GRIFFIN & SABINE’S LATEST JOURNEY
New title offers surprisingly rich update to treasured trilogy
Although it pales somewhat in comparison to later bestsellers like the Harry Potter series and Fifty Shades of Grey, the publication of Nick Bantock’s original Griffin & Sabine trilogy was a genuine phenomenon. As a newly-minted bookseller in the early 1990s, it was breathtaking to be a part of: to watch people discover these books before the hype set in, captured by their unique approach (illustrated collections of postcards and letters that readers had to remove from envelopes and unfold to read) and captivated by their story (was it a romance between Griffin, the London artist, and Sabine, the Sicmon Islands illustrator and naturalist, or was it some sort of Jungian psychodrama? Both, perhaps?) was an early indicator of the joys of bookselling, and the power of books themselves.
Griffin & Sabine was published 25 years ago, an occasion marked not just with the inevitable 25th Anniversary Limited Edition of Griffin & Sabine, but with the publication of The Pharos Gate, a surprising addition to Griffin and Sabine’s story.
What is most surprising about The Pharos Gate isn’t its existence in the first place (Griffin and Sabine’s original story, after all, finished with The Golden Mean, though Bantock did create a followup trilogy), but that it works so well. The cynically minded among us might assume that a new book, in an anniversary year, was likely little more than a cash-grab: those people are wrong.
The Pharos Gate, subtitled Griffin & Sabine’s Lost Correspondence, fleshes out the final stages of Griffin and Sabine’s journey toward one another, a timeframe occluded in The Golden Mean with the phrase “For some years nothing was heard from either Griffin or Sabine.” That phrase (and a single postcard which follows) is the end of the story of the star-crossed lovers, which began with a postcard arriving at Griffin’s London workshop, from a mysterious woman who seems to have the ability to psychically view his art as he makes it.
Although Griffin initially scoffs, he is quickly brought into acceptance, and the relationship between the two of them deepens, all through letters and postcards. The passion is so intense, however, that when Sabine makes plans to come to London, Griffin flees, sure that he has created her as a figment of his imagination. There is considerable ebb and flow between the characters over the original trilogy, difficulties in meeting, as if the universe is keeping them apart. The one possibility for them to be together, it emerges, is to meet in Alexandria, at the Pharos Gate. Each of the lovers sets forth in the closing pages of The Golden Mean and that’s where it ends, a wonderfully open conclusion that shifts the onus of happiness onto each reader.
The Pharos Gate fills in the missing pages (as it were), giving the reader more detail without sacrificing the delicacy of the ending itself. It also serves to broaden out the Jungian framework which Bantock has been exploring through the characters.
The Pharos Gate is a powerful read, and is, as one would expect, well-supported by Bantock’s art. By now, the novelty of his constructions and collages is familiar to most, and Bantock, as if accepting this, gives us his best: the art and craft of The Pharos Gate are more powerful than that of the original trilogy, the design outdoing even his former work.
Twenty five years on, The Pharos Gate is a remarkable achievement: it not only adds to the Griffin & Sabine trilogy (and does so without disturbing the delicate balance of the original books), it brings the original trilogy back to life. Can you read The Pharos Gate independently? Sure, I suppose. But why would you want to, when the story of Griffin and Sabine has so much more to offer?