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Beautiful Darkness (2014)

by Fabien Vehlmann(Favorite Author)

4.43 of 5 Votes: 6

ISBN

1770461299 (ISBN13: 9781770461291)

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

Drawn and Quarterly

review 1: A fairy tale world aesthetically akin to that of Tove Jansson's Moomin or Wil Huygen's Gnome stories is merely a mask for an exploration of the childish, brutal and greedy dark side of human nature. It delves deep into where innocence and cruelty overlap, self-serving indifference without remorse, and how the empathetic suffer while trying to hold it all together. A truly stunning amount of death, even for something with "Darkness" in its title. I closed this book feeling the stamp of great literature: both gutted and elevated.
review 2: This should really get 2.5 stars but they won't allow that, so...it's very well illustrated and that's its strength and its weakness because it is so very disturbing. A bleak, nihilistic contemplation on the ugly, stupid, self... moreish brutality of man through the lens of cute, childlike fae creatures. But it's not merely the faerie folk who are responsible for all the death and suffering, the world, nature itself is sometimes actively malicious but generally indifferent to the plight of Aurora--the main character--and her dwindling group of friends. It was never entirely clear to me what the connection between the tiny people and the dead human girl was (not a spoiler, this happens in the first few pages). The tiny people themselves don't seem to be particularly aware of her or their surroundings in general. It's...interesting...and has some beautiful watercolors as I said, but I can't say I'd recommend it to too many people. less

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