Marta's Reviews > The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain

It goes without saying The Wall is a valuable history lesson, but also a blueprint for an emotional story of a young man whose imagination and creativity allowed him to endure the times of political hardship. The colours in the book are one of the main sources of emotional messages. The red Soviet star symbolises an utter subordination of the people controlled by the political apparatus and the red colour seems to be present in all the pictures of the boy’s childhood, which means the domestic life in those times was permeated by the political forces. The title page is also highly metaphorical – a brick wall enclosed by barbed wire also conveys a sense of imprisonment and perpetual confinement. The boy’s pictures are always colourful, while the reality shrivels in gray hues, even the drawings the children are creating at school are vibrant in colours - a sign that a child’s imagination is a powerful force.
The figure of the father suddenly becomes transformed into a pig-resembling human, as, in fact, do all the people who comply with the political terror. The boy, however, always remains his own man. The visual narrative is conducted in manifold techniques – the diary pages are an example of the interconnection of text and picture, the photographs, drawings and various pictures illustrating a gradual growth of the main character. Peter Sis lets the reader into the intimate world of his personal development. The text concerning historical developments is interspersed with the narrative on the boy’s story, which creates an intriguing juxtaposition between the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ life of the boy and his coping with reality by dint of imagination. The boy is initially influenced by the system, the first diary pages show how mechanically he repeats what everybody around him is saying, but his perception and opinions undergo radical changes.
The Western influence bolsters his inspiration for a change, that is also illustrated by the vertigo picture of change and the revolutionary changes in culture and politics that the year 1968 induced. The diary records a consistent shift in his attitude, he becomes creatively and politically active. The picture of the labirynth with red tanks is striking along with the allusion to Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream,” which conveys a sense of terror and fear. The narrative is usually placed within the “comic strip” order of pictures, but whenever something happens that is momentous - the concert, the process of brainwashing, 1968, the tanks - the pictures become bigger in size to show a sense of scale, awe and sheer emotion.
In conclusion, it is a worthy lesson of history worth recommending to everybody. Peter Sis manages to blend history and personal narrative, conjuring a nostalgic ambience combined with political relevance.