Only once before have I encountered a fantasy novel. I was offered the job of abridging the latest work of a prestigious science fiction writer and I readily accepted the opportunity of employment.
It cannot have taken me more than an hour to realise my grave error in accepting this task. I couldn’t understand where the story was happening or indeed what was happening. Perhaps, above all, I was very confused about why it was happening: “Why was there a giant, intelligent ship flying through space to combat other ships, populated by creatures that spoke like humans but had wings or tails or special powers?” Call me literal-minded, but I was entirely flawed as to the point.
Faced by the prospect of abridging the book, I felt as though I’d been hurled into the black abyss along with all the flying ships. Whilst my inclinations were to eradicate as many pages as possible (preferably the entire volume), my limited mastery of the plot made it risky to delete a single paragraph. My relief when the publishers decided to cancel the abridgement was very great indeed.
So, on flicking through Five Wounds: an Illuminated Novel to uncover a society of dogs, angels and deformed men, it would be fair to say I panicked. Was I really the right reader for this book – let alone an acceptable reviewer? But, having now reached the last of its elaborately printed pages, I’m not certain I can define who the ‘right’ reader would be.
As the author, Jonathan Walker, told me himself, Five Wounds will engage people interested in book design as much as those seeking a fantastical story. This is not surprising: the layout of the novel is immediately striking because it mimics the columns of the Bible text. The pages are decorated in the style of an illuminated manuscript: intricate black and white, Escheresque pictures are sometimes contained in frames by the side of the text; and at other times let free to curl around the columns in conversation with the words they describe.
But perhaps ‘describe’ isn’t the most appropriate word when you consider the principles on which this unusual book is constructed. The images don’t just visually present what has been related in words; instead they provide an interpretation or even an additional layer of the story being told.
This relationship between words and pictures originates in the way Jonathan Walker and illustrator Dan Hallett work. When I interviewed them (one in Sydney and the other in Barcelona) they both recalled that, on occasion, Jon would be prompted to revise his writing on the basis of the illustrations produced by Dan. This collaborative process points to the importance of pictures in the book, not least in the heraldic code which forms a key to the characters and their evolving connections: each page is emblazoned with a little shield which contains meaning in its colour and shape.
The heraldic code, as with so many of the theories and ideas that underlie this novel, is not an entirely imaginary creation. Go to Jonathan Walker’s extensive blog and you’ll find a fund of thoroughly researched information on anything from heraldic tinctures to Goya and William Blake (two of the principle inspirations for the book’s format). Perhaps most unexpected are the essays Walker has written and published on grieving for his parents; these play into Five Wounds by what Walker describes as an act of autoplagiarism. He has concealed quotations from these essays within the pages of his illuminated book, forming yet another layer in its composition.
The layers of meaning in the story are as important as the layers of meaning in an heraldic shield. One of its most visible intentions is to encourage the reader to consider the act of reading and the process of interpretation. In places the novel becomes self-consciously literary and allusive: when we first meet the angel and heroine, Gabriella, she rolls a cigarette with the page of a Bible, prompting a reflection on the nature of God’s language – the form of his messages. Her thoughts drift over the symbolic language of hieroglyphs; the significance of heraldic tinctures; and the nature of signs. As she enters the palace of her father, trying to ‘escape from the cacophonous meaning’ that engulfs her, ‘barking and slavering’, she decides to create her own language. She walks through the palace rooms renaming them according to her memories: ‘The only rules were that the labels should be assigned arbitrarily, and that she would not disclose them to anyone.’ Not surprisingly, the next page reveals a wild blue leviathan tossing in blood red water on the end of a fishing hook, a cartoon speech bubble spewing a confusion of letters and numbers out of its mouth. The hand-written annotations, which are frequently scrawled in the margins of this book, state ‘NOT A WHALE’, with an arrow pointing down at the creature floundering at the bottom of the page.
The academic background of the author of Five Wounds is sometimes unmistakeable and it’s impossible not to notice the literary questions which the book sets up. Yet it’s also an engrossing story which draws you in with its extraordinary characters and intricate plot. To my amazement, I began to lose my scepticism and turn the pages with a genuine care for the characters’ fates. I squirmed at the gruesome deaths and held my breath as the hero and heroine made their getaway; by the end I was greedy to know what happens, fully absorbed in the throes of the story. My progress was checked, however, when the ending arrived. There wasn’t one pat conclusion, but two. In a final act of literary guile, the book pushes you back to consider how – as well as what – you are reading.
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