“There’s a lot to say about this one, so buckle up.
This is the die-cut book, the one where most of the words are literally cut out of the book, and the remaining pages are often as much hole as they are text.
I say it’s THE die-cut book because it’s the only one of its type that I know of with the exception of some children’s books and I think there was a book with a hole in the middle you were meant to put your penis through as an adult gag kind of thing.
I have a rule set for putting my schwanz into stuff:
1. The stuff should be specifically designed for that purpose,
2. If not designed for that purpose, should have a human intelligence that I can reasonably trust on the other end of it,
3. If it does not follow rules one or two, then it’d better result in a VERY funny visual.
That’s pretty much it.
While the book seems designed for that purpose, and while I’m sure book manufacturers are good at their jobs, how much do I trust the fine sanding on the interior of that board book’s hole? Not much. And while I’m sure it’s good for a chuckle, I doubt it’s hilarious.
Plus, can I trust that bookstores were hardcore on a no returns policy on that one? I don’t think they’re used to managing their wares like a sex shop.
Tree of Codes:
The story itself is abstract, to say the least, more like a long poem than a novel or a short story. Which makes sense, it IS a story that is created by removal from an existing text. Making a flowy, coherent narrative would most likely result in a book that was a briefer version of the original story (Tree of Codes is a die-cut, existing book, Street of Crocodiles) as opposed to being its own thing.
So the text itself wasn’t a total banger for me, but there were some interesting turns of phrase, and while it wasn’t as concrete as I’d normally prefer, there was a narrative thread that seemed follow-able.
The big question with these sorts of “gimmick” books, for me, is always, “Okay, the gimmick is cute, but is it worth actually reading?”
With this one, I would give a “Mostly Yes.”
The book is very unique, and the reading experience is unusual. You have to sort of pick the pages apart a bit and read one page half-lifted off the others, or, I gather some people use a sheet of paper that they put behind a page, read that page, then lift the paper out, put it behind the next page, rinse repeat.
I don’t have that kind of patience. Or dexterity. Maybe if you’re like a bank teller and you’re used to handling slips of paper all the time in a way that’d make a close-up magician jealous of your dexterity, maybe then that method would be more reasonable.
It’s one of the bigger expressions of “ergodic literature,” as the kids call it these days. This is, “Literature that requires a non-trivial effort on the part of the reader in order to traverse the text.”
Let’s make it simple: funky books that you can’t just read left to right, front to back.
It took a little bit of doing to figure out how you’re meant to read it, and I ended up googling to figure out whether you were supposed to read one page at a time, look through the windows to other visible words, and so on.
While this sounds pretty annoying, and there were moments when a page would get caught on the next, some of the die-cuts result in these little tabs that are perfect for binding two pages together, that slowed an already-slow reading experience.
But the big thing is, for me, the book doesn’t overstay its welcome.
It was probably a 20-30 minute read, and that felt like a good amount of time to devote to the task. You’re not to the point of, “Ugh, fuck this shit.” And doing it in one go is my recommendation.
I do also like any book that seems impossible to replicate in a digital format, and this is probably at the top there as well.
You could only do this digitally if you set up each page so you had to turn, swipe a “black insert page” underneath the one you were reading, read the page, swipe the black insert page away, then turn the page, repeat. Which you could totally do, but that just seems tedious in a way that the physical book isn’t.
With the physical book, it’s a little bit of a puzzle to figure out how to read it, hold it, turn the pages and keep the narrative flowing as much as possible. With the digital, turning that into a series of tablet gestures just doesn’t have the same effect.
And for me, I enjoy something like this. It’s kind of fun to read something that you absolutely couldn’t read while eating your lunch. You need your hands, you need to concentrate a little. It kind of helps the world outside the book fade into the background a bit, something that’s not always easy for me to do.
The combo of physicality and abstract narrative forces you to pay attention, and increasingly, that really helps me read.
Artsy-Fartsy Bullshit Section
This book can definitely be viewed as an artistic expression of the relationship between text and reader, of the idea that there are worlds within worlds in almost any book, or the idea that a book requires a fully-realized world, and in any fully-realized world, there’s a smaller story to be found.
It may also have something to say about the way a good book can become your whole world.
It may also have some relationship to modern expressions of this sort of thing, like fanart, fanfiction, and even official spinoffs like Rogue One. There are worlds within narratives that are so rich, they can be explored much further. By making something like Tree of Codes, a person can live in and explore a book like Street of Crocodiles in a new, deep way.
End of Artsy-Fartsy Bullshit Section
The other big thing with these sorts of books is that I often find that the book was probably more interesting and fun to make than it is to read. I totally get the excitement behind the idea, and at the same time, the idea is perhaps more interesting than the execution.
Tree of Codes definitely rides the line on this one. Because it was certainly A TON of hard work to make, but it was probably also a super interesting project, a labor of love, no doubt.
Reading it wasn’t AS fun or interesting as making it, but it wasn’t a total dud, either. I felt like there was something interesting and mysterious about it, and I did feel like I was having an unusual experience that was worth the time and price of entry.
“Price of entry” brings me to the last part here:
I HIGHLY recommend getting this from your library, through interlibrary loan if they don’t own it. That’s what I did.
You’ll spend at least $100 bucks to get your hands on this one.
Now, I’m about the last person who’s going to look down his nose at someone who pays $100 bucks for something pretty cool and unique for the ol’ bookshelf. That’s a glass house, and I’d be chucking boulders.
But what I WILL say is that you should try the interlibrary loan option first, get your hands on it, read it, and then see how you feel about it.
If the $100 bucks is a good investment for you, that decision will be reaffirmed by checking it out.
If it’s not, hey, you saved $100 bucks! You can buy, like, 15 of my shitty books instead!”