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A review by iseefeelings
Beautiful Darkness by Fabien Vehlmann
4.0
'Beautiful Darkness' is a graphic novel originally published in French (Drawn & Quarterly Publishing House, 2009).
The book narrator is a tiny girl named Aurora. After a strange incident happened in her nesting place, she accidentally finds herself as a survival leader for her community of tiny people in the wild. However, what seems like a new kind of fairy tale gradually turned out to be a horror story.
I have to give a big applause for not only the excellent watercolour illustrations of Kerascoët (the pen name of the married couple Marie Pommepuy and Sébastien Cosset) but also a unique story written by Marie Pommepuy, developed by her and Fabien Vehlmann. This graphic novel can be seen as an experiment of portraying horror in layers of opposing elements: beneath the dreamy colour palette is the overwhelming amount of dark tragedy, under the guise of innocence is the cold-hearted deed and your trusted ones are nothing but traitors. However, most of the details can hardly be explained by logic due to its vague context. It's the imagination that guides you through the book better. Simultaneously, the reading becomes more personal since each reader links the details of the book with their experiences differently.
(Is Aurora heroine of her own story or just a mere being trying her best to survive? Why is it that a dead girl - in the dream of the unknown character - wakes up in the autumn scene? When the tiny characters saw the corpse, why there is no one come to wonder a single thing about the existence of that 'object'? etc.)
Despite all of that, there is still humour presented in the book. Perhaps it aims to lighten up the darkness, or it just bottles up the terror then quickly latches the bright red blood onto your heart in the following frames.
This graphic novel is not a good gift to those only embracing the traditional fairy tales. There are no lessons in 'Beautiful Darkness' for children. You can interpret this work, interestingly, by all the challenges you have been through in life because it mirrors the harsh truth you might have encountered. The book also reminds us that not everything has a definite answer for its cause, and sometimes literary can help you grow more than you had expected.
The book narrator is a tiny girl named Aurora. After a strange incident happened in her nesting place, she accidentally finds herself as a survival leader for her community of tiny people in the wild. However, what seems like a new kind of fairy tale gradually turned out to be a horror story.
I have to give a big applause for not only the excellent watercolour illustrations of Kerascoët (the pen name of the married couple Marie Pommepuy and Sébastien Cosset) but also a unique story written by Marie Pommepuy, developed by her and Fabien Vehlmann. This graphic novel can be seen as an experiment of portraying horror in layers of opposing elements: beneath the dreamy colour palette is the overwhelming amount of dark tragedy, under the guise of innocence is the cold-hearted deed and your trusted ones are nothing but traitors. However, most of the details can hardly be explained by logic due to its vague context. It's the imagination that guides you through the book better. Simultaneously, the reading becomes more personal since each reader links the details of the book with their experiences differently.
(Is Aurora heroine of her own story or just a mere being trying her best to survive? Why is it that a dead girl - in the dream of the unknown character - wakes up in the autumn scene? When the tiny characters saw the corpse, why there is no one come to wonder a single thing about the existence of that 'object'? etc.)
Despite all of that, there is still humour presented in the book. Perhaps it aims to lighten up the darkness, or it just bottles up the terror then quickly latches the bright red blood onto your heart in the following frames.
This graphic novel is not a good gift to those only embracing the traditional fairy tales. There are no lessons in 'Beautiful Darkness' for children. You can interpret this work, interestingly, by all the challenges you have been through in life because it mirrors the harsh truth you might have encountered. The book also reminds us that not everything has a definite answer for its cause, and sometimes literary can help you grow more than you had expected.