Tawanna.R: Tree of Codes

Serendipitously, I heard an inventive book, Tree of Codes. It has a different die-cut on every page, and explores previously unchartered literary territory. Initially deemed impossible to make, the book is a first - as much a sculptural object as it is a work of masterful storytelling. Inspired to exhume a new story from an existing text, Jonathan Safran Foer has taken his “favourite” book, The Street of Crocodiles by Polish-Jewish writer Bruno Schulz and used it as a canvas, cutting into and out of the pages, to arrive at an original new story told in Safran Foer’s own acclaimed voice.
Tree of Codes being a haunting new story by best-selling American writer-Jonathan Safran Foer is the story of ‘an enormous last day of life’. As one character’s life is chased to extinction, Safran Foer multi-layers the story with immense, anxious, at times disorientating imagery, crossing both a sense of time and place, making the story of one person’s last day everyone’s story. The book has a broad appeal: to both literary audiences, intrigued by Safran Foer's new way of writing and to design and art audiences who will revel in the book's remarkable and unique visual experience. At fewer than 3,000 words, it's a quick read – half your time will be taken up with turning the pages ever-so-gingerly and inserting a blank sheet behind each so as not to be distracted by the layers beneath – but it's surprisingly absorbing. I enjoyed it more than I expected to, even allowing for the fact that I love Schulz's story-cycle. Reading Tree of Codes without reference to the original, you may conclude that Foer has conjured beautiful new images from every page. Comparing the two texts paragraph by paragraph, you notice quite often that what seems like an audacious coinage is already there in the original; Foer has merely excised hunks of Schulz's luxuriant verbiage and exhibited a slimmed-down version of the master's vision. (Guardian.co.uk)