Eric by Shaun Tan
Allen & Unwin 2020. ISBN: 9781760877972.
(Age: All) Highly recommended. Told from the perspective of a child
welcoming an exchange student into his home, this story reveals the
levels of misunderstanding that exist between people. Tan explores
the efforts made on both sides to communicate, cooperate and find
common ground, but all to no avail.
The family cannot pronounce his name so call him Eric. He prefers to
sleep in the pantry, a cultural thing, says Mum, despite the family
having prepared a room for him with new furniture and rugs.
The boy takes him places, showing him things that he sees as
important or interesting to an exchange student, but the newcomer
sees different things, picking up small objects he spies on the
ground, collecting things that seem to be of no value to his host.
It is only when Eric has left that the family opens the pantry and
see what he has left them: reminders of all he saw, the little
things he valued during his stay with the family, things they
overlooked and saw as having no value. A reminder that we should not
dismiss the things that someone else values, that communication is
the basis of understanding, not assumptions or preconceived ideas.
Eric was first included in Tan's Tales from outer suburbia
(2009), then published as a small single volume in 2015. And at a
time when people need to be encouraged to remember that while we may
be different we have far more in common, this new publication is
most opportune.
A tale of missed opportunities, of neglecting to open one's eyes to
what is in front of them, of seeing things when it is too late, Eric
calls out for people to be more responsive, to take note, to be
aware.
Tan's illustrations are full of poignant moments, as the boy and the
exchange student move together, but apart. Using pencil and collage
he creates tender scenes out of very little: the student buckled
into his car seat, small and bewildered; picking up the scraps from
the ground, interested and questioning but receiving little
response; trying to make sense of the world he is living in -
checking out the power plug, the cereal packet, the stamp, the
plug hole. All the differences he spots are indecipherable, making
his gift when he leaves all the more arresting in his attempt to
communicate what his stay meant to him.
Themes: Communication, Difference, Fear, Xenophobia, Prejudice,
Assumptions.
Fran Knight