Tree of Codes

Jonathan Safran Foer's latest literary offering, published in late 2010 by Visual Editions, is an astonishing experiment in book art.

When you first take Tree of Codes in your hands, it seems like any other paperback. When you open it, though, you find that the pages have literally been cut to pieces. But carefully so. You see, Tree of Codes is a 'die-cut book', each page a web of cut-out largely-rectangular shapes, precise gaping holes where you'd expect to find written text. So unusual is this novel that Visual Editions have made a video showing the public's reactions to the book:

A few words have been spared, and it is these word-islands that form the narrative, an evocative tale of a man's coming to terms with death and confrontation with life. Foer's book has in fact grown out of another book, Bruno Schulz's The Street of Crocodiles. Foer carved out his story from Schulz's, cutting most of the original and leaving the remaining resilient words in their original position on the page. Jewish-born Schulz did not survive the Second World War; his unpublished work is lost, cast from the pages of history. There is, therefore, a poignant irony to Foer's act of erasure.

Reading Tree of Codes is a delicate act. You must turn each page with fragile care. And as you read the text itself, which is deeply poetic in nature, words from pages-to-come intrude in the sentence you're reading, materialising through the holes from the depths of pages. Part-novel, part-sculpure, Tree of Codes is, if nothing else, an equisite artistic statement. It reminds us of the beauty of silence and empty space while its elegaic words speak with resonant voice. It enacts a history of loss while saluting a future poetics of form. As with conceptual art, you are likely either to love or hate this book, but there is no denying that Foer's Tree of Codes is at the cutting edge.

Multimodal Printed Literature

What is Multimodality?

Multimodality, in its most fundamental sense, is the coexistence of more than one semiotic mode within a given context. More generally, multimodality is an everyday reality. It is the experience of living; we experience everyday life in multimodal terms through sight, sound, movement. Even the simplest conversation entails languae, intonation, gesture and so forth.


What is Multimodal Printed Literature?

Multimodal novels are typified by their inclusion of graphic elements. Thus, they feature a synthesis of word and image, with word and image arranged on the page not is a distinct or separate fashion, but in such a way that they constantly interact in the production of narrative meaning. Additionally, such novels often exploit the tactile and material dimensions of the book itself.

Some of the formal features that consistently appear in multimodal novels are:

• The Inclusion of Images.
• Unusual textual layouts and page design.
• Varied typography.
• Use of colour in both type and imagistic content.
• Concrete realisation of text to create images, as in concrete poetry.
• Devices that draw attention to the text’s materiality, including metafictive writing.
• Footnotes and self-interrogative critical voices.
• Flip book sections.
• Mixing of genres, both in literary terms, such as horror, and in terms of visual effect, such as newspaper clippings and play dialogue.

An early, canonical example of what can be considered a multimodal novel is, of course, Laurence Sterne’s (1967 [1759-67]) much celebrated and sometimes berated The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.

In my own writing, I've explored works by Mark Z. Danielewski (House of Leaves):

Steve Tomasula (VAS: An Opera In Flatland):

Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close):

and Graham Rawle (Woman's World):

The images above show the varied nature of multimodal printed novels. Indeed, one of the things that make mulitmodal literature as a genre so exciting is its diversity.

I'm always on the look-out for new books, so suggestions welcome!