摘要：Think back to your first trip with Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, or how it felt to enter the Matrix after Neo takes the red pill. Five Wounds: An Illuminated Novel takes you down a similarly twisting path and leaves you pondering the journey well afterwards. Pooling influences trans-national, trans-cultural, trans-temporal and transart form, authors Jonathan Walker and Dan Hallett spin the story of ‘five wounded orphans [who] must face their traumatic origins’ (blurb). These tales are told through the fascinating combination of Walker’s proclamatory prose, Hallett’s Goya and comic-book influenced illustrations, a Bible-like layout and handwritten notations. Described as ‘cruel and arbitrary’ (blurb) by the authors, the world of Five Wounds looks and feels at once early renaissance, modern and apocalyptic. Sixteenthcentury Venice is an influence, hinted in the water surrounding the city, the grand architecture of government buildings and aristocratic housing and the grimy cobblestone surrounds of the lower classes. Hallett’s illustrations come to the fore here, deftly evoking the settings for the trials and tribulations of the five main characters.
