prettyrain's Full Review: Nick Bantock - Sabine's Notebook: The Extraordinar...
Before I took an IQ test a few years ago I had a sample question that was something like, "What would you do if you found an envelope with a stamp and address written on it?" Well, of course I would read it! Uh... wrong answer. I was supposed to put it in a mailbox. (Oh, what fun is there in that?)
So this book, Griffin and Sabine, is the perfect book for my desire to open other people's mail. Not just any mail -- beautiful, personal, well-written mail.
Yes, the book is a collection of letters from Griffin, an artist in London, and Sabine, another artist (although more of a free spirit) in the Islands of Sicmon. Each page of the book is a letter -- the top page is the front of the envelope or post-card and on the other side is the actual text of the letter. There are actually envelopes stuck in the pages with real letters inside you take out and read.
Just like sneaking into something you're not supposed to! The thrill. I kept hoping someone would walk in the cafe and catch me reading a piece of the beautiful mail and wonder what it was. Wouldn't I appear mysterious and interesting? I'd be just like Sabine!
Oh, the story -- Sabine and Griffin have never met, but Sabine is familiar with his work because she "sees" each piece as he creates it. As if she were looking through his own eyes. Quite a connection, eh. Almost an X File. But the connection is more than just mysterious.. it's beautiful and sensual and tender too. And yeah, we all want to know how that is possible. But the connection is obvious and believable. In just 17 pages you feel as if you've stepped into the lives of these two characters, even though there is no "story" to read along with it. Just the letters.
The images on the cards and letters alone are worth giving the book a check out. Nick Bantock is truly gifted and original. Though the work from Sabine and Griffin might be seen as similar -- they are connected after all -- the correspondence carries the voice of the specific character.
I want to read this book again and again, and am tempted (though I'd never do it!) to peel the letters out of it and carry them around with me.
Or maybe I should move to an island, design stamps, commune with beetles and write inspirational epistles to lonely, misunderstood artists everywhere.
Griffin & Sabine, the most creative and discussed bestseller of 1991, left readers on the edge of a precipice. In the second volume of this inventiive...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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