Scan barcode
Reviews
The Labyrinth: An Existential Odyssey with Jean-Paul Sartre by Gary Cox, Christine Daigle, Ben Argon
ashmagoffin's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
5.0
Literally bless Ben Argon for making this graphic novel so I did not have to read 600 pages of Being and Nothingness. Concise and easy to read, this still made my brain hurt which makes me even more thankful I did not have to suffer through the original. A godsend.
220002002owen's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
funny
informative
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
3.75
shipwrecksteph's review against another edition
4.0
Received an ARC at NYCC 2019. Many thanks to ABRAMS Books.
Prior to Labyrinth, I'd never read anything by or about Jean-Paul Satre. So I can't speak to how accurately this gets his ideas across. What I can say with confidence is that if my undergraduate classes had used graphic novels to teach philosophy, I would have stuck with the subject for longer.
This is a wonderful format for talking about Big Ideas™. Just look at these two pages.
The images say so much. For those of us who are visual learners, this makes a huge difference. The book makes great use of visual explanations throughout. Often, it is in support of the story being told through dialog. Sometimes, the images speak the loudest.
I can see reasons to distrust this method. The biggest being that images can have a much wider interpretation than words. So by introducing images, there is more space created for disagreement in interpretation. But that always exists when discussing Big Ideas™. Usually we are the better for that and the benefits outweigh any downsides.
I believe this would work best as an introduction to Satre's work. It's like reading a charming and insightful summary before diving into the thinker's actual writing. By giving readers this wonderfully relatable mouse and his quest for cheese, Argon gives us a compass to navigate a dense and often intimidating subject. I'm excited to see what comes next.
Prior to Labyrinth, I'd never read anything by or about Jean-Paul Satre. So I can't speak to how accurately this gets his ideas across. What I can say with confidence is that if my undergraduate classes had used graphic novels to teach philosophy, I would have stuck with the subject for longer.
This is a wonderful format for talking about Big Ideas™. Just look at these two pages.
The images say so much. For those of us who are visual learners, this makes a huge difference. The book makes great use of visual explanations throughout. Often, it is in support of the story being told through dialog. Sometimes, the images speak the loudest.
I can see reasons to distrust this method. The biggest being that images can have a much wider interpretation than words. So by introducing images, there is more space created for disagreement in interpretation. But that always exists when discussing Big Ideas™. Usually we are the better for that and the benefits outweigh any downsides.
I believe this would work best as an introduction to Satre's work. It's like reading a charming and insightful summary before diving into the thinker's actual writing. By giving readers this wonderfully relatable mouse and his quest for cheese, Argon gives us a compass to navigate a dense and often intimidating subject. I'm excited to see what comes next.