1000 pages, five volumes - one novel. In "At the Edge of the World, People Sit and Laugh," Philipp Weiss tells the story of the transformation of the world in the Anthropocene - the epoch in Earth's history where humans have become the central shaping force. Spanning from France to Japan, and from the 19th to the 21st century, this bold novel employs encyclopedia entries, manga, narrative, audio transcriptions, and notebooks to create a panopticon of our fleeting reality. Seventeen-year-old Paulette experiences the Paris Commune uprising in 1871, travels as one of the first European women to Meiji-era Japan, and lies preserved in the ice of the French Alps for over one hundred thirty years. Climate researcher Chantal, her great-great-granddaughter, follows in her footsteps to the Far East, crafting a cynical history of the universe while simultaneously escaping a love and its overturning power.