Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
Nov. 15th, 2009 10:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zalenaI just finished a book that many of you would like, called Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan. Shaun Tan is an Australian author whose book on immigration The Arrival made a big splash a few years ago. His books are published in a kind of picture book format, occasionally going for an even artier design with stories integrated with the text as in his story 'Distant Rain' about what happens to all the unshared poetry in the world: It collects in a big ball that floats in the sky and eventually disintegrates in the rain showering everyone with bits of 'accidental verse.'
Barely visible, but undeniably present/To each reader they will whisper something different: something joyful, something sad, truthful, absurd, hilarious, profound, and perfect./No one will be able to explain the/strange feeling of weightlessness/or the private smile that remains/Long after the street sweepers have come and gone.
This story is presented with the pictures integrated with the text pasted together in different fonts and handwriting, almost like a ransom note.
Tales from Outer Suburbia consists of fifteen stories in which the unusual impinges on an otherwise ordinary setting. The illustrations are dreamlike and a little eerie, dealing with subjects like the places where the maps end, or distressed neighbors about which we only have the barest of clues involving their inner lives. One of my favorite stories is called Grandpa's Story, in which the narrator's grandfather tells him about his marriage to his grandmother.
"Weddings used to be more complicated in those days.... For a start, the bride and groom were sent away before the ceremony.... we were given a sealed envelope, a compass, and the traditional wedding boots---hardy things they were, with steel caps. Each guest told us a special riddle, like a cryptic crossword clue. We had to listen hard and remember them all, strange instructions that would supposedly make sense later on...."
The point, it seems, of all this preparation is a kind of crazy scavenger hunt where the couple must pick up certain items on the list, guided only by the cryptic clues, before they are allowed to get married.
Grandpa is a bit vague at this stage in the story, so its not clear where they actually went. Somewhere "past the factories and landfills" and "beyond all the signs on the roads." When we ask him to show us on a map, he simply shakes his head and in an amused way, as if to say, "one day you'll know."
What follows is nine pages of illustrations of strange, often creepy, dream-like landscapes: steep hills, looming monsters, unwelcoming cities, flooded plains.
The couple gets in an horrendous fight following a flat tire in the middle of the desert. It takes both of them to unbolt the spare in the trunk. Beneath it they find their wedding rings. They make up, decide the only way they will make it back to civilization is to do it together and find there way back to their home where there is just enough time to prepare for the ceremony.
Admittedly, we are skeptical about everything we've heard, particularly as Grandpa can have a very lively imagination. There is only one thing we can do---ask Grandma.
"Well, you know I rarely agree with your grandpa's account of anything," she tells us. "But in this case I'll make a rare exception. " And she shows us the other ring they found under the spare tire, out in the desert.
It's a very poetic description not just of weddings, but of marriage itself. (Privately, I think steel-toed wedding boots sound like a must for any realistic chance at marital bliss.)
But my favorite piece in the book is the first story, called 'The Water Buffalo,' which I include here in its entirety.
When I was a kid, there was a big water buffalo living in the vacant lot at the end of our street, the one with the grass no one ever mowed. He slept most of the time, and ignored everybody who walked past, unless we happened to stop and ask him for advice. Then he would come up to us slowly, raise his left hoof, and literally point us in the right direction. But he never said what he was pointing at, or how far we had to go, or what we were supposed to do once we got there. In fact, he never said anything because water buffalos are like that; they hate talking.
This was too frustrating for most of us. By the time anyone thought to "consult the buffalo," our problem was usually urgent and required a straightforward and immediate solution. Eventually we stopped visiting him altogether, and I think he went away sometime after that: All we could see was long grass.
It's a shame, really, because whenever we had followed his pointy hoof we'd always been surprised, relieved, and delighted at what we found. And every time we'd said exactly the same thing---"How did he know?"
How does he know? What is most compelling about the book is the sense that I know some of these dreams: I've dreamt them before. I have also had a sea-creature beached in my living room. I have consulted the buffalo, except in my case it was a six-legged bison that knocked me over at summer camp. And I know that any venture's best chance at success is a sturdy pair of task-appropriate boots.
For me this kind of strange picture book and requires much less credulity than cuddly things with hugs and bears and bunnies. The incorporation of the strange impinging on an ordinary suburban landscape acknowledges that this is a real, place, too. Not a place where nothing happens, but a place where everything happens for those who have eyes to see it.
Shaun Tan also has a beautifully designed website containing his books and some of his other work, the suburban landscape seems to be one of his regular themes:
http://www.shauntan.net/
Barely visible, but undeniably present/To each reader they will whisper something different: something joyful, something sad, truthful, absurd, hilarious, profound, and perfect./No one will be able to explain the/strange feeling of weightlessness/or the private smile that remains/Long after the street sweepers have come and gone.
This story is presented with the pictures integrated with the text pasted together in different fonts and handwriting, almost like a ransom note.
Tales from Outer Suburbia consists of fifteen stories in which the unusual impinges on an otherwise ordinary setting. The illustrations are dreamlike and a little eerie, dealing with subjects like the places where the maps end, or distressed neighbors about which we only have the barest of clues involving their inner lives. One of my favorite stories is called Grandpa's Story, in which the narrator's grandfather tells him about his marriage to his grandmother.
"Weddings used to be more complicated in those days.... For a start, the bride and groom were sent away before the ceremony.... we were given a sealed envelope, a compass, and the traditional wedding boots---hardy things they were, with steel caps. Each guest told us a special riddle, like a cryptic crossword clue. We had to listen hard and remember them all, strange instructions that would supposedly make sense later on...."
The point, it seems, of all this preparation is a kind of crazy scavenger hunt where the couple must pick up certain items on the list, guided only by the cryptic clues, before they are allowed to get married.
Grandpa is a bit vague at this stage in the story, so its not clear where they actually went. Somewhere "past the factories and landfills" and "beyond all the signs on the roads." When we ask him to show us on a map, he simply shakes his head and in an amused way, as if to say, "one day you'll know."
What follows is nine pages of illustrations of strange, often creepy, dream-like landscapes: steep hills, looming monsters, unwelcoming cities, flooded plains.
The couple gets in an horrendous fight following a flat tire in the middle of the desert. It takes both of them to unbolt the spare in the trunk. Beneath it they find their wedding rings. They make up, decide the only way they will make it back to civilization is to do it together and find there way back to their home where there is just enough time to prepare for the ceremony.
Admittedly, we are skeptical about everything we've heard, particularly as Grandpa can have a very lively imagination. There is only one thing we can do---ask Grandma.
"Well, you know I rarely agree with your grandpa's account of anything," she tells us. "But in this case I'll make a rare exception. " And she shows us the other ring they found under the spare tire, out in the desert.
It's a very poetic description not just of weddings, but of marriage itself. (Privately, I think steel-toed wedding boots sound like a must for any realistic chance at marital bliss.)
But my favorite piece in the book is the first story, called 'The Water Buffalo,' which I include here in its entirety.
When I was a kid, there was a big water buffalo living in the vacant lot at the end of our street, the one with the grass no one ever mowed. He slept most of the time, and ignored everybody who walked past, unless we happened to stop and ask him for advice. Then he would come up to us slowly, raise his left hoof, and literally point us in the right direction. But he never said what he was pointing at, or how far we had to go, or what we were supposed to do once we got there. In fact, he never said anything because water buffalos are like that; they hate talking.
This was too frustrating for most of us. By the time anyone thought to "consult the buffalo," our problem was usually urgent and required a straightforward and immediate solution. Eventually we stopped visiting him altogether, and I think he went away sometime after that: All we could see was long grass.
It's a shame, really, because whenever we had followed his pointy hoof we'd always been surprised, relieved, and delighted at what we found. And every time we'd said exactly the same thing---"How did he know?"
How does he know? What is most compelling about the book is the sense that I know some of these dreams: I've dreamt them before. I have also had a sea-creature beached in my living room. I have consulted the buffalo, except in my case it was a six-legged bison that knocked me over at summer camp. And I know that any venture's best chance at success is a sturdy pair of task-appropriate boots.
For me this kind of strange picture book and requires much less credulity than cuddly things with hugs and bears and bunnies. The incorporation of the strange impinging on an ordinary suburban landscape acknowledges that this is a real, place, too. Not a place where nothing happens, but a place where everything happens for those who have eyes to see it.
Shaun Tan also has a beautifully designed website containing his books and some of his other work, the suburban landscape seems to be one of his regular themes:
http://www.shauntan.net/
