Almanach: A Year in the French Revolutionary Calendar

The year of Almanach is structured by the French Republican calendar and interrupted by other systems of time-managing mnemonics that have sought to perfect people in their own image.The resulting jump-cuts from images of plants and agricultural implements to the gory fates of saints and tips for making the best use of one’s time prove fertile ground for the growth of meditations, speculations, and memories that are thought-provoking, often funny and seem determined not to let anyone, author included, off the hook. Kivland also considers how non-humans experience time and, through her relation of the tasks involved in gardening and food production, foregrounds how carrying these out ’at the right time’ is becoming harder due to climate change.