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Published on October 21, 2007

Newly translated into Thai, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" - written and illustrated by American Brian Selznick - is a children's mystery novel brimming with drawings that seem like stills from a silent film.

Selznick insists it's not exactly a novel, a picture book, a graphic novel or a flip book, but a combination of all. And an entirely new kind of reading experience for Thai youngsters, adds Ariya Paitoon, who has made the Thai version, "Prissana Manudkol Khong Hugo Cabret", the debut title of her new publishing house, Whale Book.

"I was amazed by the book," says Ariya, who has edited more than 100 children's novels. "It opens with 42 wordless pages of drawings in shades of black and white. The drawings aren't merely illustrations, they're essential to the story. There are 526 pages, but only 70 pages with text - the rest are filled with pictures.

"The author watches a lot of movies," she says, "and when he started to write the novel he thought about it visually, in pictures. He thought that some scenes were so descriptive that it would be better to render them in pictures - it's his main technique here.

"His drawings are in black frames, which gives the effect of watching a silent film. They zoom in and out and fade, like on a movie storyboard."

Ariya says the novel has been translated into 23 languages and is to be turned into an actual film by Warner Brothers, with Martin Scorsese directing.

Ariya has done her own share of translating novels, including "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint Exupery, "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros and "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle.

But rather than rely on well-known translators to tackle the Selznick novel, Ariya chose enthusiastic newcomer Piyanut Rattanadech, a fourth-year medical student at Mahidol University.

"I was thrilled reading the English version," says Piyanut, 21, "first with his stunning drawings and then with the story, and the way everything is interwoven. I was so eager to translate it that I contacted Ariya as soon as I found out she got the copyright.

"It took me three months. I had to study up on the movies that the author has mentioned as his inspirations and all the technical terms."

The novel, set in 1931, is about the 12-year-old orphan of the title, who lives in a hideaway in a Paris train station and maintains its clocks because the man in charge of them, his uncle, is always drunk.

Hugo's most precious posses-sion is a broken automaton - a human-like clockwork figure seated at a desk, pen in hand, as if ready to write a message. Hugo wants to repair it so that it can write out a message he expects from his late father, who discovered the cast-off machine.

As the story begins, the elderly proprietor of a toyshop catches Hugo stealing parts. The old man turns out to be a talented magician and filmmaker who is fleeing from tragic memories.

He is drawn from a real-life character, the pioneering French filmmaker Georges Melies (1861-1938), revered for the technical and narrative innovations he introduced to early cinema.

From Melies' most famous film, 1902's "A Trip to the Moon" - considered the first science-fiction movie, with its celebrated scene of a rocket ship plunging into the man in the moon's eye - comes a key plot device in the story of Hugo.

In 1913 Melies' film company was forced out of business by the advent of the big movie studios, and he opened a toyshop at Paris' Montparnasse train station. Of his once-vast celluloid output, 500 films were melted down to make boot heels for the French army during World War I.

Selznick's novel is filled with references to the early innovators of French cinema. Its first line alludes to Rene Clair's 1930 film "Under the Roofs of Paris", and the scene in which Hugo is chased by the police came from Clair's "The Million", made in 1931, the year in which Hugo's story is set.

There are also sketches of Melies as he appeared in his movies and stills from Harold Lloyd's "Safety Last" and the Lumiere brothers' "The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat".

Hugo himself is based on Jean-Pierre Leaud, who played young Antoine in Francois Truffaut's 1959 classic "The 400 Blows", about a 12-year-old who runs away from home. When Hugo steals milk from a cafe in the train station, and again when he's locked up with his arms crossed and his face buried in his turtleneck - that's all straight from Truffaut.

"I think it's both fun and educational for readers to learn more about Melies' life and work," says Ariya. "To me, a good children's book should be fun and at the same time inspire them to seek out new knowledge. This book has it all."

"The Invention of Hugo Cabret" costs Bt360. You can buy a copy when the translation is unveiled at    Book Expo Thailand 2007, continuing all next week at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre in    Bangkok.

Khetsirin Pholdhampalit

The Nation