Today, in the summer, the halls of IU East are unnaturally quiet without students. Physical Plant has just waxed the floors, and the whole place seems to glow. The grounds outside are lush and green and verdant. In six months’ time, though, the weather will be cold and the trees bereft of leaves. The floors will be scuffed and stained with salt. In 1972, the land was a construction zone; with Whitewater Hall just beginning to be erected. It was again in 2015, as work began on the Student Events and Activities Center. A few centuries’ ago, Miami Indian explorers ranged north from the Whitewater River, seeking game here, surrounded only by trees and grass. Things change, and a place is many things to many people.
The library is adding many graphic novels to its collection. One of these is called “Here”, by Richard McGuire. Expanded from a brief black-and-white six-page cartoon McGuire published in 1989 in issue 2 of Raw, a comic anthology edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly, it depicts the corner of a room of a house in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, but the specificity of that place almost doesn’t matter. A non-linear story, McGuire finds meaning and even recursion in the gradual, unintentional sense of a place that is built up over large amounts of time and many generations of occupants. Memories accrue and shape the location.
On one page, a woman in 1964 plays a piano while insets show people in 1932, 1993, and 2014 dancing to the tunes of different eras. On another, a new baby is welcomed into the household in 1957, while insets show other babies coming home in 1924, 1945, 1949, and 1988. In 1996 there is a fire, in 1989 an elderly man has a heart attack, and in 1916 a funeral is held.
In 1609, a Lenape couple flirt in the woods, and then hear something nearby, while in 1986, archeological society researchers enter from the direction the noise came, looking for information about Native American life. One of the Lenape tells the other a joke about a bear, and in 1975 a child in a bear costume prepares for Halloween.
In 1907, the house is built. In 2111, it is destroyed in a flood. In other eras, other houses stand nearby. In 1775, William Franklin, whose driveway is where the house will be, argues with his father Benjamin about American independence. In 1953, 1960, and 1965, Christmases become more and more opulent. In 80,000,000 BCE, a theropod dinosaur stalks the wilderness. In 2050, elderly men play a game with holographic displays. By the end, “Here” has established itself as a powerful and innovative look at time.
So it is with any place. Books can be had in IU East’s library, as they could in 1995, and as they will in 2035. But different people check them out, different people read them, and different conclusions are drawn. This place was built for other people with other needs. It was also built for you. So too, it was built for students and researchers that have not yet been born. It is a place, purpose, and experience that goes beyond our own frame of reference.
If you’d like to check out “Here” or any of our other graphic novels, many are available in the library and others can be read as e-books. If you’d like help finding a book that interests you, you can Ask Us at iueref@iu.edu or click this button:
