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Ten years ago, Nick Bantock — until then an illustrator and
creator of pop-up books — shot to sudden fame with Griffin &
Sabine, a love story unlike any ever published. It was a
beautiful, enigmatic series of original postcards and illustrated
letters (which had to be removed from their envelopes to be read),
exchanged by Griffin Moss, a London illustrator, and the
mysterious Sabine Strohem, unknown to Griffin but sharing a
psychic awareness with him. It appealed to readers' sense of
romance — and their voyeuristic inclinations.
It quickly became a bestseller, as did Sabine's Notebook and
The Golden Mean, completing what became known as the Griffin &
Sabine trilogy.
While enormous attention has been paid to the quality of the
illustrations and the love story at the heart of the books, little
mention has been made of the trilogy's complex psychological
subtext. A Jungian reading would suggest that Griffin and Sabine
are manifestations of opposing aspects of a single personality —
Bantock's, perhaps.
The author/illustrator continued this psychological exploration
in later books, including The Forgetting Room and The Venetian's
Wife, and it is an exploration to which he returns in his
brilliant new illustrated novel, The Gryphon. The first book in a
new trilogy, it brings back Griffin and Sabine and shows Bantock
upping the ante significantly.
The Gryphon begins by introducing two new correspondents —
Matthew Sedon, a young archeologist at work in Alexandria, and his
relatively new-found love Isabella de Reims, a student in Paris.
To conquer the distance between them, the pair exchange postcards
and letters. (Bantock neatly deals with the niggling question of
"Why letters in the age of e-mail?" by emphasizing the
romance of the printed word. Besides, Isabella's computer is on
its last legs.)
It is not crucial to have read the original trilogy to enjoy
The Gryphon. Bantock summarizes the plot with a brief introduction
and subtle comments. A close re-reading of the first three books
will, however, reap significant benefits in the recognition of
recurring patterns and motifs.
The first of these patterns is Sabine's introduction. In a
conscious echo of her first approach to Griffin Moss, Matthew
receives a postcard from Sabine, whom he has never met, yet who
nevertheless seems to know much about him. The first postcard
Matthew receives is, in fact, the final postcard of The Golden
Mean.
Over the course of a few more exchanges, Sabine directs Matthew
to pick up a package, being held for safekeeping in Alexandria,
which contains the original correspondence of Griffin and Sabine.
She urges the young archeologist to read the letters. "Do not
be put off by the personal nature of these documents. There is a
much broader significance."
With The Gryphon, Bantock is committed to shifting away from
"the personal nature" and exploring "the broader
significance." As a result, the novel is more complex than
any in the previous trilogy. The addition of a new pair of lovers
complicates the correspondence (letters and postcards crossing
back and forth among four characters), but their inclusion, and
the nature of the new couple, signals a deliberate shift in
emphasis.
Where much of the pleasure of the first trilogy lay in the
anticipation of Griffin and Sabine's first meeting, Matthew and
Isabella are already intimate, already in love. By removing that
anticipation and acknowledging the first set of correspondence,
Bantock is free to more directly explore psychological depths,
offering a vivid Jungian, alchemical account of transmutation and
transformation.
That's not to say that The Gryphon is dry and scholarly. Far
from it. It's a heady brew of love and separation, passion and
mystery. It's a breezy read, for the act of reading someone else's
mail tends to bring out the furtive and speedy in even the most
careful of readers. The correspondence can be devoured in a single
sitting.
But such a reading, however satisfying, is superficial. It does
a disservice to the integrity of Bantock's vision. His art (on
postcards, stamps, envelopes and ephemera) is far from window
dressing or gimmickry. The illustrations are integral to the novel
and provide a second level of narrative. They echo, in an allusive
rather than an illustrative manner, developments in the text.
Simultaneously, the pictures develop a complex language of
symbols and motifs that speaks more directly to the reader's
subconscious than words do. This pictorial language is replete
with angels and animals, fragmentary maps and figures from myth.
Either the themes of transformation, growth and transmutation
are brought vividly into focus through this visual lexicon ... or
they're just interesting pictures, illustrating a heady, romantic
and mysterious story of two sets of distant lovers, destined to be
together. It's up to each reader to decide upon his or her
approach to The Gryphon (and all of Bantock's books).
With a narrative as intriguing as The Gryphon's, and with
characters as vivid and fully realized as Griffin, Matthew,
Isabella and Sabine, most readers will be fully content. However,
those who choose to explore the mysterious realms of the human
soul are fortunate indeed to have Bantock as their guide and
trickster.
Robert J. Wiersema is a frequent contributor to
The Vancouver Sun.
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