Automaton by Gary Crew

Automaton by Gary Crew
Reading Time, Volume 50 Issue No. 2 May 2006, p. 16

Automaton by Gary Crew details the experiences of a young boy working in a factory owned by Thomas Edison. Edison is meant to have built 8,000 large, grotesque talking dolls at some stage during his career. The dolls were equipped with phonographs that played nursery rhymes. The toys kept breaking down and the majority were not sold. Edison allegedly buried the whole lot. The book looks at the human obsession to create things in their own image. The imprint page includes the quote “It’s alive!” from Frankenstein outlining from the beginning the themes that will be addressed in the book. This reference shows the author’s willingness to employ intertextuality to assist in expressing his meaning.

Illustrator Aaron Hill uses the recurring image of the key that is used to animate the dolls to reinforce this theme. A key hole is included on many of the pages, which asks the reader to “turn”. This makes the reader in some ways complicit with Edison’s grotesque attempts to create human-like dolls. By doing this the illustrator uses a common convention in postmodern picture books using the book as artefact.

The book is written partly as a diary, but uses letters and other correspondence within the illustrations to help tell the story. Micro and macro images are inlayed and overlapped on the main illustrations and are used to display Edison’s intentions and desires. The image of the evolution of man with Hill’s alterations is effective in conveying this message. One of the double pages at the end displays the final fate of Edison’s dolls followed by the possible reasons behind his attempts.

James Tracey