Griffin & Sabine: an extraordinary correspondence

First read in January 2005. ( )

The 'I liked it' comes mostly form the form of the book. Postcards (front side on one page, back side on the other), letters that are still in an envelope. It indeed made me feel like reading soemone else's mail.

ButI did not really like the contents. It felt to me like it were blurps of a lonely soul and when I do not know the person that is blurping like that or haven't gotten the chance to 'meet' the character of a book that blurps, I have a hard time reading them. I do not really understand, therefore miss the feeling and then as a result do not particularly like it.

A book that I wouldn't have met and read when I hadn't been a member of bookcrossing. ( )

http://www.cozylittlebookjournal.com/2010/04/griffon-and-sabine-extraordinary.ht...

Wow! This is the first in Nick Bantock's amazing series. I absolutely MUST read them all in sequence now! The book was short, clearly the beginning of a larger work, but so psychically satisfying. The characters wrote letters to each other that the reader could actually take out of envelopes attached to the pages and read! I felt like I was holding artifacts of these people's lives! So exciting! ( )

Postcard artist Griffin gets a card from mysterious Sabine who somehow can view his world from thousands of miles away, and the two strike up a rather unusual correspondence. This is an inventive and aesthetically interesting epistolary story that has an unexpected spin at the end, resulting in more questions than answers. I was mainly impressed with the art, but the ending was surprisingly dark and intrigued me enough to pick up the following parts of the trilogy although I would have liked a more fleshed-out story. Opening the envelopes to read the continuing story was much more satisfactory than I would ever have thought even though (or maybe because) it felt slightly illicit to read someone else's mail. ( )

This gets five stars because of the original conception and beauty of the visual execution--even though if this were text only I doubt it would impress. A friend of mine mentioned the book and when I confessed I had never heard of it raved about it.

It's a funny little book. Less than fifty pages, it's the correspondence between two artists, Sabine from the South Seas and Griffin of London. This is the text of the first letter, from Sabine to Griffin:

It's good to get in touch with you at last.

Could I have one of your fish postcards?

I think you were right--the wine glass has more impact than the cup.

Just one thing--Griffin had never met her before.

There are 19 pieces of correspondence, all short, and as a story this isn't all that strong. The romantic aspect, for one, is beyond rushed. But the experience of the book is another matter. The postcards, even the stamps of the South Sea Island, the decoration on the envelopes, are lovely, several are surreal and Dali-esque. And the letters aren't simply text on a page. Instead, an envelope is glued to the page. You open the flap and slip out the one-page letter and read. There's something about the experience of holding the letter in your hand and reading it that can't be captured by its contents.

So, for prose and story, maybe I'd give it a two. But for the experience of this...what? Pop-up book for adults? I'm going to give it five stars. I was enchanted, even if I doubt I'll ever get the other books in the series. ( )