INFINITY

An Argentine author/illustrator invites readers into his gallery and muses on that which is unlimited, endless, uncountable.

Each double-page spread features a full-color, textured composition on the recto; the verso includes an equation (sometimes just a number), a lyrical statement, and, at the bottom, a whimsical drawing incorporating a lemniscate—the symbol of infinity. The opening quote is a snippet from Hamlet: “I could be bounded / in a nutshell, / and count myself / a King / of infinite space….” Depicted holding a swordlike carrot with the mathematical symbol as crossguard, the figure opposite appears in cameos throughout, providing the narrative thread. Some ideas tend toward the unpleasant. Infinity is imagined as “that nightmare / where I’m inside the snow of a television screen, / and I have to sweep it up / with a toothpick.” Others are full of possibility: “It’s / the eye of an artist / just before / he starts drawing.” This line is accompanied by a black pupil surrounded by rings of colored-pencil points. Those with knowledge of math and science will recognize certain equations while other numbers are personal, according to a note with the copyright information. As in the work of Shaun Tan, these pages provide provocations for readers to contemplate, synthesize, and imagine what they will based on their own interests and backgrounds. There is humor and much to stimulate thinking about what could be.

This tantalizing amalgam of the philosophical, artistic, and mathematical offers multiple entrees to an irresistible concept.