sandcastle by frederik peeters and pierre oscar lévy

While he was never able to complete that project, since the initial publication of Sandcastle, Lévy has been able to include a segment in one of his documentaries that addresses the sixth mass extinction event.Īs the preface explains, while a cataclysmic event like a sixth mass extinction may be imminent, as individuals, we are not sure how to relate to this information. Over the course of two very dense pages, Lévy explains that in the 1970s he has been pursing the goal of making a documentary about climate change. Translated by Edward Gauvin, the preface is by Sandcastle writer Lévy. But it wasn’t until after I had read the narrative once through that I finally read the premise, and once I had, I gained new appreciation for the re-contextualized narrative of Sandcastle. It’s an interesting and affecting story, and that haunting final image is sure to stick with you. At the conclusion of the narrative, the only survivor is the sole member of the “next generation,” having been conceived, birthed, and aged-up to adulthood the previous day, and then left to fend for themselves tomorrow. With these inexplicable conditions in place, the characters that arrive at the beach become trapped, and then rapidly age through to their deaths, with their accelerated lifespan lasting less than a full twenty-hours. There is an unseen force field keeping the characters trapped at the beach, but no concrete explanation is ever offered for this, either. However, the narrative, which is translated by Nora Mahony, offers little in the way of explanation for the seemingly supernatural phenomena.

The graphic novel has now been rereleased in conjunction with Shyamalan’s Old, which I have not yet seen, but which piqued my interested regarding the comic: there’s something about the enigmatic premise of a beach that accelerates aging that creates an irresistible hook. Sandcastle was originally published in 2010, with an English version published by SelfMadeHero in 2013.

Sandcastle by frederik peeters and pierre oscar lévy