Our Book Reviews

 This little book starts with a blank page, which is not so blank because on it stands Emptiness, who feels very lonely. He is joined by the characters of Sky, Earth, Water, while Story hangs about in the background. Water, Earth and Sky mess around until Emptiness gets pushed off the page. Enter Bob. Bob has lots of questions as the elements jostle for space and Story tries to organise their ideas. The questions keep coming: who left Sun in the bathroom again? 'Where's the story', asks the water. Answers don't come from God, who passes by in search of a shower. This story lightly touches on life's big questions and mysteries and leaves the reader both baffled and amused.

Review: Delphine Durand loves quirky details and odd layouts and her luscious illustrations never fail to charm and amuse. While most of her books seem aimed jointly at children and adults, this book feels more like something adults and students would snap up in the bookshop of a museum of modern art, reflecting the ethos of its publisher, Tate Publishing.

The concepts and questions are big ones, but lightly and humourously handled, and left open-ended, which is reflected in the large areas reserved for white space. The book feels like a merry jaunt through metaphysics, with its different elements personified by blurry and blobby shapes, but all of them looking sweet and likable.

 The story reads like a creation myth. Quite literally, 'in the beginning was the word', since the words happen on the left-hand pages and the blobby characters mostly flow onto the right-handed pages. Readers will appreciate the way that Story's dialogue has its own handwritten font, in contrast to the clean computer font of the other dialogue and narration. The reader is never quite sure how Story fits in, and if the book's haphazard, jumpy progression constitutes 'story' or fights against it. If this book had been intended for children, it might succeed better if it was condensed into a standard 32-page format.

 One gets the feeling that the story's twists and turns and unexpected dialogue may exceed a child's attention span, and for an adult, only the loveliness of Durand's illustration and sense of design keep the adult reader going. Adult readers will either really like this book for its aesthetics and humour or grow very impatient with it. In this way, it very much stands alongside other works of art one encounters at the Tate Modern. But one feels much more fond of this piece of artwork because it fits nicely in the readers' hands, approaches them in a warm, friendly way, and they can reach out to tousle its pages. 

 2008-04-06