Southern Cross (book)

Southern Cross is the sole wordless novel by Canadian artist Laurence Hyde (1914–1987).^[1] In 118 wood engravings it tells of atomic testing by the US military and its effects on Polynesian island inhabitants.

Overview

Hyde made the book to express his anger at American nuclear tests in the Bikini Atoll following the atomic bombings in Japan. The story tells of the American military evacuating villagers from a Polynesian island before conducting such tests. A drunken soldier attempts to rape a fisherman's wife during the evacuation, and the fisherman kills him. To avoid capture, the couple run to the forests with their child and hide. The child witnesses the death of its parents and its environment resulting from the ensuing atomic tests.^[2]

Background

After immigrating to Canada from England in 1926, Hyde did commercial pen-and-ink and scratchboard illustrations, and ran a business providing advertising illustrations; he also did wood engravings and linocuts for books. Hyde worked in Ottawa for the National Film Board of Canada from 1942 until his 1972 retirement.^[1]

The wordless novel had enjoyed popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, but had become rare by the 1940s. Such books tended to be melodramatic works about social injustice.^[3] When Southern Cross appeared, the genre had been out of the public eye for so long that Hyde included a historical essay with the book to orient the reader.^[4] Before beginning SOuthern Cross, Hyde had made unfinished attempts at two earlier series of prints.^[1]

Style

Each image is 4 by 3 inches (10.2 cm × 7.6 cm) with the exception of one 7 in × 6 in (18 cm × 15 cm), full-page image of the bomb detonating, which bleeds off the page.^[5] Hyde uses dynamic curving lines uncommon in wood engraving. He uses blacks in a way that overwhelms the figures they surround. Abstract images contrast with realistic detail in the flora and fauna.^[3]

Reception

Critic Sean Rogers praises the work, particularly his pacing and action sequences, but writes that it does not have as much of an impact of earlier works such as Frans Masereel's Passionate Journey (1919) or Lynd Ward' Vertigo (1937). Rogers says the anti-atomic message of the book does not have the impact of later works in comics such as Keiji Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen or Gary Panter‘s Jimbo ^[3]

Publication history

In a 1952 interview with the CBC, literary critic Northrop Frye praised Hyde's visual skills, but said, "There's no point in getting the book for your library unless you like the engravings themselves as separate works of art." He said the book was a quick read in contrast the amount of time it took to make it, and called its "continuity" a weak point.^[6]

Hyde worked on the book from 1948 to 1951. It was published in a limited edition by Ward Richie Press in 1951,^[7] with the images on the recto and the verso left blank. Illustrator Rockwell Kent provided the introduction;^[8] Hyde dedicated the book to the Red Cross Societies and the Society of Friends.^[9]

The book was republished twice in 2007: Drawn and Quarterly published a facsimile edition with additional essays by Hyde and an introduction by wordless novel historian David A. Beronä;^[8] and George A. Walker included Southern Cross in his Graphic Witness collection of wordless novels.^{[citation needed]}

References

Works cited