The Arrival

Author: Shaun Tan
Ages: 6+ to 100+

"What draws so many to leave everything behind and journey alone to a mysterious country, a place without family or friends, where everything is nameless and the future is unknown? This silent graphic novel is the story of every migrant, every refugee, every displaced person, and a tribute to all those who have made the journey." - Blurb of "The arrival".

The blurb says it all. This is the story of one such immigrant who leaves his family to go and seek a living in a strange place. So alien, so full of strange structures, weird plants and animals, everything so foreign. It is the story of how he tries to communicate with the locals, not knowing their language. How he finds a place to live, a pet, a series of basic jobs, how he learns the new way of life, meets refugees and immigrants and learns of their stories, makes friends, saves up and finally calls his family over to settle down with him.

This book is very emotional. I ended up holding it and reading it for quite a long time. Which is amazing, given the fact that this is a picture book. With no printed story, not even a word. And any letters and words that do come in the drawings of the strange place are even more stranger, so this book is a story told with nothing but art. In black and white with that worn-out effect so beautifully created, it is a masterpiece.

So very daunting, isn't it! That feeling of being far away from family, missing that familiarity and warmth that is home, trying to fit in and belong in a strange place full of busy people and their busy lives. I can't even imagine how it would feel for people displaced because of war, poverty and homelessness, moving away with nothing but meagre belongings and leaving behind everything that must have meant the world to them, sometimes even loved ones, forever. People trying desperately to forget, to remember, to find hope and move on. People trying to feel accepted, people trying to live.

Throughout the story are people who take the time to step out of their routine and offer help to a complete stranger, be it with the directions, tickets on transport, or even inviting him home for dinner. They befriend the immigrant, talk about how they ended up in this place and try to help him with their knowledge of the place ( have you ever had a flashback story rendered just with still life pictures?! unbelievable work!!).

The immigrant works really hard, he finally settles down well and his family becomes so at-home in the new place that they even start helping other new comers.

The best books are those that give you a mental picture so vivid that you even remember it long after finishing the book. Shaun Tan has somehow managed to bring out these mental pictures to life so well with his illustrations that I almost felt like I was watching a motion picture.  It transported me to a world so far away, roused so many deep memories and feelings from my sub-conscious and affected me in a very profound way.

The children have been sitting with this book for days together, making out their own meanings from the pictures and noticing so many unspoken feelings. I realized this must be a wonderful book to discuss in a class. Imagination, creativity, sensitivity, war, life, compassion, displacement, hard work, value of family and love, there is so much that this book has to offer as classroom material.

Here's what Shaun Tan has to say about the book.

And here's the book ( most of it) on Youtube. (although it isn't as intense as it would feel when you actually read the book).

And that immigrant in the story, it is actually the author's drawing of himself.

The Arrival. Disturbingly strange, yet so familiar.

The Lost Thing

Author and Illustrator: Shaun Tan
Ages: 10 - 100+

What are we doing like hamsters in wheels, grinding through each day with a pre-programmed set of tasks...

What are we doing, running madly week after week, like horses in reins, never bothering to notice what is happening around us...

Too busy to care, too pre-occupied to bother, no time to be sensitive to beings around, yet always trying to belong somewhere or with someone, a system, a clan whether or not it makes us happy. Whether or not we feel belonged!

The Lost thing is one of the most disturbing, unsettling books I have ever come across in the recent times. I mean unsettling in a very positive way here, for Shaun Tan has created such a wonderful piece of "surreal reality" in his book. Every single drawing tells a story. Each time you read the book, it conveys a new meaning, a new angle. I understand the author's apprehension in his book being designated for kids' shelves. It is a more intricate, more mature story with more profound hidden questions for adults. It is one of the books that look so artistic and rich that you would want to proudly display in your bookshelf. At least that is how I look at it.

No surprise then, that the animated version of the book won an Oscar for the best animated short film category in 2011. Or that the book itself won many literary awards in many countries.

The book is about a beach combing boy whose hobby is collecting and classifying bottle tops. During one such expedition he comes across a weird metallic thing looking like a red kettle with a green octopus inside standing alone on the beach. Nobody seems to have noticed is, neither is anybody bothered to check it out. Plain apathy, or perhaps they do not dare to venture out of the mundane daily life.

The boy, maybe due to his sensitivity to surroundings or perhaps because he has time in his hands, notices the thing and pities it and takes it home. Mum and Dad barely notice it either, as they are too busy reading newspaper or watching TV. It is as if they do not even allow an interruption to their routine, no matter how dull and mechanical their routine is. Between their pre-occupation, they ask the boy to take it back and immediately forget about it. The boy then takes it to his friend, who basically has something to say about everything. But this lost thing defies his knowledge and he admits that it is as if it came from nowhere and belongs nowhere!

Then the boy sees an advert asking people to bring in any strange things that they find anywhere and so takes the lost thing there. There he is given, unsurprisingly, a HUGE bundle of paperwork to be completed for the same. (Makes you wonder if this is also one of the reasons why we seldom bother to turn in any lost things we find to concerned authorities.). As he stands there wondering what to do, someone approaches him and tells him that if he turned the thing in, it would just disappear under a barrage of more such things, classified and forgotten, never to be seen again. And if he really cared,  he should take it to another place. The boy finally leaves the thing in that new place, which seems to have even more weird looking creatures, none of which seemed to belong there, but looked happy enough.

The story concludes with the boy saying that he still thinks about the lost thing, especially when he notices something that doesn't quite fit, something with a weird, sad sort of look. But he sees less and less of such things as days pass, maybe because there aren't any more lost things. Or perhaps he just stopped noticing them. Maybe he is simply too busy doing other stuff.

The end haunts us and questions us long after the story is over.

The background is a world of fantasy, bleak and filled with only metallic things in a rusty environment. There is simply no plant life. Maybe that is what would happen when we stop caring. When all we think of is our self and our chronic daily existence.

The "thing" could be anything. Anyone. Do we care enough to do what the boy did when we see a sad, helpless soul around? Do we even bother to stop and enquire? Or are we like all those insensitive, busy people, simply with no time to care? Do we try to see things differently? Is it nice to be creative and with imagination, or is it better to be a run of the mill creature?

I must really thank my elder son for introducing Shaun Tan to me. He had read a Shaun Tan book called " The Arrival" in school. It is another stunning story with absolutely no words, about an immigrant in a new land, away from family. I am yet to get my hands on that book, but from what I have read, it is yet another masterpiece...

The Lost Thing.  Helps you find your self.