Untitled
Report from a Sub-Sub-Sub-Librarian
This book (or this iteration of a perpetually-becoming book which is untitled) is a book made of books; a book of language. It is a phantasia of the library. It aspires to the great traditions of books turned inward; books reflecting on themselves; Raymond Roussel’s secret mirrors, Flaubert’s Temptation, the Foucault who read worlds back into existence. It is a book sequestered in the library alongside Montaigne, Burton, and Pliny. It is language exhausting itself like the murmuring of the dead in Dostoevsky’s Bobok.
A Drawing of a Book
It is a drawing of a book in two senses. First, every word has been observed and re-produced carefully from existing books. All words and punctuation have been transcribed exactly (only font and capitalization have been standardized). Second, it draws together fragments, holds them in place, allows them to de- and re-contextualize. As such, it may be approached as a continuous flow of language, or as a collection of discrete parts which invite reading like a reference book or a collection of poems.
In Praise of Dumb Reading
When I was younger I loved to read. I read the things that were common but also sought out texts that were beyond my reach. Those books were delightfully opaque; mysterious, powerful, closed to all but the initiated. When I read sentences like “ethics and aesthetics are one and the same,” the words seemed utterly separate from the daily use of language, from the world I lived in. What did it all mean? As I learned more, my initial sense of vertigo in the face of limitless possibility was tamed by context; brought back down to Earth. Understanding could feel limiting. Here, then, is a text on the move; ever-renewing; never in one spot long enough to ossify into inflexible sense.
A Conclusion
What do we find when we tear back the veil of language? Maybe not the world, but the other side of the page.
Untitled is an ongoing project. Books are printed several times annually. Copies are labeled by year. Letters denote printings within that year.
