Have you ever wondered what it’s like to live in England. I mean, really live here, when you’re done eating crumpets and scones and marveling at the beautiful buildings and the kindest, most wonderful people (though I can only speak for the North). When you’re done with that and you almost become one of the English people then it just you riding the train. A lot. And you still get lost a lot. And the places you get lost are hillsides down to train tracks and wonderful stations in the middle of nowhere. But sometimes it’s tesco’s or a really large dog. And graffiti and power masts and lots and lots of walking.
Trains are…mint depicts Oliver East walks between the train stations from Manchester to Blackpool and he captures the look and feel of the towns exactly, finding not just the beautiful bridges and hill sides, but also the bored British teenagers on steps who don’t do anything even as East looks at them for a long time.
East’s art is a soft water color and he works with repetition depicting the same image, slightly altered six or seven times, so that you can feel the slowness of coming over a hill top, or imagine alongside him what he could do to the woman who is jogging towards him. Yeah that gets a bit weird, but my mind works in the same way so I loved it.
I also love how East layers the narrative into the images, leaving the reader to stumble into the landscape and pause at seemingly inconsequential objects and items. The styles is kept rough and handmade, which gives it an honest touch. However when combined with the direct embedding into the image it does make it difficult to read sometimes.
I feel like I could go back and read this book over and over and I would recommend this for anyone who loves England. Or anyone who walks or rides the train a lot here. It’s exactly like this.