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A review by davygibbs
Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
4.0
A gorgeous and moving picture book for adults, or young adults, I suppose. I'm not sure I would've gotten much from it when I was a teen, but then, I had patience only for hobbits and hyperspace at that age.
The tendency these days is to assume that when a writer or musician or filmmaker creates a work of art about the suburbs, he or she does so primarily to disparage them. I don't think that's the case here. Tan uses the suburbs not to praise them or curse them, really, but as a familiar backdrop against which these odd fables may leap out with colors and characters shining all the brighter. Tales from Outer Suburbia is not really about the suburbs at all; it's about magic and fantasy, and how extraordinary things can happy to ordinary people. In "The Inner Courtyard," a struggling family glimpses an exotic secret garden through a hole in the attic floor. "Alert but Not Alarmed" introduces us to a neighborhood full of budding artists, transforming ballistic missiles into colorfully painted birdhouses and pizza ovens. Shaun Tan doesn't bristle at the mundane; these stories would be nothing without it.
There's a push and pull at work in these stories, a series of comfortable contradiction--restless characters with endless reserves of patience, stubborn kids with open minds, mute houseguests filled with gratitude, neighbors who want to fit in by standing out. Maybe this book IS about the suburbs as we know them--maybe there is some social commentary mixed in somewhere--but to me, it's about what's waiting just under the surface, waiting for that first tentative scratch.
The tendency these days is to assume that when a writer or musician or filmmaker creates a work of art about the suburbs, he or she does so primarily to disparage them. I don't think that's the case here. Tan uses the suburbs not to praise them or curse them, really, but as a familiar backdrop against which these odd fables may leap out with colors and characters shining all the brighter. Tales from Outer Suburbia is not really about the suburbs at all; it's about magic and fantasy, and how extraordinary things can happy to ordinary people. In "The Inner Courtyard," a struggling family glimpses an exotic secret garden through a hole in the attic floor. "Alert but Not Alarmed" introduces us to a neighborhood full of budding artists, transforming ballistic missiles into colorfully painted birdhouses and pizza ovens. Shaun Tan doesn't bristle at the mundane; these stories would be nothing without it.
There's a push and pull at work in these stories, a series of comfortable contradiction--restless characters with endless reserves of patience, stubborn kids with open minds, mute houseguests filled with gratitude, neighbors who want to fit in by standing out. Maybe this book IS about the suburbs as we know them--maybe there is some social commentary mixed in somewhere--but to me, it's about what's waiting just under the surface, waiting for that first tentative scratch.