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isabellakershner 's review for:
Watchmen
by Alan Moore
“‘thermodynamic miracles, events with odds so astronomical that they’re effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. i long to observe such a thing. and yet in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for each egg. multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive- meeting- siring this precise son- that exact daughter… to distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air into gold- that is a crowning unlikelihood. the thermodynamic miracle.’
‘but if me, my birth, if that’s a thermodynamic miracle, i mean, you could say that about anyone in the world!’
‘yes, anybody in the world. come. dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly. dry your eyes.’”
To say that The Watchmen is one of the most important works of the 20th century is, at this point, redundant. However, to describe it as morbidly hopeful, this piece of literature that documents a nuclear standoff and eventual WW3, seems initially miscalculated and yet I would argue that it is true. Amidst the devastation, the convulsing plots about the madness of humanity and the futility of morality in a modern world, we get little moments of beauty.
doctor manhattan, a godlike figure with no demonstrated stake in humanity, realizes the rarity of human existence. the two bernards embrace as they explode- their last act to embrace a friend disguised as a stranger. laurie forgives her mother.
this is not a light read that will give you faith in humanity, in fact it will do the opposite. however, Moore will continuously renege his own thesis that humanity is evil. he hides these moments among frames of violence, still they exist. Moore cannot fully commit to the violence of humanity because that would be too simple. It’s so easy to say that humanity is evil and not worth saying. it’s a story so rehashed it’s hardly saying anything anymore. what is so much harder to convey in media is that strange in between- the uncomfortable space of grey that humanity occupies. it is good and evil, kind and cruel. it is not possible to tie humanity into a neat bow, and Moore recognizes this. he portrays this grayness in the little moments so that you can’t finish this book and think “well, this proves it, humanity should all die.” he makes you finish the book with a brain blank with exhaustion, questioning everything.
What are we as humans supposed to do in this world? How are we meant to continue on when the world is so divided and muddled and not easy to explain. It’s Albert Camus’ concept of the Absurd. The problem of how to live our lives knowing that both nothing and everything matters in the grand scheme of things. And I don’t know. but i’m grateful to have confronted this philosophical dilemma through The Watchmen.
This is a work of fiction imbued with truths, a manifesto with no certain stances, a comic book of tragedy.
this is on my list of required reading.
‘but if me, my birth, if that’s a thermodynamic miracle, i mean, you could say that about anyone in the world!’
‘yes, anybody in the world. come. dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly. dry your eyes.’”
To say that The Watchmen is one of the most important works of the 20th century is, at this point, redundant. However, to describe it as morbidly hopeful, this piece of literature that documents a nuclear standoff and eventual WW3, seems initially miscalculated and yet I would argue that it is true. Amidst the devastation, the convulsing plots about the madness of humanity and the futility of morality in a modern world, we get little moments of beauty.
doctor manhattan, a godlike figure with no demonstrated stake in humanity, realizes the rarity of human existence. the two bernards embrace as they explode- their last act to embrace a friend disguised as a stranger. laurie forgives her mother.
this is not a light read that will give you faith in humanity, in fact it will do the opposite. however, Moore will continuously renege his own thesis that humanity is evil. he hides these moments among frames of violence, still they exist. Moore cannot fully commit to the violence of humanity because that would be too simple. It’s so easy to say that humanity is evil and not worth saying. it’s a story so rehashed it’s hardly saying anything anymore. what is so much harder to convey in media is that strange in between- the uncomfortable space of grey that humanity occupies. it is good and evil, kind and cruel. it is not possible to tie humanity into a neat bow, and Moore recognizes this. he portrays this grayness in the little moments so that you can’t finish this book and think “well, this proves it, humanity should all die.” he makes you finish the book with a brain blank with exhaustion, questioning everything.
What are we as humans supposed to do in this world? How are we meant to continue on when the world is so divided and muddled and not easy to explain. It’s Albert Camus’ concept of the Absurd. The problem of how to live our lives knowing that both nothing and everything matters in the grand scheme of things. And I don’t know. but i’m grateful to have confronted this philosophical dilemma through The Watchmen.
This is a work of fiction imbued with truths, a manifesto with no certain stances, a comic book of tragedy.
this is on my list of required reading.