Customer Reviews

Eyes of the Dragon

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This book is outstanding for younger readers. All children (and secretly, all adults as well) LOVE dragons. And this story tells how it comes to life; my first grade students always loved the ending of this book, and would read it to each other again and again. I would recommend buying this book for dragon-lovers of allEyes of the Dragon ages!

This might be my favorite Ed Young book, not only for his outstanding illustrations but also for the masterful story. That it is out of print, or appears to be, just brings me an intense sadness. On Chinese New Year I offer it as a story, maybe THE story, that has meanings on many levels and it just works with children, as a read-aloud it has never failed me.

And then I follow reading it with having children make dragon drawings.

(So on to the story, this review might contain a spoiler, I'll try not to do that, but I'm forewarning those readers of children's picture books not to continue if you want to be surprised, please. Especially sorry in a book so long out of print.)

In this story the main character is a painter. A Visionary!
He does not enter the story until later, after the set up, and remains enigmatic. He isn't developed as an individual for a reason, yet he is honorable, talented, fair and good. We see that. We are going to experience blindness elsewhere.

We start the story high in mountains below the summits of a dragon king where a village is overseen by a magistrate. The villagers fear the things they do not know, cannot see, that live in the spaces above them. The magistrate is wise enough to erect a great wall to secure his people, but vain and political enough to fixate on his good works as the outward projection of his greatness. The majesty of his wall looms before him as the his externalization of his superiority. It's blindness to the point of fixation, and a concretization of his natural right to leadership for him. He isn't evil or really shown as bad, just a vain man that loses sight-perspective and will regain it in a painful way. At a cost through the clarity of sight of an artist. In short he's a man with a fall soon coming. Boy, do these illustrations move your mood with color. Better than that soundtrack. Well it is a visual universe.

His grandson and village kids get caught writing on "his" wall and further stun him by defending their actions over the dullness of said wall. They call it too plain. He then, in discussions with elders, decides to bring a painter to decorate the wall with an image of the dragon king. Another achievement of his superior mind, actually taken unacknowledged from a younger suggester. A deal is struck with the painter, 40 pieces of silver to go to the Tao temple,and no argument over the finished product.

As is the case with many a made thing, the Magistrate cannot express a humble stance of gratitude with an beautiful and effort filled work; he's blind in yet another way. Nor can he recognize he pales compared to this talent, no awe at what the painter manages to go do. This is outstandingly alluded to in Ed Young's chalk work. And the magistrate actually insists the work be changed, improved upon.....(telling more will reveal something I need to do to comment further....stop reading!)

The magistrate insists on eyes which are left blank on this dragon and placing them there (the artist bends to the magistrates will), is breaking the condition of the painter to just fully accept his work. This brings the dragon-on-the-wall to life.It rises out of the falling stones. Frighteningly so. And this destroys the wall in the rising of it. And so it ends.

Boy, every time I read this it gets to me. Initially you discuss with the children the lack of gratitude, the breaking of the deal, the artist's work being "improved" by the "purchaser", the relationship to money, how the painter made it clear all the silver was to go to the temple. Art able to come to life and soar into the heavens, such was the power of this artist's vision, one he left incomplete because to say it all wrought too much, it brought the spirit itself.
You start to go there thinking this is really about something else, maybe important to think about.

I think, myself, this is about how our pathologies of our character sabotage the parts of ourselves we do have in us, our good works, things of value. The magistrate did good things, his vanity laid ALL of that low. He pursued his own glorification and notice too, his own desire for group affirmation in monuments and in arranging vast resources for his own needs we see vanity wise. Purely pathological self destruction. We see as well as group in it's needs for a protective wall and leadership did not reign the magistrate in, and in the end that same builder destroyed that wall, it turned it to rubble. The push and pull within ourselves to secure to extend.
I think it's a TIMELY tale actually.REALLY.

But thinking personally, closer to home, I've been in both shoes as artist and as fool....as artist I've offered my work and been rejected or faced disapproval by an audience unworthy, I've had to deal with finagled deals and unscrupulous individuals that broke deals. I decided really at some point that the gifts I had might be better not traded in this money market. It's hard for me to dissuade myself of the cheapening of it all. I could go on but I won't.

Then as fool...I've been foolish in some personal relationships not to see the value before me, to tread on goodness,and to destroy the "deal" , perhaps the offering of something of great worth I failed to understand or trust, or some aspect of my character was too flawed and I let loose the dragon-king that exploded with fire and thunder and fled into the skies. As I sat in the ruin of the wall of protection that prior state provided.

In short a meditative story of how we are able to take from a cultural tale many meanings and grow from this a wide perspective on our own life and actions.

Absolutely terrific for the start of the Year of the Ox.