One of the most extravagantly beautiful books in an extravagantly beautiful series, La Frontière invisible is a dreamlike, cartographical mystery about how human beings relate to their environment. Schuiten – showing himself as much a master of moody, ochreous watercolour as he is of every other form he's experimented with – here conjures visions of ossified bureaucracy and stunning landscapes, whose swells and ridges are mirrored by the curves and wrinkles of the human bodies and faces examined in so many of the panels.

Our young, Tintinesque hero is a newly-qualified cartographer who has just landed a job at the vast Cartography Centre in the middle of the desert, deep in Sodrovno-Voldachia (an Obscure City which we haven't got a good look at in any of the previous books). He arrives to find things in a state of flux: the old interpretive methods of creating maps are being replaced by modern machinery, while at the same time, hawkish politicians are taking a sudden interest in the Centre's work and how it might support their plans for military expansion…

In this fraught atmosphere, he becomes entangled with a girl whose body is covered with some strange markings – tattoo, birthmark, figment of his imagination? – which resemble a map of the country's disputed border and which could place her in terrible danger.

In some ways, the book reads like a spiritual sequel to Brüsel, the sixth volume of the series. Here again we have a tension between traditional skills and modern industrialisation; here again there is a playful curiosity about scale (the model city from Brüsel is matched in La Frontière invisible by a vast 3D map, where people step over mountain ranges and place boulders in river-valleys) – it reminded me a little of some of Will Self's stories. The concern about how the size of a human being determines the way we react to our surroundings is very much in keeping with the focus on architecture which has run throughout the series – though here, environments are not so much architectural as geological, or, for that matter, corporal.

Originally published in two volumes, modern editions usually collect it all together into one, bumper-sized BD treat. I found the ending disappointing, but it seems so ungenerous to complain in the face of all this goodness that I won't bother. A beautiful fantasy of people, and places, and how they come together, and a special place to visit that you won't find on any map. ( )

Une BD en livre audio… Etrange n’est-ce pas… C’est ce que propose cette adaptation radiophonique de France Culture, et elle ne s’attaque pas à n’importe quoi puisqu’il s’agit d’un des volumes des Citées Obscures, de Peeters et Schuiten, le premier étant d’ailleurs responsable de l’adaptation, ce qui permet d’espérer que l’esprit n’est pas trahi.
Lire une BD avec les oreilles, donc, en amputant la lecture des dessins de Schuiten, c’est une gageure. J’ai apprécié mon écoute, je ne dis pas le contraire, et, connaissant un peu le trait de Schuiten, j’ai pu imaginer certaines scènes dans les couleurs qu’il affectionne habituellement. L’œuvre m’est restée un peu obscur, mais c’est toujours le cas avec cette série.
Et comme il se trouve que j’avais emprunté la BD à la bibliothèque du quartier au même moment, je me suis empressée de la lire dans la foulée. Pas sûre d’avoir plus compris, mais il y a beaucoup plus de sous-entendus dans la BD que dans le livre audio, qui perd en richesse, notamment cette fameuse dernière image très suggestive (mais qui suggère quoi ???), une conclusion ouverte à côté de laquelle je suis complètement passée à côté lors de mon écoute. Expérience intéressante, donc, mais l’oreille ne remplace pas l’œil, je m’en doutais, cette écoute l’a confirmé !

This "Volume 2" does seem to conclude The Invisible Frontier, with chapters that become shorter and more discontinuous as the story proceeds. Like the preceding volume, it is full of beautiful images. Shame on the publishers for cropping the English cover image so that the feminine form of the terrain is obscured.

Schuiten's art in this title is breathtaking. There are splendid fantasy architectures and landscapes that communicate the feeling of vast spaces and filtered light. The characters are expressive and attractively rendered.

In the story, an aspiring cartographer finds himself in the elite bureaucracy of his craft, where there are disturbing changes underway: mechanization, militarization, and possible conspiracies.

The hardcover volume has four chapters, and does not conclude its plot.

I really wanted to like this book. I liked the art. I liked the setting and the characters. I loved the stuff about maps. However - at the end of this and vol. 2 - I was left confused. ( )