The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy - Hardcover

Burton, Tim

4.12

39,829 ratings by Goodreads

9780571195121: The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0571195121 ISBN 13: 9780571195121

Publisher: Faber and Faber, 1998

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Twenty-three illustrated gothic tales from the dark corridors of the imagination of Tim Burton. Burton - the creative genius behind Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Mars Attacks! and Nightmare Before Chistmas, among others - now gives birth to a cast of gruesomely sympathetic children: misunderstood outcasts who struggle to find love and belonging in their cruel, cruel worlds. His lovingly lurid illustrations evoke both the sweetness and tragedy of these hopeful, yet hapless beings.

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Review:

Occupying a similarly sinister and macabre world to the American artist Edward Gorey Tim Burton's work is similarly difficult to place. This is a beautifully produced book filled with fine line drawings--many in colour--illustrating 23 small verse stories which all centre on a surreal deformity--the eponymous Oyster Boy, Stain Boy, The Boy with Nails in his Eyes, Junk Girl, The Pin Cushion Queen...The tales are all quietly disturbing. As with Burton's cinematic work (Edward Scissorhands, Nightmare Before Christmas and Mars Attacks) the book seems aimed at children but the subtexts feel too disquieting. This however is where Burton's genius lies. Children are outcasts in the adult world and their own notion of what is important, grave, frightening and odd is different to ours. We each remember the child inside of us and so are each compelled to recognise the otherness within ourselves: the outcasts that Burton paints are somehow strangely well known to us. As dark and disturbing as the best fairy tales Burton shares a space with the Brothers Grimm--a place that all children know exists when the lights go out and the adults leave the room. --Mark Thwaite

Review:

'Burton's creepy stories conjure up the fantastical, even the slightly demented.' -- Entertainment Weekly

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