Jan Kattein on 'The Doubtful Guest'

Here follows an extract from architect & tutor at the Bartlett School Jan Kattein's work 'The Architecture Chroicle'. It is his reflections on Edward Gorey's 'The Doubtful Guest' and offers some unique insights into this work. The extract is published with his permission.

'I did not find anything today (at Holloway Road Flea Market), but Chrysanthe bought a most curious little book entitled The Doubtful Guest (1998) by Edward Gorey.

Every second page is taken up by a monochrome ink drawing that is hatched to show shadows and textures. The other pages feature a short paragraph or sentence of text. The precision and sharpness of the black lines on the white background remind me of etchings. The book tells the story of a family that receives an unannounced visit by a furry creature wearing red shoes and a stripy scarf the creature has the most extraordinary habits. It enjoys standing with it’s nose to the wall, hiding in a terrine, eating the dinner plates and dropping gold watches into the garden pond. Most of the illustrations feature the interior of an eighteenth-century country house; the architecture is drawn with precision and technical understanding. There is a hallway with a wide staircase and a balustrade with wooden spindles. Dark wooden panelling lines the walls .The gain of the wood suggests oak. The panels are held in place by horizontal and vertical framework. The moulding that covers the gap between is mitred. There are construction joints where vertical and horizontal elements of the framework meet. The grain on the framework follows the direction of the wood. The grain on the panels is vertical. The proportions of the panels are pleasing and the ratio between panels and framework is natural. The top of the panelling is terminated with a piece of mouldering. The wall above the panelling is wallpapered. The pattern of the wallpaper is floral, but regimented. A painting is hanging on the wall it has a dark frame. On the right is a heavy curtain that is slightly too long, trailing along the floor. A lampshade in the shape of an onion is hanging on the far right. The carpet seems thick and it is patterned. In spites of the high tones of interior finishes. They appear heavy. Surfaces evenly illuminated by an overcast Sunday afternoon. The characters that appear in the drawings are angular and slightly gawky. They dress appears old-fashioned.

Text and image share a symbiotic relationship. The text describes the drawing and the drawing illustrates the text. The text-drawing relationship is a closed system where the text appears to justify the existence of the drawing and the image the existence of the text, but there is no reference to known settings, known characters or a particular era. The book concludes: 'It came seventeen years ago- and to this day it has shown no intention of going away' The drawing shows the perplexed family gathered around the furry creature that is sitting on an upholstered stool looking into the opposite direction. The German translation for stool is 'Hocker', 'Hocker' also translates into 'sticker' [=guest who outstays his/her welcome], but it is unlikely that Edward Gorey, an American who hardly ever transgressed the boarders of New England and certainly never came to Europe, would have been aware of this coincidence.

What is implied is more important than what is said. What is shown in the drawing is less important then what is concealed and what is implied by the text is more important than what is explicit. Gorey's work requires imagination beyond the literal. A Gorey reader reads between the lines and beyond the picture plane.'