We spend our lives craving to be saved — from hurt and heartache, from ourselves, from the inevitability of our oblivion. Religions have taught {that a} god saves us. Kierkegaard thought that we save ourselves. Baldwin believed that we save each other, if we’re fortunate. Finally, we don’t know, or solely assume we all know, what saves us. However when it occurs, we maintain on to our saviors with the complete drive of gratitude and style. In each true friendship, every is the opposite’s savior, again and again.
That’s what Hungarian artist Balint Zsako explores with nice subtlety and sweetness in Bunny & Tree — an odd and wondrous wordless picture-book a couple of bunny saved from the archetypal hungry wolf by an unlikely savior — a sentient tree — and the unlikely friendship that blooms between them.
The story begins with Tree sprouting into life towards Zsako’s beautiful watercolor skyscapes. Season after season, Tree grows in vigor and wonder — a “silent sentinel” to the world.
At some point, an historical drama unfolds beneath it — a ferocious fairy-tale wolf, black and fanged, pursues Bunny in a life-and-death chase that ends on the foot of Tree.
Out of the blue, Tree’s crown shape-shifts into the silhouette of an unlimited beast, menacing the wolf into retreat, then right into a pleasant face, cradling Bunny into security.
So it’s that Bunny and Tree enter the bonds of belief that undergird each true friendship. And, identical to this, they resolve to construct a brand new life collectively in some faraway haven.
Fastidiously, lovingly, Bunny uproots Tree they usually start traversing day and evening, mountain and valley, as Tree shape-shifts into simply the precise automobile they want for every leg of their journey.
The story ends with a beautiful wordless meditation on friendship, neighborhood, and the unstoppable ongoingness of life.
Couple Bunny & Tree and with Bear & Wolf — the tender story of one other unbelievable friendship — then revisit Kahlil Gibran on friendship and the building blocks of meaningful connection.
Illustrations courtesy of Enchanted Lion Books; pictures by Maria Popova
