Inspiring Older Readers

posted on 08 Dec 2016

Silent Quarter by Tim Lane

It’s no secret that new artists and writers struggle to get their work published – however creative and accomplished they are. To those of us on the outside, the publishing industry looks way too much like a club where membership depends more on who you know rather than on your talent. Celebrities seem to have little problem getting a publishing deal and nepotism appears to open a lot of doors that are otherwise closed to the rest of us.

Talented young artist, Tim Lane has used the opportunities provided by the internet to try and circumvent these barriers and has resorted to crowd funding to get his book published with the help of Kickstarter. Fortunately for him and for us he has raised enough money to produce Silent Quarter, a striking book which blends words and illustration to create what I think has to be called a ‘reading experience’.

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This is in many ways a modern adult fable in the form of a series of short prose vignettes that tell a story of sorts. In reality though, while only hanging together in the loosest of narrative senses the ‘chapters’ work together to create a feeling of the reader moving between reality and unreality, slipping across time and weaving in and out of a consciousness.

This is the tale of an Old Man who is has spent his life in the service of transformation – he is both a barber by day and a ceremonial mask maker by evening. As he approaches what will be both his birthday and his ‘deathday’ we accompany him on a meditation about the nature of life, growing old, the nature of memory and the masks we choose to wear.

One of the key themes of the fable seems to be the essential duality of existence – for every bright shining moment in our lives there is the lurking possibility of the dark side waiting to lay claim to us. This is something that the illustrations allow us to experience in a more tangible and active way – often a scene of positivity unfolds and reveals the dark alternative or there is an unwelcome spectre at the feast (literally in this case).

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By the end of the book I was tempted to think that this was more an extended prose poem than a short story and so when I went to have a look at the Kickstarter webpage that promotes the book I found it talking in terms of music and song lyrics and this seemed to make a lot of sense to me:

The playful structure is most akin to a concept album. It has short written passages that fit together in a loose story arch which are like the ‘lyrics'. The 'music' is then provided by the large images that literally ‘open-up’ on fold-out pages and augment the text - lending mood, symbolism and providing time for reflection. The idea is not a fixed narrative but instead something that is open and flexible to the reader.

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This music theme is clearly intentional because Lane has said that the inspiration for the book was a creative mishearing of a song by the band Talking Heads – although frustratingly I can’t find out which one. David Byrne lyrics often explore similar sort of territory as this book and employ the use of similar oblique and often deeply personal images that allow the listener to interpret meaning. Being in the company of someone like David Byrne is not a bad place to be.

If you want to see much more about the book and order copies you can go to the Kickstarter website on this link.

 

Terry Potter

December 2016 

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