The Invention of Hugo Cabret

by Brian Selznick

This is the first book I've completed in more than a month. Or at least, the first book I've read in full that I've felt was worth adding to the list here.

I'd had this book from the library for a while but wasn't in the mood to read it till tonight. Partly because I didn't realize it was part graphic novel, and its girth was a reflection of the number of illustrations (all beautiful, btw). (I've been struggling with The Autobiography of Henry VIII and it's killed my appetite for anything long and engaging.)

It is a wonder-full story of a gifted boy, orphaned and alone, forced to live by his wits in a train station; his obsession with his father's legacy (a broken automaton), the girl who befriends him and her godfather, a man who runs a toy shop in the station.

The story is set in 1930s Paris. Brian Selznick uses the real-life figure Georges Melies as inspiration--he is the godfather in this story. Many details in the book reflect the life of the real Melies (the son of shoemakers, prodigious filmmaker, bankrupted by big studios, running a toy shop in a train station).

But this book is about Hugo, a good boy in unfortunate circumstances. He loses his dad in a fire, is adopted by his drinky uncle who works as timekeeper at the train station, is forced to take on his uncle's job when the latter disappears, steals food to survive, and works on the automaton his father discovers in the museum before it burns down. Isabelle falls into his life and while initially she seems to him an obstacle and a pain in the neck, she paves the way to a better life for him.