The Age of Earthquakes

The Age of Earthquakes

by Katherine Austin

I thought the Age of Earthquakes was an extremely interesting book that uses an innovative way of expression through the use of images and the phrases embedded on or within the images. I don’t think the book was supposed to be enlightening or insightful because it is full of information everyone is already at least partially aware of. It was mostly expressing things that have become completely normalized in our society and pointing how the progression of humankind may or may not be extraordinarily absurd.

Some of the images within the book were almost too cerebral to the point where it just seemed like they were “fake deep”, in other words, the messages they portrayed really had no impact on anything. For example, page 70 depicts a man walking up to the gates of heaven with, supposedly, St.Peter asking him “What is the name of your first pet?” with the caption “Remember nothing you don’t have to” above it. I was, and still am, very confused by this depiction. It makes me feel like some 60 year old cartoonist is trying to make a joke about Millennial culture without fully comprehending anything about Millennial culture.

Maybe I just don’t understand it though. That’s another thing I came across with this book. Several times I had to stop and reread an image or phrase multiple times to even slightly comprehend the meaning. I think the overall message of the book was unsettling, but the book itself was so insanely scattered it became confusing and hard to read. However, I am convinced that the scattered information is of within itself important, and is used to add yet another layer to the complex message.

Word Count: 282