false 920607 0734406940 9780734406941 1933 580 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179464443m/920607.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/920607.The_Arrival 38954 Shaun Tan 4058 1210 4 6 false Thu Oct 11 12:34:40 -0700 2007 Thu Oct 11 12:36:26 -0700 2007
In an essay for Viewpoint magazine, Shaun Tan had this to say:
“I am rarely interested in symbolic meanings, where one thing ‘stands for’ something else, because this dissolves the power of fiction to be reinterpreted. I’m more attracted to a kind of intuitive resonance or poetry we can enjoy when looking at pictures, and ‘understanding’ what we see without necessarily being able to articulate it.”


As a librarian and an avid reader, I’m surrounded by powerful words and their meanings. Reading The Arrival, I felt liberated from the obligation to make meaning, and enjoyed being able to let the pictures speak to me without making up a linear storyline. Questions came up, and my ideas about what was going on were constantly changing. For me, reading this book was a very emotional experience. In a manifestation of the old adage, a picture truly tells a thousand stories.
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