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Thursday, November 25, 2010

'Tree of Codes' by Jonathan Safran Foer


Tree of Codes
is Jonathan Safran Foer's new book, which is a 'treated' edition of The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz, in the spirit of Tom Phillips' A Humument. It is published by Visual Editions. There's a good interview with Safran Foer in the NYT (extract below).

Q.Where did this strong affinity for graphic design come from?

A.Where would the lack of interest in design come from? Why wouldn’t — how couldn’t — an author care about how his or her books look? I’ve never met an artist who wasn’t interested in the visual arts, yet we’ve drawn a deep line in the sand around what we consider the novel to be, and what we’re supposed to care about. So we’re in the strange position of having much to say about what hangs on gallery walls and little about what hangs on the pages of our books. Literature doesn’t need a visual component — my favorite books are all black words on white pages — but it would be well served to lower the drawbridge
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