The Arrival

The Arrival by Shaun Tan is at first glance, a very beautiful piece of art. It is a very detailed graphic novel with no words, but still a lot of story to take in. The novel starts off with a scene of a man and his family. The man is preparing to leave somewhere, and once they head outside, we see that the world they are living in is much different from our own. Throughout this graphic novel we get to see and experience this new world, and what the man has left to do. The story has a theme of immigration and being lost in translation, and elements of help and survival. The story moves along nicely, but throws the viewer a twist now and then when elements such as flashbacks and fantastical elements show up.

The story, having no actual words to tell you what is going on, easily plays out in your head if you follow along with the illustrations. Being wordless, there is a certain amount of the story you can make up in your head, which I found really captivating. Being a fan of tabletop role playing games, I really enjoy imagining stories and scenarios for games. I found that when I followed along with The Arrival, I was making up the dialogue in my head for the characters and could hear them speak. Regardless of there being no words, the emotions and scenes portrayed in Tan's illustrations made the subconscious dialogue come naturally.

The world that Tan built for this graphic novel had a heavy air of curiosity. Every little element in his world left me wanting to know more, such as the fun little creatures that people kept around as what seemed to be pets. Showing the differences of different countries really helped build a large world. The man travels to a country that seems to be booming with success, after leaving his country, most likely due to the creeping black tentacle shadows that could be seen all over. Other countries seemed to be in their own state of turmoil also. When the man meets up with an older couple, they tell him a tale of how they escaped their country, which was being attacked by giant men with vacuums. A combination of the wonderful illustrations, the rich story, and the many unexplained elements, made this graphic novel extremely captivating.