kalman

             There are big questions in Kalman’s The Principles of Uncertainty. She uses her art in tandem with handwritten passages in the style of diary entries. She questions (to name a few) the purpose of life, war, and death all in less than 400 pages. In the first section of Kalman’s work she presents the reader with a map of the United States—absurd and endearring in how wrong it is. Pennsylvania is down by Texas , Florida takes up the place where Maryland would be, and Hawaii (no longer an island) makes a new home in New England. As we read on, in Kalman’s handwritten font, she divulges that her mother drew this for her: “This is the world through her eyes” (9). She shares many different stories throughout her work, each feeling as ephemeral as the next. She doesn’t share (typically) the grandest story that each of the notable have but more so the “little” details of their lives: their friends, their family, and their knick-knacks. The way she stylizes the people she draws adds humor to the book, and for me was a source of joy throughout. Although we never seem to forget that every story, as she says, ends in death, the images add a levity to the work that tells the reader to keep going. In the specific story about the map her mother drew she ends the section by writing, “She is no longer alive and it is impossible to bear” (9). It communicates that there may not be a reason or answer at the end but that she has found some reason to keep going. Similar to all (I think) this semester her humor (in her case, humor around death) acts as a fight against nihilism. While there are huge notable things going on in the world around her (war and death and grief) she still finds joy in dancing and stories. Humor acts as a way to keep herself and her reader grounded in reality without floating off into the abyss of pointlessness.