Chast has watched you. She has watched me, and she has watched all of us. Her cartoons show all the markings of a seasoned and lifelong people-watcher, brandishing everyday habits and activities like a weapon of sublime observational wit, and repeatedly attacking you with it. Containing everything from thought-provoking slice of life, to supreme dry wit, to laugh-out-loud funny, Theories of Everything draws the shining moments from Chast's prolific career and puts them on display.

Like an encyclopedia that has been combined with both a family photo album and book of jokes, you can open this Chast compilation randomly to any page and find something that you recognize, something that you never before realized or knew, and something that will make you crack a smile and let out a chuckle. Theories of Everything exhibits exactly why Roz Chast is so respected, she can deliver humorous revelations about ourselves, that no one seems to notice despite the fact that they are right there in our everyday lives, and she does so with a subtlety that shows the mark of a disciplined comedian.

Roz Chast, Theories of Everything: Selected, Collected, and Health-Inspected Cartoons, 1978-1996 (Bloomsbury, 2006)

When you look at the title of this book, is the first thing you think "you know, if they'd waited two years, they could have come up with a thirty-year retrospective."? Because if you do, then we're on the same page, and if you don't, then I'm probably somewhat bent. I try to come up with these little tests for myself often, because I suspect I am, in fact, quite bent. But that's neither here nor there. Except maybe it is, as the quality of one's bentness may well affect one's appreciation of Roz Chast's comics.

Chast collects four hundred pages(!) of drawings, doodles, and the occasional all-out strip here. As is to be expected from a four-hundred-page collection spanning twenty-eight years of an artist's work, you're not going to be amused by the whole thing (and, to be honest, a single-author four-hundred-page collection is a bit much for anything-- comics, poetry, photography, anything). Some of Chast's conceits will strike you funnier than others. But this is a case of your mileage varying; Chast's harpoons are flying in so many different directions at so many different whales that this sort of thing is quite inevitable, really. And while this really is a daunting task to take on, it's very interesting to see the themes and recurring characters she's brought to the work over the years. Worth checking out, but give yourself time to browse it slowly. I went through it in about three weeks, and I'd say that was too fast. ***

Roz Chast is so good I'd buy the New Yorker just to see her cartoon.
Her take on the things we say and do, the things we like, the things that bug us and the general craziness of modern life is, to use an overused term, unique.
This book is a comprehensive collection of her best, wackiest, most neurotic, most inspired stuff.
It's a well-made book as well, so reading it is a more pleasurable experience.

What could be more fun than spending the day reading Roz Chast cartoons? This book has it all: cleverness, wit, a keen eye for everyday life and laughs galore. If you're having a bad day, nothing will cheer you up more than Theories of Everything. It just puts life into perspective.

After Halloween, I'll trade you 1. three Snicker bars 2. all my hard candy 3. everything in my storage unit, and 4. my mother for a copy of the Chast book.