Tree of Codes

Jonathan Safran Foer

ISBN 10: 0956569218 / ISBN 13: 9780956569219

Published by Visual Editions, 2010

About this Item

A Very Good Plus first printing with minimal shelfwear. Only issued in paperback. 134 pages. 5.25" x 8.75". Jonathan Safran Foer s (1977 ) Tree of Codes (2010) might, on its own, as an object, be regarded as an artistic achievement. But in considering the source material for this die-cut book-written-from-another-book, we are given a thought exercise about what is left of an artist after they pass, how is their work reinterpreted, and what might be intuited about what is omitted? Bruno Schulz (1892 1942) was a Polish Jewish author who was killed in the Drohobycz Ghetto. Most of his works were lost in the Holocaust, but Foer, citing it as his favorite book, used one of the surviving novels, The Street of Crocodiles, as the framework from which Tree of Codes was literally carved. The result is a poetic achievement of book craftsmanship, which we are pleased to offer here. .

Seller Inventory # 53

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Tree of Codes
• Publisher: Visual Editions
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0956569218
• ISBN 13: 9780956569219
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition: First printing.
• Condition: Very Good Plus
• Seller catalogs:
  • Book Arts and Fine Press
  • Fiction

About this title

Synopsis

Tree of Codes is a haunting new story by best-selling American writer, Jonathan Safran Foer. With a different die-cut on every page, Tree of Codes 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. Tree of Codes is the story of an enormous last day of life ? as one character's life is chased to extinction, 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. Inspired to exhume a new story from an existing text, Jonathan Safran Foer has taken his "favorite" 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 Jonathan Safran Foer's own acclaimed voice.

About the Author

Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of the novels Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and a work of nonfiction, Eating Animals. His books have won numerous awards and have been translated into 36 languages. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.