What do you think?
Rate this book
Walled City Trilogy #2
Nocturne: The Walled City Trilogy
Emmy Award-winning writer Anne Opotowsky and stunning artist Angie Hoffmeister present the second volume in this massive saga of ambition, loyalty, and the walls we build inside and out; animating an irresistible historical setting with powerful modern resonance.
Book Two of Anne Opotowsky's epic Walled City Trilogy leaps simultaneously forward and back.
In 1905, a child is kidnapped and brought to Hong Kong, growing into a clever and reckless young man looking for answers. In the 1930s, the British are shaping that island into the free-trade playground for which it will soon become famous... while China's internal strife borders on chaos. The eccentricities of Hong Kong rub off on everyone, the greed is more palpable, the lust and caution ride herd on both the young and old.
Within the Walled City itself, the population has grown by leaps and bounds, despite attempts to clear them out. Both the British and the Chinese now declare it a lawless ghetto, a legal No Man's Land... so the city evolves into an astonishing world of its own. In this chaotic yet harmonious world, the three boys from Book One -- Song, Xi, and Yubo -- are finding three very different ways to become men.
Abductions, obsessions, refugees, and star-crossed lovers intertwine throughout this staggeringly ambitious and gorgeously illustrated saga... while the undercurrents of power, manipulation, and loss begin to show terrible cracks in the walls.
Book Two of Anne Opotowsky's epic Walled City Trilogy leaps simultaneously forward and back.
In 1905, a child is kidnapped and brought to Hong Kong, growing into a clever and reckless young man looking for answers. In the 1930s, the British are shaping that island into the free-trade playground for which it will soon become famous... while China's internal strife borders on chaos. The eccentricities of Hong Kong rub off on everyone, the greed is more palpable, the lust and caution ride herd on both the young and old.
Within the Walled City itself, the population has grown by leaps and bounds, despite attempts to clear them out. Both the British and the Chinese now declare it a lawless ghetto, a legal No Man's Land... so the city evolves into an astonishing world of its own. In this chaotic yet harmonious world, the three boys from Book One -- Song, Xi, and Yubo -- are finding three very different ways to become men.
Abductions, obsessions, refugees, and star-crossed lovers intertwine throughout this staggeringly ambitious and gorgeously illustrated saga... while the undercurrents of power, manipulation, and loss begin to show terrible cracks in the walls.
- GenresComicsGraphic Novels
460 pages, Paperback
First published July 30, 2015
1 person is currently reading
67 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 4, 2020
This is my review of the first volume of this massive labyrinthine trilogy with a cast of dozens of characters:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Nocturne is the second volume, even larger, 450 pages, even as we anticipate the third and final volume, Listening to the Hundredfold Notes of the Avowed Nightingales, from Anne Opotowsky and a different (from the first volume) but equally stunning artist Angie Hoffmeister.
The tale, or set of intersecting tales, was inspired by author Opotowsky’s viewing a 1920s photograph of the (demolished in 1994) Walled City of Kowloon, Hong Kong, once the densest place on the planet, a kind of microcosm of the world itself and also very much a well-researched historical place and time. Teenager Song Lu is their main character, with his friends Yubo and magician/acrobat Xi as sidekicks. Song is very much connected to various lively women in a brothel who in a sense raise him, and in this second volume as he grows up he remains close to this female family in various ways.
What else happens? Poverty, juggling, magic, music, food, opium wars, British colonialism meets Chinese cultures, child theft, dead letters, love, murder. There's--just to say--a central love story featuring Song that develops with lots of drama and joy and misery.
The long story of its getting published, re-released by Top Shelf, and still tragically under-read today is itself a kind of roller-coaster in itself. But the story is complex and multi-layered, epic in scope and ambition and yet intimate in its depiction of the "ghetto" there, enhanced by the gorgeous graywash and ink and selective coloration is pretty amazing. Free on Hoopla in my library system, but at tome point I hope to buy the whole trilogy.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Nocturne is the second volume, even larger, 450 pages, even as we anticipate the third and final volume, Listening to the Hundredfold Notes of the Avowed Nightingales, from Anne Opotowsky and a different (from the first volume) but equally stunning artist Angie Hoffmeister.
The tale, or set of intersecting tales, was inspired by author Opotowsky’s viewing a 1920s photograph of the (demolished in 1994) Walled City of Kowloon, Hong Kong, once the densest place on the planet, a kind of microcosm of the world itself and also very much a well-researched historical place and time. Teenager Song Lu is their main character, with his friends Yubo and magician/acrobat Xi as sidekicks. Song is very much connected to various lively women in a brothel who in a sense raise him, and in this second volume as he grows up he remains close to this female family in various ways.
What else happens? Poverty, juggling, magic, music, food, opium wars, British colonialism meets Chinese cultures, child theft, dead letters, love, murder. There's--just to say--a central love story featuring Song that develops with lots of drama and joy and misery.
The long story of its getting published, re-released by Top Shelf, and still tragically under-read today is itself a kind of roller-coaster in itself. But the story is complex and multi-layered, epic in scope and ambition and yet intimate in its depiction of the "ghetto" there, enhanced by the gorgeous graywash and ink and selective coloration is pretty amazing. Free on Hoopla in my library system, but at tome point I hope to buy the whole trilogy.
February 16, 2020
As with the first Walled City book, His Dream of the Skyland, Nocturne is a rich and immersive experience. Opotowsky and Hoffmeister’s vision of early 20th century Hong Kong is at once strange and familiar. It's not so much a book to read as a place to visit. The artwork is gorgeous, the characters intriguing.
This is one of those series where I’ll want to go back and read it again once all three volumes are available. There's a large cast and many story threads, and letting so much time lapse between volumes doesn't help in allowing me to keep everything straight in my head. But these books are too compelling and fascinating to resist reading immediately. Highly recommended!
This is one of those series where I’ll want to go back and read it again once all three volumes are available. There's a large cast and many story threads, and letting so much time lapse between volumes doesn't help in allowing me to keep everything straight in my head. But these books are too compelling and fascinating to resist reading immediately. Highly recommended!
July 22, 2018
A masterpiece for many reasons, that needs to be read very slowly.
It does not rush, and the story unfolds and tells it's messages in riddles.
It's a shame this 450 page illustrated novel has become increidbily rare with very scarce reviews.
I wonder if Part 3 is coming, given the much needed closure.
Well worth the read - even if it took 3 shots before I was able to get in sync with it.
It does not rush, and the story unfolds and tells it's messages in riddles.
It's a shame this 450 page illustrated novel has become increidbily rare with very scarce reviews.
I wonder if Part 3 is coming, given the much needed closure.
Well worth the read - even if it took 3 shots before I was able to get in sync with it.
May 27, 2021
Despite basically being written for me and hitting on all my interested, I was ultimately very disappointed with volume 1 and really hoped that volume 2 would bring be back in. Unfortunately it was nothing doing. This one was longer and more expansive but still left me as disappointed as the first.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews