Outside of a Dog: Tan, Shaun: Arrival, The

tikitu

tikitu wrote on April 5, 2008 at 5:05 PM:

Nice review. I stumbled on The Arrival recently and absolutely loved it. I had the same sense of impending doom you did -- the bloke who tells the story of the giants struck me as decidedly sinister, with his kid whispering in his ear and then they take our hero off to the docks and give him a fright and then /there's fire in his eyes/! ... A fairly fundamental misreading, turns out.

Kate

Kate wrote on April 5, 2008 at 7:05 PM:

tikitu, welcome, and sorry your comment was temporarily held for moderation; it shouldn't happen again.

I was interested by your LibraryThing review, especially your comment about the relative lack of detail in depicting the animals--that's something that went right by me, and I'll be considering it on a re-read.

Tikitu

Tikitu wrote on April 21, 2008 at 3:45 PM:

Hey no worries. (Whoo, I'm way late coming back to this...)

The animal detail thing intrigues me because it has to be a conscious decision -- he's clearly capable of making them less cutesy, but he's chosen not to. To me the result looks inconsistent, which is a shame -- especially given the incredibly high bar the rest sets up.

(I'm slowly making my way through your older posts, and my wishlist is growing... so thanks for writing!)

Dan Blum

Dan Blum wrote on April 29, 2008 at 10:16 PM:

Thank you for recommending this. I finally got around to reading it, and it is indeed excellent.

Kate

Kate wrote on April 29, 2008 at 10:19 PM:

Thank you for telling me--I really appreciate it!

Kate

Kate wrote on January 30, 2009 at 12:23 PM:

There's a little bit about the animal design in this interview.

David Tate

David Tate wrote on February 7, 2009 at 11:48 PM:

I missed this discussion the first time around -- thank you all for reminding us all every now and then with a new comment.

My local library has this shelved as "YFIC" -- Youth (or Young Adult) Fiction. I'm guessing that's a mistake along the lines of thinking that Watership Down is a kids' book because it has talking animals in it...?

Kate

Kate wrote on February 8, 2009 at 9:19 AM:

Yes, absolutely. There's nothing unsuitable for young adults in it, but its appeal is emphatically not limited, either.

tikitu

tikitu wrote on February 8, 2009 at 6:35 PM:

Great interview. I didn't have time to read it carefully, but every bit I stopped at let him sound very ... I don't know, genuine?

Doesn't quite answer my quibble, but to be honest I'm not sure what would. If I could chat with the bloke for an hour or so, now ...

If I had to shelve this one, I'd put one copy in the children's section (because plenty of kids are not going to be allowed to look elsewhere) and one under 'graphic novels (grown-up serious fiction in pictures)'. Because kids should be allowed to enjoy it too!

(Btw, I'm impressed you remembered to come back to this a year later -- wish my memory was so reliable.)