Perhaps the most unique aspect of Shaun Tan’s book The Arrival, other than its obvious use of solely pictures to tell a story, is its ability to put the reader in the perspective of a new immigrant.  Rather than merely relay stories of a journey to a new land, Tan directly immerses you into the mindset of confusion in coping with the norms of a different world.

I noticed several references to New York City from a bizarre, complicated transportation system (symbolizing the subway) to street fairs, passport confirmations and laborious jobs similar to those available at the turn of the century.  I also observed the foreign language, which also aids in putting the uncertainty into perspective and helping the reader sympathize with the main character.

The book reminded me of a story I read long ago in which a variety of seemingly strange rituals were ornately described.  At the end of the story, it is revealed that the rituals illustrated were all typical American habits, like brushing one’s teeth.  I think this relates because both force you examine what you find most familiar and consider the possibility of this being unusual to those who simply have not had the same experiences or cultural upbringing.

I think Tan’s purpose is to highlight that we all have similarities in this sense, which he exemplifies with the pictures of a myriad of beautifully diverse people in the front and back of the book.

-Jacqui Larsen

These days, when people are asked to go look at museums or artistic places around the boroughs, they use the excuse: “I just don’t have the time!” “The Arrival,” designed by Shaun Tan, is the perfect source of art and culture for those people who are too busy to get outside and immerse themselves in the cultural side of our fine city.

At first, I was a little confused about why we were assigned a “picture book” for a college-level seminar, but after the first five pages I knew exactly why. “The Arrival” is no children’s book, even though that’s the section it’s categorized under in the Queens Library system. It’s an exploration of immigration, cultures of the world, life, death, good, evil and a long list of other topics. The first time I saw a strong example of one of these topics was on the fifth page. The image found there depicts the family the story centers on walking away from their home as the shadow of a tail (of what I believe to be a dragon) hovers above them. This image can be interpreted in numerous ways, but I take it to mean the family has an evil force or encounter lurking ominously in their past (as well as the father’s future).

The strong immigration story involves the father traveling to countries unknown and attempting to settle in there for work and to start life anew. The situation the father was in really makes one think about other immigrant families. Fathers are usually the first members of families to travel to other countries, and the spouse and / or children follow. Such is the cue in “The Arrival.”

One other image that remained in my mind after “reading” the book was the image that showed the progression of a plant through the four seasons. It’s on the fifth and sixth pages in Part V of the book. The reason I like these two pages is because they remind of a picture that hangs in my father’s dental office. It’s entitled “Change” and shows a tree at different times during a year when viewed from different angles. It’s sort of a 3-dimensional photo because you really have to move to see each stage of the tree. “The Arrival” links the cycle of a plant or tree during the year perfectly with stages of life. As the tree began as a lone plant, the father began life anew in another country. As the tree lost it’s leaves only to become whole again in time, the father’s family meets him in the new country in time.

The four seasons of a tree as seen in Part V of "The Arrival."

The book ends with an image showing the daughter of the man who came to the new country helping guide a newcomer to the country. The girl was once a newcomer who needed help finding her way, and now she can help show others the way around her new home.

The illustrations presented in Shaun Tan’s The Arrival may create confusion, but isn’t this exactly how the immigrants felt as they came to the strange new world for the first time? We invariably hear stories of people who migrated to America in History channel documentaries such as Pane Amaro and from our grandparents, but it’s almost impossible to actually know what it was like. Many of my friends have experience difficulty dorming in college and fending for themselves, but imagine moving to a new country where the language is foreign, the area is unfamiliar, and you have to fight your way from the ground up to survive. I felt like that’s what the images in The Arrival are trying to portray. The recurring image of the man in every other image signifies distress, confusion, and a perpetual state of angst.

We see images of children crying, people waiting in long lines for trains, husbands and wives parting, ships sailing, clouds of pollution emanating from smokestacks, clusters of people on ships – looking weak, tired, fatigued, miserable. I feel like Tan uses pictures to delineate the difficulty of immigration because a picture can say more than a thousand words ever could. We see intermittent images of the “new world,” a world of industry, pollution, and ceaseless competition.

More importantly, we are constantly reminded of the loss of contact between the immigrants and their families back in their respective countries. We see pictures of men writing and mailing letters, placing stamps on the letters, and sending them out. In the documentary, Pane Amaro, Italian immigration is illustrated as abject and morose – yet it was necessary for people to make money and survive. The Arrival is a poignant graphic novel that manages to express more than words ever could. The weird creature on the cover underscores the unfamiliarity thrown in the face of every immigrant and how they had to cope with each new facet of society standing in their path to success.

Why are there so many animals?… Just wondering.

Immigration seems to be one of the main themes this semester because the autobiography in English class, Brother I’m Dying,  discusses the similar difficulty of the transition immigrants suffer through.

This new land, most likely New York, is depicted as a refuge for people who have to escape the horrors from their own country.  The main character, with the intention of bringing his wife and daughter over, leaves home because he and his family are being oppressed.  These feelings are evident from their fear-ridden facial expressions, the deserted streets, and the lurking shadows of scary-looking claws.  We can sense that there is something dark and evil present although, we might not be able to pinpoint exactly what, or who, it is.

Every person the main character engages with talks about his past and the horrors his country possessed, which were, surprisingly, all different.  The first man faced mass genocide in his country, which possibly depicted the Holocaust.  The old man escaped the damages of war in his country.  All here now working with a huge smile on their face did nothing but encourage the main character to achieve this kind of life too.  The “American Dream” being not the riches of the world on your doorstep but being the chance of peace and safety.  With this fact, one can lead a happy, mostly mediocre financial, life.

When I first opened Shaun Tan’s “The Arrival” I was surprised to find that the book had no words, besides a brief description in the beginning, and a page at the end thanking all the people who helped and sources of information. The last time I read a picture book was so long ago that i can’t even distinctly remember it. But even then the picture book had words, sentences, and a general story line no matter how simple. However, this book was still different than any book i have experienced in my memory. Usually a book can paint a scene in my mind, but this book was the painted scene, and I was the narrator.

This creates a unique feeling when you “read” the book. You could read it multiple times, and each time create a new story to be told by the pictures. I write read in apostrophes because technically you are not reading. Technically you are also not watching as you would television. This adds another unique perspective only found in a radical book such as “The Arrival.” You are not reading, watching, but rather looking at pictures and creating a storyboard in your head.

Although everyone who reads this book perceives it differently, the concept behind the story is still the same. Immigration, is something extremely unique to a big city such as New York. Most inhabitants of New York City come from families who immigrated decades ago, and prospered in a vastly different world. Likewise, my family immigrated to New York searching for opportunities beyond their farming and fishing way of life in the Italian island of Sicily. The hieroglyphic like symbols express the difficulty of learning a new language, and the confusion created by maps and these unknown symbols. Similar to the type of book, the theme of the book, immigration, is a general experience with millions of unique perspectives which can be shown through the different faces that line the insides of the cover of the book.

When I bought The Arrival by Shaun Tan, I was surprised to see that there were no words. After I finished “reading” the book, I was surprised to note how poignantly a story could be told solely through pictures. In fact, it may be the most effective method of communicating an idea. Where words can sometimes become awkward or complicate an idea, a picture succintly represents all the emotion in a single glance.

What struck me most about the pictures was that even though the images were of strange, unfamiliar things, they were still recognizable in some ways. For example, when the man the story revolves around is on the ship sailing to this new land, the city skyline and welcoming statue are reminiscent to that of New York, even if the particular buildings and said statue are not. Also, the building in which all the immigrants are gathered and examined looks very much like Ellis Island.

Furthermore, the story of immigration is a familiar one to all of us. In our collective histories, I’m sure every one of us has a story of someone they know, or maybe even themselves, who has gone through this frightening process of immigrating to a new country, for whatever reason. This fact serves to connect us together, much like it connects the characters featured in this book. This common thread unites them, and by the end of the book the man that the story revolves around is included in this community, and in turn helps newer immigrants also to find their way.