Thornhill - review
Sadness and neglect, pain and worry and the need to hide alone.
Pam en-captures so much emotion with so few words, very cleverly done as her main character Mary is a selective mute, or rather her main character Thornhill is mute.
This book is amazing, it is NOT an easy read, or rather it is, there are very few words... BUT they mean so much.
Layered with a depth of felling and expression that few could achieve, Pam has worked some sort of magic here.
The pictures TELL a story, you have to pay attention and read them, then the words explain what you see.
Mary and her fellow inmates of Thornhill are orphans, alone, even when together.
There is a real sinister menace pervading and as a reader you are genuinely moved to tears and shocked, constantly.
Pam has brought to life a story that is so real and so of the moment with blazes in towers and also of the time when we didn't have technology, but, in a way the malaise was the same. 1982 and Princess Di is a subtle metaphor for sadness and loss for many and echoed beautifully with the Secret Garden thrown in.
It only took me an hour to READ Thornhill and it is 500 page long... I read EVERY word too!
There are perhaps 200 illustrations, something of it's own making that draws such feeling and has layers of meaning weaved within both stories, the one you don't read but see and the one you are harrowed by.
As ever, I don't want to do spoilers, I want to throw a feeling of intent to read and get something from books.
DO read this book, and then re-read it, then go over every picture without the words at all, that's what I'm doing now. Then start and slow down and take it all in. Maybe, just maybe then, you like me will get it.
We live in a horrible world, so many can't speak for themselves, so many are abused and neglected by the system, what can we do?
Simple...
Be a Friend
10/10 and more
Pam en-captures so much emotion with so few words, very cleverly done as her main character Mary is a selective mute, or rather her main character Thornhill is mute.
This book is amazing, it is NOT an easy read, or rather it is, there are very few words... BUT they mean so much.
Layered with a depth of felling and expression that few could achieve, Pam has worked some sort of magic here.
The pictures TELL a story, you have to pay attention and read them, then the words explain what you see.
Mary and her fellow inmates of Thornhill are orphans, alone, even when together.
There is a real sinister menace pervading and as a reader you are genuinely moved to tears and shocked, constantly.
Pam has brought to life a story that is so real and so of the moment with blazes in towers and also of the time when we didn't have technology, but, in a way the malaise was the same. 1982 and Princess Di is a subtle metaphor for sadness and loss for many and echoed beautifully with the Secret Garden thrown in.
It only took me an hour to READ Thornhill and it is 500 page long... I read EVERY word too!
There are perhaps 200 illustrations, something of it's own making that draws such feeling and has layers of meaning weaved within both stories, the one you don't read but see and the one you are harrowed by.
As ever, I don't want to do spoilers, I want to throw a feeling of intent to read and get something from books.
DO read this book, and then re-read it, then go over every picture without the words at all, that's what I'm doing now. Then start and slow down and take it all in. Maybe, just maybe then, you like me will get it.
We live in a horrible world, so many can't speak for themselves, so many are abused and neglected by the system, what can we do?
Simple...
Be a Friend
10/10 and more