Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence by Nick Bantoc

Image from Amazon

Griffin: It's good to get in touch with you at last. Could I have one of your fish postcards? I think you were right -- the wine glass has more impact than the cup. --Sabine

These few lines seems harmless enough but not when Griffin has never met a woman named Sabine. More so that this woman happens to both know and see the artworks that he did in private, as if she can see through his eyes. A correspondence between the two ensues, with each one being drawn into the mystery that is the other.

I did not really have high expectations as to the story in this book. I only expected it to be a visual feast and not much else but I was thrilled to find so much mystery and intrigue in the letters between Sabine and Griffin. I was drawn not only into the amazingly beautiful art work but I was also drawn into both the characters and their somewhat magical link to each other.

Griffin and Sabine, although they share the same love and passion for art, they are quite different from each other. Sabine is more radical and more of a free  thinker while Griffin is more pragmatic. He met Sabine's first postcard with mild curiosity to which he responded with politeness. Then Sabine's succeeding letters and postcards soon pulled him into the strangeness and intrigue that envelopes her. Griffin began to rejoice at the thought of having someone to share his passions with and he began to open up and share a little of himself in his letters. But soon he began to experience apprehension, doubt, and eventually fear. Is Sabine real? Is he becoming insane? It was really quite a ride going through Griffin's emotions.

I like how the difference in the personalities of the two are shown. Griffin's letters are type written indicating Griffin's practicality while Sabine's letters are hand written indicating how much of an old soul she is. 

It was a thrill opening those envelopes and reading the letters inside them. That and looking at the wonderfully painted postcards. I'm no art connoisseur but I definitely enjoyed them. Some are haunting, some are deliciously creepy, some are whimsical. But nevertheless all are etxraordinary. In fact, everything in this book is. Griffin and Sabine's correspondence is definitely extraordinary. (Hence the title :D)