Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
If nothing else, this graphic novel seems to move at the speed of ‘5000 Kilometers Per Second’! Set across Italy, Norway, and Egypt, Manuele Fior’s (translated to English by Jamie Richards) dreamily drawn book starts off with a mother-daughter moving into a new flat, while two young friends, Nicola and Piero, peep at them through their window. In seven minutes, Piero is in love with new neighbor Lucia.
But, ‘5000 Kilometers Per Second’ (original title: Cinq mille kilomètres par seconde) isn’t really a romance, instead, it’s like a flipping through a painted snapshots of a lifetime of memories, selected by the author at random. Piero and Lucia barely meet each for the first time and the graphic novel shifts to years later in Norway, where Lucia arrives to study, leaving her life in Italy behind. It feels like the novel was missing pages, like somebody tore off a section of pages, leaving you to piece whatever might’ve happened in between.
Years worth of story is skipped, with the second-half jumping to both Piero and Lucia briefly re-uniting in Italy, as ex-lovers who haven’t seen other in a lifetime. Their reunion is bittersweet, sad, and leads to a climax that once again simply throws off the reader from a moving bike-ride: it feels abrupt, as if only half a tale was handed out to you. At least that was my immediate feeling when I finished ‘5000 Kilometers Per Second’, a rush of disappointment. However, on second thoughts, the story does end where it should, but large swathes felt missing.
What stands out most in Manuele Fior’s storytelling is the way his watercolor-like art gently exposes the illusion of wanderlust, showing how the idea that chasing your dreams across the world doesn’t guarantee happiness. As Lucia begins a new life in Norway, Piero pursues archaeology, heading off to an excavation in sun-drenched Egypt. And even though they leave home to follow their heart, they often feel displaced, realizing they’ve traded comfort for disconnection. Fior rarely needs his characters to spell it out; the ache of homesickness seeps through the panels in the second-half.
The hand-drawn artwork gives ‘5000 Kilometers Per Second’ a paradoxical allure, modern yet nostalgic, intimate yet sweeping. The novel opens on a buoyant note, with sunlit yellows and lush greens coloring its Italian setting, perfectly reflecting the warmth of youth and summer. When Lucia moves to Norway, the palette shifts to shades of blue, capturing not only the cold of the Nordic landscape but also the quiet melancholy of distance and loss. My only complaint with the illustrations? I had trouble differentiating between Piero and his friend Nicola in the first few pages and had to re-read it.
The main protagonists in ‘5000 Kilometers Per Second’ aren’t particularly memorable; there’s hardly any space for real character development. The one exception is Hilde, Lucia’s Norwegian landlord, a charming blonde divorcée, who leaves a stronger impression in just a few pages than the leads do across the book.
Fior paints Hilde beautifully: cutely practicing Italian and getting ready to welcome Lucia, offering warmth and kindness that make her instantly likable. She is the kind of person anyone would want to meet when living abroad for the first time. It’s proof that Fior can create deeply endearing characters, he just doesn’t linger on them here. Nicola too seemed to be a flamboyant, fun character, but is quickly forgotten, and makes the briefest appearance at the end.
If you’re in the mood for an artistic meditation on how life drifts by in quiet, fleeting moments, ‘5000 Kilometers Per Second’ is worth a read.
Rating: 3 on 5.
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