(Griffin & Sabine Trilogy #3)
by Nick Bantock
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Published: 1993
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Genre: Art, Epistolary, Romance
Hardback: 48 pages
Rating: 5
Griffin & Sabine Trilogy series:
Griffin & Sabine
Sabine's Notebook
The Golden Mean
I received your Paris card. I waited but you did not returne the 23rd. I waited until the 31st, but you did not return. What happened? Where are you?
--Sabine
Sabine's Notebook ended with a disturbing disclosure--Griff and Sabine had somehow eluded each other once again. The Golden Mean beings with an even more disturbing development:
I was sure I understood. Yet you were not here when I returned and there was no sign that you ever had been here... Today comes your card saying you were in this house for three days after my return. I am bewildered...
--Griffin
It seems that each cannot exist in the presence of the other. Yet neither can continue without the presence of the other. And so, in this final volume of the Griffin & Sabine trilogy, they struggle against the mysterious forces that keep them apart. Time is running out: Sabine's crystalline visions of Griffin's artwork grow cloudy and dim, and a threatening stranger begins to appear everywhere she goes. The Golden Mean is the tale of Griffin and Sabine's journey towards one another, sometimes dreamy, sometimes desperate, sometimes nightmarish. The golden mean--the harmony of perfect balance--is what they seek in the haunting conclusion of this extraordinary correspondence.
Told in the compelling style of the first two best-selling volumes of the trilogy, The Golden Mean allows readers to open richly decorated envelopes and draw forth intricately illustrated letters, to decipher the quirky handwritten postcards with their macabre and magical artwork, to indulge, in other words, in the wonderfully illicit activity of reading someone else's mail.
My two-bits:
Finally got around to reading the last of this trilogy. It was just one of those books that I took for granted. You know, the kind of book that sits in your tbr pile with the expectation that it will be an automatic 5-star rating. So, you leave it sitting on the shelf for later. Then it turns out to be waaaay later until an opportunity arises that brings it out onto the forefront again.
In this case, it is the Winter Bingo challenge that makes this book jump to the top of my reading pile. The bingo category is Epistolary. This is a category that has limited selection compared to something like Romance.
Fortunately the bingo challenge enabled me to "hit two birds with one stone."
And, indeed the book was indeed a 5-star gem.
The relationship between the two characters concludes in a satisfying way, but first with mystery, uncertainty and a bit of suspense.
The artwork and whimsical nature of the book and how the story literally unfolds (in actual letters) created the same wonder and excitement I had when I first came across the first book in this trilogy.
* added this to my Bookish Bingo challenge - square: Epistolary
