The Four Elements

The Four Elements is a collection of 114 cartoons and short comic strips by Roz Chast which originally appeared in magazines including The New Yorker, Mother Jones and The Sciences. Chast’s cartoons are whimsical and abstract in the way they take a typical situation or expression and flip it into logical but bizarre territory. Her spiky, wobbly, drawings create an atmosphere where anything can happen at any time, but even the most anxious events feel benign the way she draws them. For instance, the classical Four Elements featured on the cover of this book are cut down to size with a mildly silly domestic makeover. ‘Earth’ is a little plant in a flowerpot in a small apartment. ‘Water’ is a woman in a bubble-filled bath tub. ‘Fire’ is a toaster burning a bagel with the smoke billowing up. ‘Air’ is a big grey ‘Kooler-King’ air conditioning unit directing frigid air onto a grateful-looking woman.