Boat of Dreams: 02/08/19

Boat of Dreams by Rogério Coelho is a wordless picture book in two parts that are connected through the image of a winged boat.

The first part is from the perspective of a boy in an apparently abandoned town. He sets to work on designing a clockwork flying boat. At the end of the day he sets it free. The second part is of an old man who lives at the edge of the sea and receives a message in the bottle that's related to what the boy was working on.

I read this book initially for the road narrative review before I had finalized my road narrative spectrum. I expected it to rank higher given its fantasy and steampunk settings. Instead, though, it ranks in the middle of the top row of the lowest section.

Starting with the traveler, we have connected but parallel stories of a boy and a man who are in control of their lives and their worlds. Without extra context (other characters, for instance) the only way they can be classified is as privileged (00). Their interconnected lands, accessible via the magic boat as well as by dreams, is a utopic (no place) destination (FF). The boat which connects the two worlds doesn't have an obvious road between the two. Nor is it separated by corn. It could be separated by time but that isn't made obvious; therefore I'm placing the route as offroad (66). All together that is 00FF66.

Four stars

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