My Own Evolution
When Peter Sís began creating a book about naturalist Charles Darwin, little did he know what he was getting himself into
By Peter Sis -- School Library Journal, 9/1/2003
I grew up without television, in Czechoslovakia, a country that was surrounded by the Iron Curtain. I read; I listened; and I drew. I loved the idea of exploration and discovery. My heroes included George Mallory and Andrew Irvine (two mountaineers who vanished mysteriously on Mount Everest), Vincent van Gogh, Marco Polo, Galileo Galilei, and Charles Darwin. I soon began to notice that independent thinkers with new ideas were, for the most part, received with a great deal of suspicion. At first I blamed this on the conformist character of the totalitarian state. Only later did I realize that this was the way it worked all over the world. As an author and artist, I want my work to celebrate innovative thinkers. And I want to show that the discovery process is not easy. Let's face it, very few individuals have changed the way we view our world. That's why visionaries like Columbus, Newton, and Einstein continue to inspire me. Four years ago, when I began working on The Tree of Life (Farrar, 2003), my book about Darwin, I had the same limited understanding of him that most people have. I knew he had sailed on the H.M.S. Beagle to the Galápagos Islands, and that he was the first to show how the evolutionary process really worked. But little did I know what I was getting myself into. Researching and creating this book turned out to be the toughest project I've ever tackled.
I was comforted, at first, by the fact that I had successfully dealt with the life of Galileo in Starry Messenger (Farrar, 1996). Once a book is published, I tend to forget how difficult the process is. (Oh, Starry Messenger, that was easy!) Since Galileo lived in the 16th and 17th centuries, little is known about what he looked like, what he ate, or how he dressed. So I was free to portray his life as I imagined it. On the other hand, Darwin lived late into the 19th century, and a lot is known about him.
My project started smoothly, with the help of The Voyage of the Beagle, a wonderfully illustrated book that chronicles Darwin's five-year journey to South America, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, and eventually to the Galápagos in 1835. I began designing my book's layout. I created a gatefold scene that showed Darwin's awakening as a naturalist when he reached the Galápagos. So far so good. Then I started to collect data, materials, and more books, as did my editor, Frances Foster. I also began to notice helpful newspaper articles, at least one or two a week.
As I dug deeper into the research, I realized that my original concept was all wrong. Darwin didn't have a revelation when he reached the Galápagos. It came much later. I also realized that a 36-page picture book couldn't accommodate all of the characters and subplots that were part of Darwin's life—including his grandfather Erasmus (who had also written about evolution); Darwin's bumpy relationship with his father; the two letters that would forever change Darwin's destiny; his lifelong friendship with the Beagle's captain, Robert FitzRoy; Darwin's amazing encounter with the native Fuegians; his marriage to his cousin Emma; the sad fate of Darwin's favorite daughter, Annie; and the publication, in 1859, of On the Origins of Species, a work that rattled the foundations of science and religion. Many of these topics have been turned into plays and films or have become the subject of books, books, and more books. To further complicate things, I was juggling other assignments, traveling between New York and Paris (where I was working on an animated film), Paris and Madison, WI (I was an artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin), and back again to New York—with crates full of books and reference materials. (I'm still searching for some of them.)
I was also faced with a difficult artistic challenge. While the lives of Columbus, Galileo, and Arctic explorer Jan Welzl—men I had already written about—followed an arcing trajectory, most of the exciting events in Darwin's life occurred in his younger days. Darwin was just 22 years old when he embarked on a visually wonderful voyage aboard the Beagle. Then, after he returned to Victorian England, he ended up sitting in his study for the next 50 years or so, mostly thinking. How was I ever going to illustrate that?
While in Paris, in the summer of 2000, I scrapped my original gatefold scene—replacing it with a large drawing of Darwin entering the Brazilian rain forest for the first time. I was comparing his feeling of liberation to my own experience of leaving the grips of the Iron Curtain. Not a good idea. (The Tree of Life has a tiny version of that drawing on a spread that shows a cross section of the Beagle.)
Around that time, I thought it might be helpful to visit Down House, Darwin's home outside of London. I sat in his chair, touched his clothes, and looked at his secret notebooks. It gave me a spiritual boost to walk along the sandy path on which Darwin took his daily stroll. While visiting, I came across an English Heritage catalog about Down House, which also helped me a lot. It was well organized, well documented, and, best of all, simple. I returned to Paris and gathered more books and materials. Once again, I was getting lost.
Frances, my dedicated editor, flew to Paris in May 2001 to talk things over. I still felt overwhelmed by too much information and too many books after her departure, so I decided to work on another project altogether. And so emerged Madlenka's Dog (Farrar, 2002), a wonderfully liberating and playful book, especially after my struggles with Darwin.
Back in the U.S., I completely changed the structure of my book: the publication of On the Origin of Species and Darwin's theory of evolution now became the gatefold centerpiece. I had always worked closely with my father on my best books. He was my poetic sounding board. Both he and my wife, watching my frustration, advised me to forget about Darwin. But my editor was determined to bring the book to completion.
We moved into a new home outside of New York City in September 2001, and I finally settled down in earnest to finish the book. It took forever. There were pictures within pictures to create. And I toiled to tell the story in a way that avoided unnecessary subplots. Work, work, work. That fall, PBS aired a series called Evolution, which opened with a period piece about Darwin. The actors were British, and I assumed it was a well-researched BBC production. Darwin was depicted as left-handed—so that's the way I drew him. Luckily, near the completion of the book, Frances asked me to make sure that Darwin was a lefty. I searched the Internet, but I didn't find anything conclusive. My wife finally got in touch with the show's producer, who turned out to be from Seattle. He admitted that the actor who played Darwin was a southpaw, so they portrayed him that way, hoping nobody would notice. Back to the drawing board for me!
At this point, the text of the book was nearly finished, but new facts about evolution seemed to be popping up almost daily. It's quite possible that by the time The Tree of Life is published, in October, there will be many more new developments. Oh, how easy Galileo was compared to the complexity of Darwin. More than any book I have ever created, it was triple-checked for accuracy and to make sure there weren't any ambiguities in the text. Once again my editor, Frances, copyeditor Elaine Chubb, and the proofreaders at Farrar, Straus & Giroux saved the day.
True, I haven't left any open spaces in this book—white space where readers can just imagine. But this is not that kind of book. As with Galileo, my story of Darwin shows the power of independent thinking to change the direction of civilization. That's the idea behind the very last picture of the book. On the final endpaper, I've drawn a silhouette (shown above), representing the next independent thinker in our future.
Each new book I create is like a newborn baby—the wrinkled face, the features that have yet to fully take shape. That's how I look at The Tree of Life. When it's finally published, I'll either say, "What a nice baby" or "What a trying child indeed." When that time comes, I'm sure I'll have forgotten how difficult it was to deliver!
Peter Sís has created many books for children, including Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei and Tibet: Through the Red Box, both Caldecott Honor books.
