The Depositiory: A Dream Book

Klimowski follows the tradition of Ward, Masereel, Nückel, and others in presenting this beautiful, baffling story. Black and white ink drawings carry this wordless narrative, so the reader's involvement is even more important here than in textual tales for bringing its world to life. As a result, the story can differ with each reader and each reading. The central imagery deals with winged dream-people, whose wings are opened books rather than feather and flesh. Non-fliers exist in this world too; the story's conflict arises from tension between fliers and non-fliers. I would like to say more, I tried to, but everything else I thought to say was my own interpretation. The whole value of this book comes from creating your own meaning, so giving you mine would have been a spoiler of the worst sort. I'll just say that flying on wings of books is an image that evokes many ideas, at least for me. The artistic style seems rougher of line and blockier than the woodcuts from artists named earlier. Knowing how expressive a precise line can be, I found this a weakness. Your opinion is likely to differ, especially if you are not yet familiar with those works. Still, Klimowski's book deserves a space on the shelf that hold those older masters' works. -- wiredweird