LOVERS IN ANALOG TIME
Twenty-five years after Griffin and Sabine began their correspondence, Nick Bantok brings them back to each other and to readers,
It’s been 25 years since Victoria author Nick Bantock revolutionized the way love stories are told with the interactive book Griffin & Sabine, where readers opened envelopes containing letters as the story unfolded. That first book was followed by Sabine’s Notebook and
The Golden Mean, in which the “extraordinary correspondence” seemed to end. The voices of these star-crossed would-be lovers have been silent for years. Now, Griffin & Sabine are back, this time with a “lost correspondence.” Will they finally meet?
It was a mystery that kept readers turning the pages of one of the most unlikely cultural phenomena: an adult picture book with letters you could open.
Twenty-five years ago, before Nick Bantock’s debut novel Griffin & Sabine became a multimillion bestseller, he was living on $12,000 a year working as an artist. Although he had illustrated covers for books, he never thought about writing them. But something about his “adult picture book” resonated with readers and the next thing the British artist knew, he was catapulted into the international literary spotlight with appearances on breakfast shows and readings to packed rooms, an experience he now calls both exhilarating and bizarre. Told through a trilogy of books, (the first book, then
Sabine’s Notebook and The Golden Mean) the story follows a London artist named Griffin who creates lush, collaged images for postcards, and Sabine, who lives somewhere in the South Pacific illustrating stamps. The two never physically meet, but instead develop a metaphysical connection through their handwritten postcards and letters, which readers can physically pull out of their envelopes. Bantock, who now lives in Victoria, B.C., says the concept originally “came from seeing someone else in the post office getting good mail and me getting the usual crap.”
At the end of the third novel in 1993, “Bantockians,” as his hardcore fans called themselves, despaired over the fate of the lovers. Would they ever set eyes on each other?
More than two decades later, curiosity will now be satisfied with the release of The Pharos Gate: Griffin & Sabine’s Lost Correspondence, as the two prepare to finally meet in person, despite looming dangers and distances.
Although Bantock planted visual clues throughout all the books, the setting and era is intentionally ambiguous. Even if Bantock and his readers have aged, it’s as if time stood still for Griffin and Sabine.
“That’s part of the fun,” he says. “You bury stuff in there so that those who want to dig can dig, but if you don’t poke around, it doesn’t matter. You can take it at face value or take the book as having a number of layers.”
For Bantock, who is experiencing a “strange déjà vu” as he prepares to tour
The Pharos Gate, the books represent more than just romance. He sees the two characters, and the marriage of text and image, as his personal hero’s journey, representing “an internal dialogue between my logical and intuitive self. I found they articulate my journey as a human being better than anything else.”
Of course the world has changed a lot in the 25 years since Griffin and Sabine first arrived, most obviously with social media and email replacing good old-fashioned letter writing. Bantock ultimately hopes the unique format and message behind
The Pharos Gate will inspire a new generation of technology-obsessed readers to express themselves in more meaningful ways.
“I don’t mean getting rid of the computer or playing Luddite games,” he says, “but if it can offer an alternative way of self-expression that encourages people to slow down at certain times of the day or the week and articulate their ideas and feelings in a different way, then as far as I am concerned, the book will have succeeded.”
“I found they articulate my journey as a human being better than anything else.”
NICK BANTOCK
ON GRIFFIN AND SABINE