Maira
Kalman started off illustrating children’s books with her husband. The books
were, however, always criticized for being too complex for young children to
understand the concepts presented in them. In the New York Times book review of Kalman’s The Principles of Uncertainty, the author notes that “Kalman has explicitly concocted what her critics have always accused
her of secretly wanting to create: a children’s book for adults.” And her book
is just that: a picture book for the general adult population, grappling with
the idea of existence, life, and death. Kalman tries throughout her book to
find ways to understand how to make the most of out this life. As she describes
in an interview with Thinkr “the
older you get the more you realize time is lessening.” But Kalman doesn’t
exactly come up with an answer wrapped in a neat little bow on how to live life
and how to accept your life knowing that it will come to an end. So it seems
that adults in her adult book have the same issue as children in her children’s
book, which is that the concepts are too complex for any one person to
understand.
In our society we make adults out to
be older and wiser than children—which in most respects they are. But in some
instances adults and kids seem to be on the same level in regards to
understanding things. While I have not had an experience at Tunbridge involving
the questions of life and death, I have through numerous younger cousins been
exposed to the relationship between death in children and adults. The results
are the same: uncertainty.
When my grandfather passed away one
of my aunt’s chose to bring her kids to the funeral, the other aunt did not
because she thought it would be too traumatic for her kids. At the funeral my
little cousins that were there weren’t crying because they were still
comprehending the loss of life, not realizing that this was a permanent
situation. And I noticed, as I looked around the church, that there were other
people, adults, like that as well—adults, not crying because they’re heartless
but rather because they were still processing to come to grips with the
situation of death.
Kalman notes that we all get old and
we all die, during her reflections on old people in her illustrations she notes
that “soon enough it will be me struggling.” But children aren’t necessarily
aware of this: in their eyes their grandparents are just as energetic as they
are. In the poem Walking with Grandpa
narrated by a little child he writes “I like to
walk with Grandpa,/His steps are short like mine./He doesn't say "Now
hurry up!"/He always takes his time./Most people have to hurry,/They do
not stop and see./I'm glad that God made Grandpa/"Unrushed" and young
like me.” In this case we would say that adults are older and wiser and
children are naïve but maybe the naivety is a good thing. Children have a different
outlook on getting older: they want to grow, they don’t conceptualize time, or
lack of time.
In her narrative drawings Kalman
comes to the quasi-conclusion early on that one way to avoid the inevitable is
to stop focusing on it, to “find meaningful distraction” of fruit bowls and
chocolate cakes with cherries on top and hats. To be, in essence more
child-like—perhaps even taking a page from a children’s book to be more
carefree and appreciative of the things we have in life and the things we need
to look forward to.
No comments:
Post a Comment