The Invention of Hugo Cabret

One of Arthur C. Clarke's famous laws of prediction is --
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."


One of the great magics for me in my life is the medium of cinema. Cinema has the ability to create life, destroy it, re-imagine it and turn it topsy-turvy in seconds. Sometimes, I feel movies makes one a voyeur -- making us peek in characters, emotions, desires of imaginary, nevertheless real people. Sometimes, I wonder if the people in the cinema can look back at us, voyeurs in great groups, watching their every move.

It is about this great magic called the movie that this wonderful book called - The Invention of Hugo Cabret deals with.

The book is a combination of multi-page illustrations with some pages with written words. It is a massive book, a replacement for a pillow! But, one could easily complete the book in an hour; and keep coming back to it in order dig deep into the illustrations and the words.

The book starts with an introduction by Professor H. Alcofrisbas as he starts describing the story about the kid called Hugo Cabret, living in 1931, whose life changes forever during the course of this story. Hugo Cabret lives inside the railway station and makes sure all the clocks in the railway station are running properly. He is not the official time keeper; but, his uncle is. His uncle had disappeared some time back, but none of the railway official know about it. Although, the railway officer keeps dropping off the monthly cheques for the time keeper's job; Hugo Cabret does not know how to use them. So, they keep accumulating, while Hugo steals food from the various shops in the railway station to keep himself alive.

He has one goal in his life - He has some set of drawings in a treasured notebook and an automaton that does not work. But, he thinks his father had got it to work, just before he died in the fire accident. He gets the automaton and the drawings and starts working on getting the automaton to work. He feels that once he gets it to work, he would be able to read some cryptic message from his father.

One day, he gets caught by a grumpy old man who lives by selling toys near to the railway station. The old man snatches the notebook with drawings from him and keeps it to himself. The old man refuses to give it back. The old man's granddaughter, a girl who reads a lot of books, promises to retrieve it for Hugo Cabret.

The rest of the story is about how the girl and Hugo Cabret retreive the book and try to understand the mystery and the hidden message in the automaton. I would not reveal more than this. But, the rest of the story leads to the story of the Georges Milies, the creator of the first science fiction movie in the history of world cinema - A trip to the moon

It is great combination of fictionalizing based on a real person and a real movie and writing a story around it. It would be a great read and source of entertainment for kids above 10+ (or any one who can start reading English). I enjoyed it a lot. Why don't you try it too?

The Red Tree

There are days when we feel extremely downcast and so lonely(run the Akon song here for effects!) that the whole world seems to pass us by. There is no hope in sight and days are dark and nights even darker. Anxiety and depression sets in and we keep wandering from one disaster to another. There almost seems to be no end for the depression. But, whenever there is a trough; there is always a peak near by.

This is the idea that is portrayed in this rather dark picture book by Shaun Tan called The Red Tree. A name less girl wakes up to find her room filled up with dry leaves which slowly envelope the whole room. She gets out and as she walks through the streets, there is a big crying fish that throws a dark shadow all over her. Every imagery that accompanies her through her journey is dark and poignant. We have no clue why there is always a great depressive mood hanging over her. But, it does not matter. Sometimes we get into depression for a rather small reason and sometimes the reasons are rather big. All we know in the illustrations is that the nameless girl is struck by a nameless / reasonless depression from which she is trying hard to get out. After a long wait, she returns back to her room to see a beautiful red tree blossoming right in front of her bed.

If you ever had a doubt that images can speak a thousand words; please stop by and pick up this book. One will be amazed by the brilliance of this young illustrator. Although this is a picture book, it is definitely not for our 5 year olds. It is more for young adults and people like us. It is the book that you may gift to a friend who is going through a rather tough time. Young children might not get it at all(or atleast that is what I think!).

Shaun Tan, the exemplary illustrator says the following about the book - The Red Tree

"I'd also been increasingly aware that illustration is a powerful way of expressing of feeling as well as ideas, partly because it is outside of verbal language, as many emotions can be hard to articulate in words. I thought it would therefore be interesting to produce an illustrated book that is all about feelings, unframed any storyline context, in some sense going ‘directly to the source’".

Aptly summarises this picture book.

ps: For more pictures/illustrations by Shaun Tan, check out the French site LaBoite Images , Lines and Colors and his own site.