The Arrival

Shaun Tan’s The Arrival is only the second wordless narrative that I have ever read, although it is much more effective then my previous encounter, as well as having been made prior to the other.
The first thing that comes to mind for me when looking back at the story, is how much I enjoyed the setting, and I’m not just talking about the drawings. It definitely gets me into the mind set of a early 1900’s immigrant going through customs at Ellis Island. Later however, the landscape and environment that this character comes into is so imaginative and creative; far from anything like the real world. I just really like that mix of the quintessential immigrant story, with a surreal science fiction environment.
Since The Arrival contains no spoken or written words, it is completely dependant on expression to convey the emotions of the main character. As an animator, this peeks a very serious interest for me. Reading through it, I think to myself that if I could learn to express emotion anywhere close to this, then I would be in very good shape for my art. The subtleties are so incredibly successful, that we barely notice them, but can still very much appreciate them.
As much as I appreciate the skill and craftsmanship that I see in this book however, I still am not to sure that I really see it as an effective story telling method. As a writer, or storyteller, you want your audience to become submerged in the story. Ultimately you want them to temporarily suspend their sense of reality and adopt the reality in your story. For me, the lack of language can be counter productive in that sense. I feel as if I am watching these events unfold, but it’s as if the soundtrack as been lost, and I can’t hear a thing, and thus I have a harder time adopting the reality. So not only does the story feel less real, but speech in graphic narratives often provides the timing for the story. I don’t move onto the next panel until I’m done reading the speech in the one I’m on. This sets the timing and pacing of the story for me, and without those words, I just simply don’t know how long I should be looking at each image.