![]() ![]() From the arcane rituals of categorisation he is subjected to upon entry, to the initially unfathomable nature of what should by all rights be a kitchen tap, he finds himself in a world whose signs and habits he is quite unable to read. We see him cross an ocean, and arrive in a new land. The protagonist – a tired and gentle sort of everyman – departs. Whether these images of the mundane fused with the unsettling are to be taken literally or as metaphor is not entirely clear what is certain is that the very air itself carries a ceaseless, unwelcome weight. As the family emerge from the house, and walk the father to a train station, we witness dark, serpentine forms writhing along above drab streets, yet nobody seems to attend to them in any way. It becomes apparent that he is leaving for a time, not out of animosity, but as a temporary necessity. The story begins in a nameless land, with the scene being set for the departure of a man from his wife and daughter. ![]() Rare, because it is so remarkably difficult – when attempting to tell an engaging and comprehensible story solely in pictures - to avoid a descent into monotonous exposition. Straddling the divide between children’s picture book and adult graphic novel to splendid effect, The Arrival, by Australian illustrator Shaun Tan, is one of those rare beasts: a wholly graphic fiction, that dispenses with the use of words entirely. ![]()
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