Pulp of the week - Wonderstruck

The beautiful Wonderstruck is written and illustrated by Brian Selznick in the same style as his brilliant The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Wonder Struck ties together museums, silent films, wolves, loneliness, and dioramas with charm, grace and heart.

The tales follows two stories - one in the 1920's and one that is contemporary. In the modern story a boy from Michigan travels to New York searching for the secrets of his past and his identity. He soon finds that a Wolf Diorama in the New York Natural History Museum holds to the key to his identity.

In the past, the daughter of a flapper is struggling with similar issues and soon the two stories seems locked on a collision course.

The prose is lovely and the story touching. The art is, like in Hugo, sublime. It is the intersection of the two and the placement of the art pages with the text that makes Selznick's work so wonderfully compelling. At times the tension is so tight that you blast through the art and soak in the images eager to see what that next page turn will bring. The control Selznick has with the pacing, by controlling the reader with the art when needed and the text to slow down, to add detail, is brilliant.

Selznick seems to pick topics that I love (natural history museums and the early days of cinema) so I am sure that adds to my joy, but I think it would be the rare reader that would not be charmed by Wonder Struck.

I'll give Wonder Struck a 9 out of 10. This is another brilliant book.

Pulp of the Week - The Invention of Hugo Cabret

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Written and illustrated by Brian Selznick

I am the last person in my house (family of 5) to read Brian Selznick's glorious novel / picture book hybrid, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. It is a two inch thick short novel that is rich with wonders and surprises. Selznick intersperses his text with double page pencil drawings that advance the plot and enhance the characters.

 

Selznick says that he was inspired to write this story after reading a book about a collection of automata (mechanical performing figures) that was donated to a Paris museum and then neglected to the point they had to be discarded. Selznick said, "I imagined a boy finding those broken, rusted machines, and at that moment, Hugo and his story were born."
 

Martin Scorsese is making the film of this book (which many friends of mine love) but it wasn't until reading it that I truly understood why Scorsese wanted to make the film of this story. It reaches back into the very roots of cinema in wonderous ways.

The book itself alternates between prose and art in a quite brilliant manner. It is not like a long comic book, nor a heavily illustrated novel. The prose flows to the art  and back and every page turn is a delightful surprise. The art often propels the action forward, drawing your eye to details that might take far longer to describe than you want at that moment. You see it and turn the page eager for the next revelation.

It is a quick read, but Brian Selznick has crafted a very memorable and enjoyable book that will stick with me for a long time to come.

 

I give The Invention of Hugo Cabret 9.5 out of 10 stars.