Book 2, Post 1

 

I picked up the graphic novel On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder and Nora Krug (illustrator) for my next read. Here were a couple of reasons as to why I chose this book.

1. The political content. I try to stay out of politics because it’s destroyed my parents’ and sister’s relationship. I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and learn about the past, present, and future political environment. 

2. It had one-day shipping. Since I ordered my novel on Thursday (3/3) I needed the book ASAP so I would be able to read it for WRIT 340. 

3. It was the cheapest option. I didn’t want to spend over $20 on a book that I was forced to read, and probably wouldn’t pick up again. 

4. It was a graphic novel. I despise graphic novels because I think they’re extremely confusing to read and seem a little childish. However, I haven’t read a graphic novel, so I thought by choosing On Tyranny, I’d be able to understand their popularity and make a justified opinion. 

Now that you understand my intentions of reading this book, I’ll explain my first opinions. The content itself is interesting but confusing to understand. As a history buff, I was excited to learn more about past tyrannical regimes and how they came to power. It’s easy to judge Nazi followers looking from the outside in. This novel explains the reasoning behind people’s decisions to support awful regimes and how we can prevent ourselves from succumbing to the same mind control. However, Snyder uses a lot of big words—my least favorite thing—and writes too academically. I’ve had to ask my roommate the definition of multiple words while reading. Also, it’s hard to understand the idea the author is trying to convey because of the sentence structure. The artwork doesn’t help this issue. Snyder made drawings that had me question if a 7th grader created them. Also, she made the book difficult to read because the words moved around the art. I had to scan the book differently than the traditional way (on the left page reading down, then top of the right page reading down). At every other page I read a sentence incorrectly because of how the writing was formatted.

That being said, the combination of the text and the drawings is amazing. Both are so contradictory. The darkness of the content mixed with the child-like drawings makes reading this book a good confusing experience. You’re being presented with unhappy information in something that looks like a scrapbook. Also, each chapter (there’s twenty) contains a different piece of advice we should follow if we don’t want to be run by an authoritarian government. This allows the dense content to be digested in smaller chunks. Each chapter uses the same examples (Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia) when explaining different pieces of advice. This allowed me to understand different events that led to these regimes being formed. 

On Tyranny won’t be my favorite book but also not the worst thing I’ve ever read. I am interested to keep reading because I think Snyder will talk about the fate of America/how it isn’t as perfect as we think.