The Sun

by Frans Masereel

Created by the acclaimed wood-engraver Frans Masereel, this inspiring book takes the form of a novel-without-words, its story unfolding through a cycle of woodcuts. The Sun explores our fragile relationship with destiny, the dilemma of an individual struggling with his sense of purpose.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Art, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction, Comics, Literature, Belgium

136 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1919

About the author

Frans Masereel was a Flemish painter and graphic artist who worked mainly in France. He is known especially for his woodcuts. His greatest work is generally said to be the wordless novel 'Passionate Journey'. He completed over 20 other wordless novels in his career.

His intense, foreboding woodcuts for Oscar Wilde's 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' add to the drama and feeling of the poem.

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Sun, by Belgian artist Fans Masereel--sometimes referred to as the father of graphic novels--is a 1919 silent or wordless work accomplished in 63 woodcuts, adapting the Icarus-Dedalus myth to contemporary society. An artist--Masereel!--puts his head down on his desk and dreams of a man who flies to the sun. (So maybe we can call this story-withinn-a-story auto-fiction?). We all know what happens if you do this, but the crashing back to wakefulness that the guy striving for the sun experiences leads to the artist smiling and putting his hands up as if to say, "wasn't that a crazy dream?!). Masereel sets his dream in an urban setting, where he makes many of his critiques of technology and materialism and “progress.”

Is the story about the importance of striving for your dream, even if you fail? Well, most people think of the Icarus myth now more as a kind of allegory for hubris, for humans overreaching their capacity, of endless striving without regard for consequences. One might think of civilization in the time of ecological disaster in the light of this story, too.

Danielle Wagner’s review of Masareel’s work, wherein you can view some images:

https://fisher.library.utoronto.ca/fi...

Stefan Zweig said of Masereel, “If everything were to perish, all the books, monuments and photographs and only the woodcuts that he had executed in the ten years were spared, our whole present day world could be reconstructed from them.”

[Rana Heshmati · Rating 3 out of 5]

تو مقدمه ش نوشته:

مجموعه چاپ دستی هایی که داستان را بی مدد کلام روایت می کنند، آیینه های نمادین تمدن بشرند که در آن، چنان که توماس مان نوشته است، ماسریل تصویر «کارخانه بی ترحم زندگی مدرن» را منعکس کرده است.
خورشید رابطه شکننده انسان و سرنوشت را وامی‌کاود؛ کشمکش درونی انسان بر سر دوراهی فردیت و ندایی که او را به همرنگی با جماعت فرامی‌خواند. انوار تابناک خورشید وعدۀ آزادی و پیشرفت می‌دهد. قهرمان ماسریل شوریده وار دست سوی منبع نور می‌یازد، هربار ماجرایی شورانگیزتر از سر می‌گذراند تا عاقبت خود طعمه آن گوی آتشین می‌گردد و هنرمند سرگشته را وامی‌گذارد تا در سرنوشت او بیاندیشد. اندوهناکی شاعرانه مرگ را نیروی اجتماعی تعدیل می‌کند. چنان که هرمان هسه درباره ماسریل نوشته است: «چیزی مطلقا بی زمان و ابدی تمام وجود او را تسخیر کرده است، سرگذشت جاودان رنج، جاودان شادی انسان.»

[Maryam · Rating 4 out of 5]

چوب‌‌کندهای جذابیه.
رگه‌‌های سوررئال داشت، خوشم اومد.

امتیاز واقعی: 3.5
شروع: دوشنبه 1400.5.1 - ساعت 11:45 شب
پایان: سه‌شنبه 1400.5.2 - ساعت 12:06 شب

[Jeff Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m reading my way through some famous woodcut and scratch board novels. “The Sun” is a part of a 3-novel anthology of the Belgian-French woodcut artist, Frans Masereel.

This one is a “modern” (well, 1918) retelling of the Icarus-Daedalus myth. It starts with Masereel himself at the drawing board. He falls asleep and seems to dream up the man flying to the sun and promptly falling back to earth. The story ends with a charming cut of Masereel smiling and throwing up his hands as if saying “How crazy was that?!”

[Eshraq · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب عجیبی بود، خوشحالم که پیداش کردم.
میشه تو تصاویر خیره شد و صداهاش رو شنید.

[J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another wonderful "wordless novel" by Masereel. The Sun is more linear/sequential than his other works, and captures the absurd yet somehow oddly reasonable quest to reach the sun...the dream still captures elements of urban life that feature more heavily in Masereel's other works. This beautiful clothbound boxed edition also came with a (folded) poster and several postcards/postcard-sized prints.

[Chris Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plot and the art was ok. His style seems much more coarse and linear than that of Lynd Ward's.

[Malika-Liki · Rating 5 out of 5]

a very impressive work. Wood engraving. Not a word, but poignant and so speaking without a word. it has not aged a bit.

[Drew Canole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as lushly illustrated as Frans Masereel's The City but this is a pretty fun and weird one. The writer at his writing desk (Masereel himself perhaps) spawns to life a little thought personified as a small man. And this man jumps out the window reaching towards the sun splattering on the concrete below. But this starts an epidemic of people trying to reach the sun. Climbing on to tall objects, getting in a plane, once the sun begins to set a person jumps on a boat to try and reach it. etc.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story related through a series of 63 woodcuts.

Stefan Zweig said of artist Masereel, “If everything were to perish, all the books, monuments and photographs and only the woodcuts that he had executed in the ten years were spared, our whole present day world could be reconstructed from them.”

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite wordless novel so far!

[Sofía · Rating 3 out of 5]

El Ícaro moderno que ni en tiempos recientes deja de adorar al dios Sol o a quien percibe como su centro.

[Nathan BR · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite woodcut story by Frans Masereel

[Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much like Masereel's earlier wordless woodcut novel, Passionate Journey, only the world-wandering protagonist is focused on a single goal: to reach the Sun—a quest that is at once so absurd and yet so sensible that it imbues the reader with a similar delirium. Dover has been making Masereel's work widely available in print as well as price, but if you can locate the pocket-sized editions of his work it's totally worth reading them in their original intimate format.

[Lynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a tour de force, artistically, but the idea of searching searching for the elusive sun, the metaphor for what we must have, seemed to go on a little too long for me. I really liked the idea of the disillusionment, the falling of the Icarus-like personna of the writer, as being the understanding that he needs.