Hippolyte's Island

Graphis, Mar/Apr 2002 by Birnbaum, Andrea

Hippolyte Webb is an eccentric traveller who collects antique maps. His particular Interest here is in the Aurora Islands, which stop appearing on maps after the 1700s. With a certificate from a beginner's sailing class, a borrowed boat and $20,000 from a book advance, he's off to the South Atlantic. Upon his safe return, the only challenge that remains for him is convincing his editor at Rumor Press that his travels aren't contrived. But that's beside the point.

The real strength of Hippolyte's Island Chronicle's latest contribution to the field of illustrated novels it introduced with Nick Bantock's Griffin & Sabine series, is the visuals. Hodgson's illustrations are enchanting and swiftly guide the reader through an amusing and quirky tale. You're not only reading a novel, you're reading the ship's logbook-full of nautical charts, celestial maps, drawings of penguins and other birds found on the islands, and hand-scribbled notes squeezed In the margins. Added touches like stray seagulls turning up among the text and parchment-like foldouts give the book a playful and energetic feel. Hippolyte's journey Is a bumpy one, and so Is the plot structure of the book. We're supposed to believe that these mysterious islands actually appear and disappear in random intervals (think auroraborealis, those mystical lights that grace the Northern sky), but one would do better to just enjoy the adventure-and the scenery along the way. It's the illustrations that contribute the most convincing evidence to the tar-fetched tale, and provide their own sensory experience that is the real point of the book anyway.

Even when Hodgson's writing Is at Its strongest, with impeccable dialogue and genuine humor, her designer's eye still ads the final finesse. A section of correspondence between Hippolyte and the ever-frustrated publishers of his book made me laugh out loud, but it was the authentic typewriter font used for Hippolyte's letters that best expressed his resistance to change. Hodgson has a unique way of making her books become part of the stories they tell. You wonder if the author she's referring to throughout is herself, and the supposed book she speaks of is the one you're actually reading. She used many of the same tricks in her previous illustrated novels (The Tattooed Map, 1995, and The Sensualist, 1998 both at Chronicle) and like them, Hippolyte's Island is a genuinely fun read. By now you'd expect it to get formulaic. Instead, it leaves you wondering how she managed to pull it off again.