Sunday, November 3, 2024

Into the Archive: The Book of Bill

 


I came back yesterday from a family party and found The Book of Bill (by Alex Hirsch, Hyperion Books) waiting in our mailbox. It had only come out in July of this year; at first I wasn’t aware of it, and then I waited awhile before ordering, which saved me a good chunk of change because the copy was sold as Used Very Good. Still, I might not have bought it even yet, if I had not believed I needed it for Free Delivery (read those details carefully, kids!). Still, I don’t regret having it.

The book is another volume connected to the popular and amazing Gravity Falls series, purported to be written by the series’ main villain, Bill Cipher, a bow-tied, top-hat wearing triangle with one eye, an interdimensional dream-demon with designs on our world.

Hoped to be dead, but long rumored to still be alive, “The demon that terrorized Gravity Falls is back from the great beyond to finally tell his side of the story in The Book of Bill, written by none other than Bill Cipher himself.

Inside, Bill sheds light on his bizarre origins, his sinister effects on human history, the Pines family’s most embarrassing secrets, and the key to overthrowing the world (laid out in a handy step-by-step guide). This chaotic and beautifully illustrated tome contains baffling riddles, uncrackable ciphers, lost Journal 3 pages, ways to cheat death, the meaning of life, and a whole chapter on Silly Straws. But most importantly, The Book of Bill is deeply, deeply cursed.

Alex Hirsch, #1 New York Times bestselling author, resuscitates this infamous villain and invites fans to a Bill’s eye view of the Gravity Falls universe. There are many who believe this book is too dangerous for human hands. But if you can’t resist, just know this: Once you make a deal with Bill, it’s not so easily undone . . .” – Amazon.

From what I’ve read so far, the added caution “Beware: This book travels to dimensions meant for older readers,” might not be so frivolous as it seems. Though warned at the beginning that Bill is a lying liar, he espouses opinions that just might appeal to the cynical and rebellious, opinions seriously held by many today. “A human is an organic machine made out of blood and anxiety, designed to deliver a random bundle of genetic material into the future and then turn to dust … it was designed by random mutation…” is professed to be believed by many today, though few strictly live their lives by it (usually only when they want to do something that is contra-indicated socially or morally).

What The Book of Bill reminds me of is The Book of the Subgenious, hilarious and amusing in the fact that it often says the quiet part out loud, the feared opinions and conclusions of the hopeless and isolated. These might sound quite reasonable to the despairing, with the promise that if you abandon normal beliefs and accept that reality is an illusion and love is a trick, you will lose anxiety, ‘go with the flow’ of Chaos, and quit struggling.

Quite a dark philosophy to be presented to a so-called tween audience, if you remember the grasping and flailing emotions of that stage in life. Although Bill is portrayed as a liar and an ultimate loser in the end, only seeking a way to return to power, I wonder if his philosophy is quite the thing to dangle in front of the impressionable, or if they are guaranteed to take away the right message from what is, after all, a tie-in to a Disney show. What with figures like Maleficent and Cruella DeVille being re-invented as understandable heroes of their own tales, is it impossible that some kids might embrace Bill as their own?

In the meantime, it is comical and entertaining, and probably quite safe if you have a resistance to taking it seriously, and a little skipping ahead shows that Bill does not ‘win’ with his attitudes. Scorn is the best reaction to a villain’s villainy. And in the end, who would take it seriously except an old toot used to dissecting literary works (no matter how humble) for their philosophical underpinnings? Jokingly, of course, though no joke is ever without its serious side.

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