Product Description
"A shockingly imaginative graphic novel that captures the sense of adventure and wonder that surrounds a new arrival on the shores of a shining new city. Wordless, but with perfect narrative flow, Tan gives us a story filled with cityscapes worthy of Winsor McCay." -- Jeff Smith, author of Bone
"A magical river of strangers and their stories!" -- Craig Thompson, author of Blankets
"Magnificent." -- David Small, Caldecott Medalist
In a heartbreaking parting, a man gives his wife and daughter a last kiss and boards a steamship to cross the ocean. He's embarking on the most painful yet important journey of his life - he's leaving home to build a better future for his family. Shaun Tan evokes universal aspects of an immigrant's experience through a singular work of the imagination. He does so using brilliantly clear and mesmerizing images. Because the main character can't communicate in words, the book forgoes them too. But while the reader experiences the main character's isolation, he also shares his ultimate joy.
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 The Language of Beautiful Images ( idlerich42 )
I am so lucky. I have an excellent friend, a best friend, who knows I appreciate unique stories and beautiful things, and when you put the two together you have something really special. She saw 'The Arrival' and knew I would love it and gave it to me. And she was right -- I never expected it, but I absolutely love it.
On one level, 'The Arrival' is a simple, fairly common story, one we've heard many times before in other ways, from other people. A man leaves his home and family in a frightening place to try and make his way in the world, and to support the ones he loves best. He moves to a new country, a bustling metropolis of hope. He struggles. He meets new people and experiences new things. He learns. Things change and he adapts. It is a familiar story, to be sure.
What makes 'The Arrival' different is Shaun Tan's beautiful illustrations, and the way he uses the images to tell the story without the needs for any words -- no narration, no dialogues, no accompanying text. Even the words seen on signs and books are written in an unrecognizable language, which only help you, the reader, share the main character's initial frustration as he makes his way in a new place. But the illustrations are of such beauty...in many cases I found myself getting lost in the details of Tan's remarkable black-and-white pictures, exploring these cities and landscapes and pathways, noticing details, marveling at wonders. The illustrations are simple yet powerful, suggestive of much greater depths than 10,000 words might have conveyed in the same space. Shaun Tan found a new way to tell an old story...with strong, fanciful, imaginative art. And for this, it works perfectly.
Can a story be told without words? Can ideas be conveyed without sentences and grammar? Shaun Tan not only proves that they can, with 'The Arrival' he proves that it can be done elegantly and beautifully, and that the use of words would only take away from the story he's told, and the way he has told it.
This is powerful imagining, and I am so very lucky that my friend knew to share it with me.
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A beautifully illustrated master piece
I remember when I first immigrated to the states when I was nine years old. So many things looked foreign to me. I came on the fourth of July; I thought they were celebrating our arrival with the fireworks. Protagonist in Shaun Tan's THE ARRIVAL is fresh off the boat to a land that is strange and bizarre that is so alien even to everyone who picks up the book so we become the immigrant who can't figure out what the sign on the store says or become deaf to the spoken words that it wouldn't make sense to have dialog in the book. It's a well thought out book to give readers the experience of being an immigrant through this beautifully illustration book.
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Wordlessly describes the immigrant experience ( pozo@mindspring.com )
Shaun Tan wordlessly writes about the immigrant experience in this sepia-toned graphic novel. In large two-page cityscapes and smaller one page, half page, quarter page, and 1/12th page drawings he unfolds the tale of a man who leaves his wife and child to seek employment in a foreign land. Using fantastic creatures, architecture, alphabets & objects to portray the strangeness of a new world, Tan creates the disorientation of the immigrant in a way any reader can understand.
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I am now crying and overwhelmed.
I just finished "reading" this book, and I'm weeping. It's THAT beautiful. I'm a high school reading specialist, and I will be using this in my classes. I'm glad it's my prep period with no students in the class right now, as I'm trying to compose myself.
I can't even express in words how wonderful this book is. I wish I could draw like Tan, then I could, perhaps, come close to expressing what this book can do and has done. Overwhelming.
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Breathtaking ( pwoodd )
Absolutely breathtaking in its beauty and originality. Obviously the work of a true genius. I can't imagine what Shaun Tan could produce that would top this...although I imagine he DOES! I eagerly await your next work. And thanks for sharing.
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