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Walled City Trilogy #1
His Dream of the Skyland: The Walled City Trilogy: Book One
In 1925, Hong Kong struggles with growing pains. Two destructive Opium Wars have transformed what once was a sleepy tropical inlet into a bustling international crossroads, full of risks and wonders, torn between Chinese and British cultures. When Song Lu starts his new job as a Dead Letter Carrier, the curious teenager is drawn to the mysterious Walled City of Kowloon, a lawless urban enclave and haven for refugees… but an alarming trend of missing children will drive him deeper and deeper into the city's secrets. Meanwhile, his best friends Yubo and Xi find their own paths to adult power and responsibility, with dark and irreversible consequences.
301 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 25, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
March 19, 2019
“The seafarers tell of the Eastern Isle of Bliss,
It is lost in a wilderness of misty sea waves”—Li Po, “His Dream of the Skyland”
What we have here is an epic tome of a graphic novel, what appears to be a 2018 re-release by Top Shelf of a 2011 book, and this is just the first volume, weighing in at more than 300 pages, including a glossary of terms. It was inspired by author Anne Opotowsky’s viewing a 1920s photograph of the (demolished in 1994) Walled City of Kowloon, Hong Kong, once the densest place on the planet. Illustrator Aya Morton is a full partner on the creation/recreation of the place. The authors, using a teenager named Song Lu as their main character, with his friends Yubo and magician/acrobat Xi, creates a coming-of-age story with a sense of the place in 1925 as a rich brew made of equal parts misery and magic.
Well, maybe not equal parts. To engage you right from the beginning the authors drop you right into the exhilarating freedom of the place with all its magic and the sense of invention. It reminds me of Will Eisner’s sequential narratives of the lower east side of Manhattan. Sure, they’re all poor, but it’s a community, many of them love and depend upon each other. The suffering is there, sure, but as you enter it, the joy is the most obvious experience you sense. I suppose it’s something like going to a carnival when you are a kid; when you are young, it is all laughs; as one grows older one can see the dangers and sorrow just beneath the surface in the workers there. Which is not to say that the joy is all gone, but as one ages one can see the struggles. That’s what happens in this book; as the kids grow, they face real adult scary situations and hardships.
Because Song’s father is often in trouble with the law, he gets a job sorting “dead”—which is to say largely undeliverable—letters at the chaotic Kowloon Post Office. There are piles of these letters, comically depicted by Morton. Dead letters is a good, representative image, since so much of what we experience in the story is off the grid, lost, mysterious.
Song meets all sorts of wonderful and strange people delivering his letters, such as the egg man. But he also meets the successful and shady businessman Mr. Furnier, who attempts to entice Song to work for him, as Xi finally does. Then we see that opium is a central part of the scene, and children go missing. Sanitation? Water? Crime? Hunger? All are challenges at Kowloon and not finally ignored.
So this story is a kind of rollicking panoramic sweep of a world that is diy, without rules, so the story, the art, matches this sense of the place, more of a magical dream of invention than a tightly structured narrative. Magic turns sinister as things move along, but in the opening pages the color and sweep of the drawing is kind of breath-taking, drawing you into this world. I really like it a lot and eagerly await volume two.
Here’s Paul Gravette’s review, which features some of it:
http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/a...
Here’s a 20 minute documentary about the Walled City, but I encourage you to skim through it, at least, to see what Kowloon really looked like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj_8u...
The whole of Li Po’s poem, “His Dream of the Skyland:”
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/his-d...
It is lost in a wilderness of misty sea waves”—Li Po, “His Dream of the Skyland”
What we have here is an epic tome of a graphic novel, what appears to be a 2018 re-release by Top Shelf of a 2011 book, and this is just the first volume, weighing in at more than 300 pages, including a glossary of terms. It was inspired by author Anne Opotowsky’s viewing a 1920s photograph of the (demolished in 1994) Walled City of Kowloon, Hong Kong, once the densest place on the planet. Illustrator Aya Morton is a full partner on the creation/recreation of the place. The authors, using a teenager named Song Lu as their main character, with his friends Yubo and magician/acrobat Xi, creates a coming-of-age story with a sense of the place in 1925 as a rich brew made of equal parts misery and magic.
Well, maybe not equal parts. To engage you right from the beginning the authors drop you right into the exhilarating freedom of the place with all its magic and the sense of invention. It reminds me of Will Eisner’s sequential narratives of the lower east side of Manhattan. Sure, they’re all poor, but it’s a community, many of them love and depend upon each other. The suffering is there, sure, but as you enter it, the joy is the most obvious experience you sense. I suppose it’s something like going to a carnival when you are a kid; when you are young, it is all laughs; as one grows older one can see the dangers and sorrow just beneath the surface in the workers there. Which is not to say that the joy is all gone, but as one ages one can see the struggles. That’s what happens in this book; as the kids grow, they face real adult scary situations and hardships.
Because Song’s father is often in trouble with the law, he gets a job sorting “dead”—which is to say largely undeliverable—letters at the chaotic Kowloon Post Office. There are piles of these letters, comically depicted by Morton. Dead letters is a good, representative image, since so much of what we experience in the story is off the grid, lost, mysterious.
Song meets all sorts of wonderful and strange people delivering his letters, such as the egg man. But he also meets the successful and shady businessman Mr. Furnier, who attempts to entice Song to work for him, as Xi finally does. Then we see that opium is a central part of the scene, and children go missing. Sanitation? Water? Crime? Hunger? All are challenges at Kowloon and not finally ignored.
So this story is a kind of rollicking panoramic sweep of a world that is diy, without rules, so the story, the art, matches this sense of the place, more of a magical dream of invention than a tightly structured narrative. Magic turns sinister as things move along, but in the opening pages the color and sweep of the drawing is kind of breath-taking, drawing you into this world. I really like it a lot and eagerly await volume two.
Here’s Paul Gravette’s review, which features some of it:
http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/a...
Here’s a 20 minute documentary about the Walled City, but I encourage you to skim through it, at least, to see what Kowloon really looked like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj_8u...
The whole of Li Po’s poem, “His Dream of the Skyland:”
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/his-d...
July 17, 2019
The very last page of the book sums it up nicely: “To be clear is not a virtue. Beauty lies in the mysteries.” For full effect, imagine that “virtue” and “mysteries” are printed in red ink.
There are certainly mysteries aplenty. The setting is Victorian era Hong Kong. Song Lu begins his new job sorting mail in the dead letter office at the post office. His determination to see some of the letters delivered leads him to the Walled City of Kowloon, an odd place that's part homeless encampment, part artist colony, part commune … It's a place where seemingly anything can happen and where authorities are reluctant to tread.
This is one of those books where the mood is all. Yes, there's a story. Song Lu’s father is thrown in jail, and he and his mother struggle to stay afloat until his release. Song resists the lure of easy money offered by a life of crime. And there’s the mystery of local children disappearing …
But what sticks with me the most about this book is the mood. It feels magical and fantastic while being, I assume, firmly grounded in actual places and history. Riddles and puzzles are a recurring theme, and Song is good at solving them. There's a glossary at the back, but it somehow manages to raise more questions than it answers. And I certainly don't mean that in a bad way. This is one of those books where you just let it wash over you, and spend hours afterward turning bits of it over in your mind and savoring them.
This is the first book of what's supposed to be a trilogy. I’m definitely looking forward to the rest of it. Recommended!
There are certainly mysteries aplenty. The setting is Victorian era Hong Kong. Song Lu begins his new job sorting mail in the dead letter office at the post office. His determination to see some of the letters delivered leads him to the Walled City of Kowloon, an odd place that's part homeless encampment, part artist colony, part commune … It's a place where seemingly anything can happen and where authorities are reluctant to tread.
This is one of those books where the mood is all. Yes, there's a story. Song Lu’s father is thrown in jail, and he and his mother struggle to stay afloat until his release. Song resists the lure of easy money offered by a life of crime. And there’s the mystery of local children disappearing …
But what sticks with me the most about this book is the mood. It feels magical and fantastic while being, I assume, firmly grounded in actual places and history. Riddles and puzzles are a recurring theme, and Song is good at solving them. There's a glossary at the back, but it somehow manages to raise more questions than it answers. And I certainly don't mean that in a bad way. This is one of those books where you just let it wash over you, and spend hours afterward turning bits of it over in your mind and savoring them.
This is the first book of what's supposed to be a trilogy. I’m definitely looking forward to the rest of it. Recommended!
January 20, 2018
What a kind of lush, mysterious book this is, with it's selective use of colour, narrative sketches, and light touch on exposition. I've got to admit that at times I felt lost, but remained compelled.
There is an overall scene set of a young man of Chinese ethnicity who works for the British postal service in Hong Kong in the dead letter office. We meet his friends and acquaintances and get introduced to a world that includes trade, fortune telling, opium, and imperialism.
The book didn't give the narrative or moral touch stones to make certain characters heroes or tragedies, and I really liked that I didn't have that easy security to pass judgement on characters, but I had to pass time with them instead. I think the fact that riddles are a motif throughout the story means we are being encouraged to sit in that space of uncertainty, and I was happy to do that, eben though it is tempting to want for the ends to tie up, and all reveals to be made!
I hope the creative team makes the next teo books, but bravo nonetheless!
There is an overall scene set of a young man of Chinese ethnicity who works for the British postal service in Hong Kong in the dead letter office. We meet his friends and acquaintances and get introduced to a world that includes trade, fortune telling, opium, and imperialism.
The book didn't give the narrative or moral touch stones to make certain characters heroes or tragedies, and I really liked that I didn't have that easy security to pass judgement on characters, but I had to pass time with them instead. I think the fact that riddles are a motif throughout the story means we are being encouraged to sit in that space of uncertainty, and I was happy to do that, eben though it is tempting to want for the ends to tie up, and all reveals to be made!
I hope the creative team makes the next teo books, but bravo nonetheless!
January 30, 2019
This book was fantastic. The artwork was extremely gorgeous and aided in a great story. The layout of the book made it very easy to read. I am really looking forward to reading the other two books in the trilogy.
October 15, 2021
A historical comic set in Kowloon, Hong Kong in the 1920s. What was once a quiet tropical city turned into a bustling international trading port under British rule. Bringing with them a string of missing children’s cases and opium addiction. Song and his friends discover the Walled City, a home to those abandoned by Kowloon, and each begins their own journey to navigate this intoxicating world, unraveling secrets one by one.
The book is filled with beautiful ink drawings with a selected colour palette that captures the moodiness of midnight Hong Kong.
Highly recommend!
The book is filled with beautiful ink drawings with a selected colour palette that captures the moodiness of midnight Hong Kong.
Highly recommend!
January 17, 2016
We follow Song and his friends Yubo and Xi in early 20th Century, in The Walled City of Kowloon and Hong Kong. Song finds a job at the British post office sorting out undeliverable letters. The little pay he earns is added to his mother's income and together they need to survive, since Song's father is imprisoned. When Song has found an address and addressee he tries to deliver the letters. He meets all sorts of peculiar people on his voyage delivering these letters, such as the egg man. But also Mr. Furnier, who keeps on offering a well paid job to Song. Meanwhile a child goes missing and lots of other stuff happens. The story is quite unlike anything I've read before. You feel like you are transported to this time and age yourself. The illustrations capture this mysterious city and it's inhabitants perfectly.
January 10, 2015
Absolutely gorgeous to look at, the artist Aya Morton has a wonderful sense of space and colour. I can think of very few other graphic novels that have such masterful control of the design of the page as a whole. The colour palette of muted neutrals broken by bursts of colour is delightful and the brush and wash art style is also entirely appropriate to the Chinese theme. The flow of art between the panels and the overall storytelling is a bit less accomplished- this bright and cheerful and lovely format doesn't really work to carry the dense dark themes of gangsters, opium and child abduction - or some of the deeper themes around identity- but I admire it for its ambition and found it beautiful and immersive.
November 3, 2018
What did I just read? How is this going to be a trilogy? If you like poorly introduced, barely fleshed out characters who do things without purpose, you'll enjoy His Dream of the Skyland! You'll also need to be a fan of free-flowing, hard-to-follow art. Maybe this was a bildungsroman? I guess we're following one character as he organizes mail, occasionally visits the Walled City near Kowloon, and interacts with other characters, some of whom are gymnasts. But like, where's the plot? Why do I care about any of this? It's completely unclear.
July 11, 2020
As someone who is a big fan of Hong Kong and particularly the history of the Walled City, I really couldn't find much in this volume to enjoy. The story was simple enough filled with class struggle, imperialism and intrigue but ultimately it felt like the story was going anywhere. I would like to continue with the other volumes of the series but I hope that they're able to find their footing because I see a lot of potential.
February 23, 2022
4.5
This graphic novel is beautiful, lush, immersive; I really enjoyed spending time in this world. The story was unique and meaningful. The characters are flawed and loveable. The story weaves the themes of colonialism, the opium trade, poverty, and sex trafficking through the lives and adventures of three teenagers. The novel is set in 1920s China and the art depicting this beautiful environment is enthralling. I loved it. I will read the next one!
This graphic novel is beautiful, lush, immersive; I really enjoyed spending time in this world. The story was unique and meaningful. The characters are flawed and loveable. The story weaves the themes of colonialism, the opium trade, poverty, and sex trafficking through the lives and adventures of three teenagers. The novel is set in 1920s China and the art depicting this beautiful environment is enthralling. I loved it. I will read the next one!
January 20, 2019
Beautiful art on many pages, and the colors are phenomenal. The story is hard to follow and purposely opaque ... several times the book mentions how mysteries are better than knowing everything - but not for me.
July 23, 2021
There is enough here to interest me as the first in a trilogy: the dead letter office, the father in prison who the mother gives up on; it definitely doesn't wrap up neat enough to stand on its own. I found the color scheme kind of sickly, even though I liked the colored-pencil style.
January 3, 2018
J'ai aimé. J'aurais cependant eu besoin de clés pour mieux comprendre.
December 17, 2018
Such a weird place, strange and pretty.
April 30, 2019
I had to read this one twice to actually get the story.
But definitely worth it.
But definitely worth it.
November 30, 2019
Enjoyed the artwork more than the storyline.
December 17, 2019
Puzzling, to say the least. I will need to re-read this first part of the Walled City Trilogy. The painted panels were both captivating and mysterious.
September 8, 2018
Hong Kong's notoriously lawless Kowloon walled city in the 1920s is the center of this dynamic, sprawling, tragicomic story of ambition, survival and family among gangsters, thieves and wild youth. Painted in gorgeously fluid, lush, and elegant colored inks, this first volume of a sweeping graphic novel trilogy is satisfying on its own, but promises great things to come!
January 16, 2016
Fascinating look into 1920s Hong Kong and Kowloon's infamous Walled City.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews