Customer Reviews

The Man Who Grew Young

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

THE MAN WHO GREW YOUNG has been in work for many years. It was conceived a decade ago, written first as a prose narrative, then as a screenplay, and finally as a graphic novel, the magnificent art taking several years to prepare. The result is a book that has a special place in my heart, the tale of a great cosmic adventure, mysterious and inspiring.

Someone once told me he didn't want to read ISHMAEL because he "couldn't stand hearing any more bad news." Of course, readers of that book know it's not a bringer of bad news but of enlightenment and hope. Even so, some readers did finish it feeling depressed and hopeless. No one, however, will be able to finish THE MAN WHO GREW YOUNG feeling anything but exalted and joyous. Even I, having read it dozens of time, have never closed it without tears in my eyes. It's almost as if this is not so much a book that I wrote as a book that wrote me.

Quinn continues to amaze me with the quality of his thought and his continual creativity at coming at the problem of the destructiveness of civilization in new ways. In this book, time is running backwards, and so the air is becoming cleaner as factories convert pollution back into natural materials, oil is pumped back into the ground, and so on. On a personal scale, characters live backwards, too, growing young and eventually rejoining with their mothers. All relationships run backwards. It's an extraordinary way to get us to look at our relationships to each other, and to the planet. And it's a damn good book. I cared deeply about the characters, and kept turning pages to find out what happened to them. Then when I finished the book, I immediately went back to the beginning. When I finished it again, back I went to read it a third time. The illustrations are also extraordinary. I'm not normally a huge fan of graphic novels, but this one is great.

Daniel Quinn's latest book is the one he calls his favorite. Like many of his books, it's an impossible one to write, meaning it's an impossible story to tell in book form (much like his work ISHMAEL was for so many years, and which he finally DID manage to write in a way that worked). His latest is The Man Who Grew Young, and thanks to the brilliant efforts of artist Tim Eldred, Daniel was finally able to tell his story of a man suspended in time while the entire universe moved backward around him.

Imagine a world in which you're born by coming out of the ground, old, and in which you grow younger as your life progresses until the day comes when you return to the womb. Imagine one man who for some strange reason lives outside of this process, and who spends his thousands of years searching for the clue to the mystery that he is.

The only way this story could be well told is in graphic novel form, and because it's a graphic novel, it can be easily read in less than an hour. But like most well-written graphic novels, doing so would be doing the story a grave injustice, for this one must be read carefully, and its ideas slowly considered and carefully digested. Daniel lays out a scenario of man's place in the universe, and such a story is NOT to be brushed aside lightly.

Eldred's work is fantastic, and Quinn's story an engaging and inspiring mystery. The man who only grows young when he unravels the mystery of his being could be any of us, searching for our origins and finding it in the only place it could be...where all humanity comes from and where all humanity resides. I found this to be a great read.

THE MAN WHO GREW YOUNG - is a phenomenal and powerful book that illustrates the world moving in a different direction. Aside from the beautiful artwork - which in itself makes this book a great addition to any collection - the story itself borders on revolutionary and visionary. Challenging all levels and concepts of history and humanity, the story takes you on a truly amazing journey through time.
While this book is a must buy for any Quinn fan, it is also a superb introduction to his work and a new way of thinking for those new to his writing.
Do yourself a favor and add this book to your collection.

Usually when you read a review of a Daniel Quinn book you'll find that the reviews fall into two categories. The first sort of come from either loyal readers whose lives have been changed through reading Quinn's work, or from people who are intrigued with Quinn's concepts and ideas on how to save the world. The second type of review comes from those who are hostile towards his work and his readers because it scares them. Quinn writes with painful honesty about this modern world that we live in. His novels don't beat you over the head with ideology, but rather tell clever stories with important messages. Strangely, there are those that find these messages threatening as Quinn's writings ask the reader to challenge the conventional outlook on the world and "civilized" culture.
****WARNING!!!****
THE MAN WHO GREW YOUNG will make your mind move in directions you never thought possible. . .

This is a book that really takes your mind and reprograms it in a more pleasant way. Just when you feel your starting to "get things" and the answers are of grim feelings a book like this comes along and raises your sprints and gives hope. It makes me wonder were we always this dissatisfied with life or do we loose happiness the further we get from our real life source "nature". A very interesting ride in the mind of a true imaginative genius.
Also makes you really wonder what are you doing today that may evolve into something else on a much larger scale in the right or wrong direction.....

Daniel Quinn has done it again. This time his ideas and philosophies are conveyed in an illustrated format. My only complaint, and this is an extremely tiny complaint, is that I am not a huge fan of the illustrations. Do not get me wrong, they illustrations are nice and do a wonderful job of telling the story, I just think they could be more serious. No matter, please do not let that comment sway you in any way.

There are a lot of important messages in this story. There are many times when you can feel a little bit of Ishmael coming through. The book is short and it only took me around an hour to read. So instead of talking about the book, I'm going to talk about the impact it had on the people around me.

I worked in a Residence Hall this past summer supervising a staff of Conference Assistants and Desk Assistants. I pulled this book out after moving again and was reading it. I gave it to a fellow that I had become friends with and told him to read it. He did. He was blown away. Then what did he do? He left it at the desk and told the person who relieved him to read it. That person did, and the next person, and countless other people who worked in the Residence Hall. Pretty soon there were people coming up to me asking who had "that book about growing young."

I also loaned this book to a guy I worked with shortly after it came out in 2001. This book is one of those that I don't mind loaning out and never getting back. As long as it keeps getting passed around. Anyway, luckily I had written my phone number in the front cover because I just got this book back about six months ago (it is now year 2005).

I have no idea how many people have read this illustrated novel nor do I care. Write your name and phone number in the front of this book and start passing it around. Eventually it will end up getting back to you someday. Reading it again will bring you just as much joy and thoughtful time as the first time.

One of the most memorable moments is when the main character says something along the lines of: "Then we stopped using guns because we felt more satisfied and rewarded hunting with our bare hands."

This book is a work of art. By both the author and Illustrator Tim Eldred. It gives you a different look at history. It also makes you realize our place in the community of life. If you fear death, read this.

I have read most of Quinn's books and as an author he is extraordinary. All of his books have opened up new thought processes and gotten so many of my questions about our place here in this world answered.
In The Man Who Grew Young, Quinn gets help adding great visuals to a mind-boggling story. The main character, Adamn Taylor, is stuck in a world which goes backwards from the world we know. Life in this place in time goes from ground to whom, earth mother to flesh mother, and Adam is unique in that he cannot Find his mother. Without his mother to reunite with, he stays in time as every life ever lived is lived again, in reverse. He watches our resources returned to the earth, our cities dismantled, our weapons thrown away.
I love how Quinn gets the reader thinking in new ways - exploring different ideas and possibilities, and that's just what he did again here - magnificently.
I also have to say that Tim Eldred did a wonderful job of expressing Quinn's story. My kids are a huge fan of PBS's Dragon Tales, which i later found out that Tim Eldred produced. What a small world. :D
I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to go on a wild journey of the mind - thinking thoughts we rarely dare to think.

Starr

I was surprised to see that this was a comic book(graphical novel thats what they called it) I thought I was going to be dissapointed for the first time by Quinn.
Having read both Ishmael books and the Story of B, I had high hopes for this one.
I wasn't!
The story moves fast you can probably read it in under an hour, but you'll probably want to take your time and check out the cool art work.
Bottom line is this is a story that I will remember as with Ishmael. Fans of Quinn's will not be dissapointed.

This is a very unusual story to come across in a comic book, though the plot itself has of course been done before, especially in a sci-fi book.

This story is all about a man who lives in the world where things go "backwards" all the way from the modern times to the untamed prehistory, yet people seem to take it as the normal way. In fact, those characters have NEVER ever heard of "death", especially since all babies go back into their mother's wombs at the "end" of their lives. (Isn't that a romantic notion?)

The man is the "odd" one out, since he doesn't have a mother anywhere to return to her womb. So he goes on a guest that lasts many thousands of years before he finally finds the "answer". And he encounters many interesting people along the way, like women "without" husbands, wise old men who pass along wisdom, and families that come and go. Very nice artwork with more than a touch of realism in it - no muscular superheroes or beautiful women, sorry.