each other, '
Well, well, well, not me finding comfort in a book about loneliness, Kristen Radtkes hybrid graphicnovel/longform essay, Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness is a stunning visual exploration ofyou guessed it: loneliness, However, Radtke manages to make it feel like a communal experience, reminding us that loneliness is one of the most universal things any person can feel, and by addressing the topic from a variety of angles and perspectives she shows us that this disquieting emotion is as varied as the people who experience it.
While this may seem an obvious nod to the pandemic lifestyles weve been surviving, Radtke actually began this work innoting that rates of loneliness had already been increasing exponentially for decades, yet it wasn't a subject I heard people talk about very often, at least not in relation to themselves.
Chilling and comforting all at once, Radtke dissects a specifically American engagement with loneliness and how it has seeped through our culture over time, from urban sprawl to entertainment, political implications, social media and our notions of community, drawing on psychological studies and memoir to spotlight loneliness and our engagement with it.
Perhaps we see loneliness in others simply to feel less lonely ourselves,
Honestly, who hasnt felt lonely from time to time, Radtke points out this is a universal experience, one that often peaks at key periods of change in our lives: most notably our late twenties, midfifties and early eighties this data and discussions on loneliness correlates with sitelinksuicide rates by age, particularly strong in elderly folks who are also most likely to be feeling loneliness.
Despite the prevalence of loneliness, there is still a stigma around talking about it, A hallmark of loneliness is shame, she writes, since childhood, there are few things more humiliating than being left out, and loneliness often heightens fears of rejection.
She also addresses studies that show that isolation increases chances of death from almost every cause of death citing that Vivek Murthy, a former Surgeon General, has said that the most prevalent health issue in America is isolation.
Which is why it is lovely to see a book like this be so welcoming and engaging on the topic, and to remind us that we are not alone in these feelings and, perhaps, by being more open about it, we can feel less unsettled by it.
Radtke does an excellent job at addressing how loneliness figures into American culture, such as how separation became part of the formula for thest century American dream.
Suburban sprawl made way for a boom in private entertainment, she says, pointing towards how laugh tracks in television tried to recreate a communal experience in one enjoyed in solitude.
There is an interesting discussion on how media such as cowboy films were not in keeping with the reality of ranchhand life but fictionalized for the sake of creating some American ideal of romanticized lonely wanderers and rugged individualism.
The branding is reserved exclusively for men, she posits, with a later segment on the Hollywood brand of loneliness for women being quirky loveable characters who just havent found a partner yet, as if all anyone needs to cease being lonely is a mate.
Loneliness isnt necessarily tied to whether you have a partner or a best friend or an aspirationally active social life, Its a variance that rests in the space between the relationships you have and the relationships you want, Loneliness lives in the gap,
One of the more interesting framings on loneliness comes with her discussion on mass murderers, Psychologist Don Dutton concluded after studying the blogs and diaries of mass shooters that they were fueled not by scorn but a paranoia of being dismissed and rejected, This is a more nuanced look than the popular idea of them as simply loners, a framing Radtke asserts is one that give people comfort that he is not one of us.
Fearmongering of Others or outsiders, she says, became an effective marketing tool for politicians, especially when combined with the aforementioned rugged individual romanticism applied to a leader ie, Reagan and this framing is used to fortify isolation into easily propagated psychographic groups, entrenching people into fear and distrust while giving a false sense of community exploitable for power.
'As we lose contact with one another,' she warns, 'so too do we begin to perforate ourselves from reality, ' She later adds, 'if trust is the basis for the bonds we form, then its eradication can almost certainly ensure our separation, '
Loneliness feels to me like being underwater, fumbling against a muted world in which the sound of your own body is loud against the quiet of everything else.
The simple gestures you enacted so easily on the ground become laborious, pushing against a weight no body is built to move through,
What works best in this book is the range of topics and ideas surrounding loneliness that Radtke examines, such as effects of social media, or the many rather disturbing studies usually involving monkeys that looked into how we socialize or isolate.
The art elements really add to this work, which would likely feel a bit disjointed simply as text on a page but coalesce into this incredible visual and cerebral experience.
The simple imagery complete with carefully chosen color palettes enhances the mood of loneliness, ensuring it is expressed in every aspect of this lovingly created work, While some of the topics might not be particularly new or could have been investigated in more depth I would have liked to see more discussion on the issues of incarceration, the variety of them all amalgamate into a pretty impressive examination on the subject.
This is a book that truly is greater than the sum of its pieces and is a worthwhile read to help understand and better engage with loneliness both internally and as it exists within the social culture at large.
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