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Composition No. 1
VE3 is a re-imagining of a book originally published in the 1960s. The book is the first ever “book in a box”, called Composition No.1 by Marc Saporta. When we say book in a box we quite literally a book that comes in a box with loose pages. The narrative is contained on each page, leaving it up to the reader to decide the order they read the book, and how much or how little of the book they want to read before they begin again. In so many ways, Composition No.1 was published ahead of its the book raises all the questions we ask ourselves today about user-centric, non-linear screen driven ways of reading.
With this in mind, Visual Editions approached Tom Uglow of Creative Labs Google and Youtube to write an introduction for the book. This re-imagined edition also includes several of Salvador Plascencia’s (author of The People of Paper ) drawings, looking at all the different components that make up a “typical” book. The book is designed by Universal Everything, a London based design studio known for their interactive screen-based work (clients include MTV and AOL).
The book, as Visual Editions have shown with their other two titles, will have a high attention to design and production values and in many ways is the best example of a book as an object, or better yet, the book as an experience. Along with their usual consideration to high quality craft and finish, the designers have also generated unique digitally-generated artwork for the backs of each page, making for a gorgeous, tactile design relevant to literary, art and design and digital audiences.
Ultimately, Visual Editions’ re-imagined Composition No.1 asks readers to what is it that makes a book a book?
With this in mind, Visual Editions approached Tom Uglow of Creative Labs Google and Youtube to write an introduction for the book. This re-imagined edition also includes several of Salvador Plascencia’s (author of The People of Paper ) drawings, looking at all the different components that make up a “typical” book. The book is designed by Universal Everything, a London based design studio known for their interactive screen-based work (clients include MTV and AOL).
The book, as Visual Editions have shown with their other two titles, will have a high attention to design and production values and in many ways is the best example of a book as an object, or better yet, the book as an experience. Along with their usual consideration to high quality craft and finish, the designers have also generated unique digitally-generated artwork for the backs of each page, making for a gorgeous, tactile design relevant to literary, art and design and digital audiences.
Ultimately, Visual Editions’ re-imagined Composition No.1 asks readers to what is it that makes a book a book?
155 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
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797 people want to read
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June 16, 2017
review of
Marc Saporta's Composition No. 1
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 1, 2012
This bk is a collection of loose pages in a box. It's published by Visual Editions of London who say: "We think that books should be as visually interesting as the stories they tell; with the visual feeding into and adding to the storytelling as much as the words on the page. We call it visual writing." I find this both exciting, insofar as the publishers seem seriously intent on publishing things that're different, & naive, since they seem to be unaware of, or deliberately in denial of, the tradition that they're a part of.
"We think that books should be as visually interesting as the stories they tell" presupposes that bks inevitably tell stories wch strikes me as rather unimaginative. "We call it visual writing"? Surely they realize that there's such a thing as Concrete Poetry, Visual Poetry, Picture Poems, & Typewriter Art? Surely they realize that there've been narratives that incorporate the appearance of the text as an element of the narrative & that calling such texts Visual Writing is like reinventing & renaming the wheel? Take, eg, my own, Puzzle Writing solicited as an experimental narrative by Crag Hill of Score & published in 1994 ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10... ) - or Tom Philips' A Humament published in 1980.
Composition No. 1 predates both of the above in its original publication date (1961?) but doesn't predate the beginnings of Concrete Poetry in the 1950s. Even more importantly, it doesn't predate Pictorial Poetry wch editor Milton Klonsky, in his Speaking Pictures, dates from the 16th century.
Visual Editions also claims that Composition No. 1 is "is the first ever “book in a box”" & that might be true but I'm usually a bit distrustful of claims of being "first". Often these claims are made by people who simply haven't researched more obscure precursors. Again, Composition No. 1 might be the 1st but the wonderful Correspondence - an exhibition of the letters of Ray Johnson, published by the North Carolina Museum of Art in 1976, surely deserves an honorable mention for its looseleaf structure.
When I found this marked down from $40 to $35 at the Strand Bookstore in NYC I was initially interested but after leafing thru it a bit didn't find the innovations to be worth the price. It wasn't until I found a used copy for $25 that I decided to buy it.
It might seem that I'm a bit down on this & on Visual Editions but, actually, I'm highly interested in both. I think Visual Editions shows great promise & I hope they flourish financially. Saporta's use of looseleaf structure was very stimulating. Being familiar w/ experimental writing, I half-expected Saporta's narrative to be more 'abstract' than it was & was pleased to discover that in many respects it's a very conventional narrative in wch flashbacks & flashforwards & jumpcuts are the standard MO for moving between pages. The closest thing I can accurately compare it to in novels wd be Julio Cortazar's wonderful Hospscotch 1st published in 1963 but, as much as I love Hospscotch, I'd have to admit that Composition No. 1 is even formally ahead of that if the original publication date of 1961 is correct (Tom Uglow's Introduction claims 1962 but I've found 1961 as the date here: http://nickm.com/if/composition_no_1.... ).
It's perhaps easiest to compare Composition No. 1 to 20th century avant-garde musical structure, particularly aleatoric music, insofar as the building blocks are recognized as valid in any linear or even vertical relation. Interestingly, the title of the bk is also the title of a painting by one of the bk's characters, Dagmar. This seems to tie the novel into modern art.
The order of the pages as I got them in my copy had a title page on top followed by a credit page followed by the introduction followed by the only page not cut to the same size: "The Anatomy of Your Favorite Novel" by Salvador Plascencia - twice the page size but folded over to make it fit. I kept those pages in this order but slightly cut & shuffled the remaining pages to be in keeping w/ the openness. When I read Finnegans Wake when I was 22 I started from a page in the 'middle' of the bk, maybe 356, & read to the end & then from the beginning to my starting point b/c I'd been told that the bk was circularly structured & that the end connected to the beginning.
Plascencia is credited w/ providing "diagrams" wch, as far as I can tell, means only the diagrams on the afore-mentioned page. What's unclear to me is WHO DID THE TYPEWRITER ART that's on the verso of every page of Saporta's novel? According to the GoodReads description "Along with their usual consideration to high quality craft and finish, the designers have also generated unique digitally-generated artwork for the backs of each page, making for a gorgeous, tactile design relevant to literary, art and design and digital audiences." Yes, but are they just fluff added irrelevantly to Saporta's story? That wd seem to be the case, nice tho they are.
Each page has a few paragraphs of narrative descriptive text on one side & the "digitally-generated artwork" (that looks like typewriter art to me) on the other. Even tho it appears to be constructed from letters & words, in its form as published here it's so reduced that even w/ my best magnifying glass it's barely readable as text. Instead, the images look like topographies, close-ups of natural textures, arial fotos of mudslide areas, computer projections of stochastic phenomena, etc.. I assume these are just there to fill space instead of having text on both sides & don't serve a deeper purpose.
Whatever the case, the 'typewriter' art is rendered biomorphic by not sticking to rows of lines but having the text more in free-flow w/ spaces between some areas like rips or rifts & other areas w/ greater blackness due to overtyping. The closest thing I can compare these to are Steve McCaffery's great CARNIVAL series, the 1st panel of wch (made from 1967-1970) was published by The Coach House Press in 1973. McCaffery's is far more astounding, tho, & WAS made w/ a typewriter instead of the much more easily generated digital (presumably computer) process.
As for the narrative, it's carefully crafted to hang together in any order & to still have some tale-telling tension. There're 3 main characters: Marianne, Dagmar, & Helga. The reader gets intermittent glimpses of their lives. Helga is a teenager coming of age sexually. Tension is generated by making it unclear whether she's nervously inviting a passionate sexual encounter or whether she's half-welcoming a forced one. Marianne is the only character who suffers from a progressive deterioration. As such, whenever she appears, her mental state may apply a place in a chronology. Dagmar is, perhaps, the most mysterious of them all. Sometimes I thought that she might be the one forcing the sexual encounter w/ Helga.
Other narrative ploys appear: a war between the Germans & the French is in progress. It may or may not be WWII. There're various side-conflicts that set a stage w/o overly defining it. Marianne's husband is a compulsive gambler who's ruining them financially. Marianne might be sd to be the main character &, for me, the novel works just as a conventional novel insofar as every time I learned more about the characters I was interested in their development.
Most of all, this bk is like a jigsaw puzzle. There's a picture to be brought to completion & reading the pages is the same as adding a piece. & the finished puzzle IS a 'picture' - it doesn't have a beginning or an end, it's whole in & of itself.
One cd order the pages so that the most chronological narrative is created using Marianne's deterioration as a central line. Even in that way, however, things like Cohen's struggle, or Buisson's gang, or the war narrative wd have no clear place in time. Saporta has been careful to make sure the narrative stays open. While I can't agree w/ the reviews that say that this bk is "is an object of immense beauty and danger" & such-like (after all, I see alotof artist's bks that are even more spectacular) I find that all in all, this was excellent & goes far beyond gimmickry.
Marc Saporta's Composition No. 1
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 1, 2012
This bk is a collection of loose pages in a box. It's published by Visual Editions of London who say: "We think that books should be as visually interesting as the stories they tell; with the visual feeding into and adding to the storytelling as much as the words on the page. We call it visual writing." I find this both exciting, insofar as the publishers seem seriously intent on publishing things that're different, & naive, since they seem to be unaware of, or deliberately in denial of, the tradition that they're a part of.
"We think that books should be as visually interesting as the stories they tell" presupposes that bks inevitably tell stories wch strikes me as rather unimaginative. "We call it visual writing"? Surely they realize that there's such a thing as Concrete Poetry, Visual Poetry, Picture Poems, & Typewriter Art? Surely they realize that there've been narratives that incorporate the appearance of the text as an element of the narrative & that calling such texts Visual Writing is like reinventing & renaming the wheel? Take, eg, my own, Puzzle Writing solicited as an experimental narrative by Crag Hill of Score & published in 1994 ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10... ) - or Tom Philips' A Humament published in 1980.
Composition No. 1 predates both of the above in its original publication date (1961?) but doesn't predate the beginnings of Concrete Poetry in the 1950s. Even more importantly, it doesn't predate Pictorial Poetry wch editor Milton Klonsky, in his Speaking Pictures, dates from the 16th century.
Visual Editions also claims that Composition No. 1 is "is the first ever “book in a box”" & that might be true but I'm usually a bit distrustful of claims of being "first". Often these claims are made by people who simply haven't researched more obscure precursors. Again, Composition No. 1 might be the 1st but the wonderful Correspondence - an exhibition of the letters of Ray Johnson, published by the North Carolina Museum of Art in 1976, surely deserves an honorable mention for its looseleaf structure.
When I found this marked down from $40 to $35 at the Strand Bookstore in NYC I was initially interested but after leafing thru it a bit didn't find the innovations to be worth the price. It wasn't until I found a used copy for $25 that I decided to buy it.
It might seem that I'm a bit down on this & on Visual Editions but, actually, I'm highly interested in both. I think Visual Editions shows great promise & I hope they flourish financially. Saporta's use of looseleaf structure was very stimulating. Being familiar w/ experimental writing, I half-expected Saporta's narrative to be more 'abstract' than it was & was pleased to discover that in many respects it's a very conventional narrative in wch flashbacks & flashforwards & jumpcuts are the standard MO for moving between pages. The closest thing I can accurately compare it to in novels wd be Julio Cortazar's wonderful Hospscotch 1st published in 1963 but, as much as I love Hospscotch, I'd have to admit that Composition No. 1 is even formally ahead of that if the original publication date of 1961 is correct (Tom Uglow's Introduction claims 1962 but I've found 1961 as the date here: http://nickm.com/if/composition_no_1.... ).
It's perhaps easiest to compare Composition No. 1 to 20th century avant-garde musical structure, particularly aleatoric music, insofar as the building blocks are recognized as valid in any linear or even vertical relation. Interestingly, the title of the bk is also the title of a painting by one of the bk's characters, Dagmar. This seems to tie the novel into modern art.
The order of the pages as I got them in my copy had a title page on top followed by a credit page followed by the introduction followed by the only page not cut to the same size: "The Anatomy of Your Favorite Novel" by Salvador Plascencia - twice the page size but folded over to make it fit. I kept those pages in this order but slightly cut & shuffled the remaining pages to be in keeping w/ the openness. When I read Finnegans Wake when I was 22 I started from a page in the 'middle' of the bk, maybe 356, & read to the end & then from the beginning to my starting point b/c I'd been told that the bk was circularly structured & that the end connected to the beginning.
Plascencia is credited w/ providing "diagrams" wch, as far as I can tell, means only the diagrams on the afore-mentioned page. What's unclear to me is WHO DID THE TYPEWRITER ART that's on the verso of every page of Saporta's novel? According to the GoodReads description "Along with their usual consideration to high quality craft and finish, the designers have also generated unique digitally-generated artwork for the backs of each page, making for a gorgeous, tactile design relevant to literary, art and design and digital audiences." Yes, but are they just fluff added irrelevantly to Saporta's story? That wd seem to be the case, nice tho they are.
Each page has a few paragraphs of narrative descriptive text on one side & the "digitally-generated artwork" (that looks like typewriter art to me) on the other. Even tho it appears to be constructed from letters & words, in its form as published here it's so reduced that even w/ my best magnifying glass it's barely readable as text. Instead, the images look like topographies, close-ups of natural textures, arial fotos of mudslide areas, computer projections of stochastic phenomena, etc.. I assume these are just there to fill space instead of having text on both sides & don't serve a deeper purpose.
Whatever the case, the 'typewriter' art is rendered biomorphic by not sticking to rows of lines but having the text more in free-flow w/ spaces between some areas like rips or rifts & other areas w/ greater blackness due to overtyping. The closest thing I can compare these to are Steve McCaffery's great CARNIVAL series, the 1st panel of wch (made from 1967-1970) was published by The Coach House Press in 1973. McCaffery's is far more astounding, tho, & WAS made w/ a typewriter instead of the much more easily generated digital (presumably computer) process.
As for the narrative, it's carefully crafted to hang together in any order & to still have some tale-telling tension. There're 3 main characters: Marianne, Dagmar, & Helga. The reader gets intermittent glimpses of their lives. Helga is a teenager coming of age sexually. Tension is generated by making it unclear whether she's nervously inviting a passionate sexual encounter or whether she's half-welcoming a forced one. Marianne is the only character who suffers from a progressive deterioration. As such, whenever she appears, her mental state may apply a place in a chronology. Dagmar is, perhaps, the most mysterious of them all. Sometimes I thought that she might be the one forcing the sexual encounter w/ Helga.
Other narrative ploys appear: a war between the Germans & the French is in progress. It may or may not be WWII. There're various side-conflicts that set a stage w/o overly defining it. Marianne's husband is a compulsive gambler who's ruining them financially. Marianne might be sd to be the main character &, for me, the novel works just as a conventional novel insofar as every time I learned more about the characters I was interested in their development.
Most of all, this bk is like a jigsaw puzzle. There's a picture to be brought to completion & reading the pages is the same as adding a piece. & the finished puzzle IS a 'picture' - it doesn't have a beginning or an end, it's whole in & of itself.
One cd order the pages so that the most chronological narrative is created using Marianne's deterioration as a central line. Even in that way, however, things like Cohen's struggle, or Buisson's gang, or the war narrative wd have no clear place in time. Saporta has been careful to make sure the narrative stays open. While I can't agree w/ the reviews that say that this bk is "is an object of immense beauty and danger" & such-like (after all, I see alotof artist's bks that are even more spectacular) I find that all in all, this was excellent & goes far beyond gimmickry.
September 9, 2011
Hard to say exactly what this book is about - or why it's something to be read, other than that it is an object of immense beauty and danger.
I read the whole thing in one go after having waited for quite some time, under the influence of Tylenol and a low-grade fever. I do believe this only helped add to the ethereal nature of the book and, hey, I'll take it.
This won't be for everyone, certainly - but even if you don't like the book, you have to admire Visual Editions' beautiful work on the creation of the piece itself.
More ramblings about the strange creation over at Raging Biblioholism: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-ha
I read the whole thing in one go after having waited for quite some time, under the influence of Tylenol and a low-grade fever. I do believe this only helped add to the ethereal nature of the book and, hey, I'll take it.
This won't be for everyone, certainly - but even if you don't like the book, you have to admire Visual Editions' beautiful work on the creation of the piece itself.
More ramblings about the strange creation over at Raging Biblioholism: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-ha
November 4, 2014
I feel somewhat conflicted about Composition No. 1. On the one hand, I really enjoyed it. When it comes to books, I'm a big rule follower, so it was exciting to create and break some book rules. I thought I would read the pages as they came to me and not move them around, but as I read, I created character piles, found some pages that I felt belonged at the beginning or at the end. When I was nearly done, I took the remaining pages and ordered them from most amount of words to fewest, just for the hell of it. Reading Composition No. 1 felt like solving a mystery. I kept collecting clues about what was happening and who it was happening to. That was a lot of fun.
On the other hand, I felt like there were several different stories that didn't (or hardly did) coincide. Which wouldn't have been a problem if I'd known about that in advance, but here I was trying to intersect several stories that didn't go together. Even within each story, I didn't feel there was a beginning, middle, and end. Some things were happening and those same things kept happening over and over and over again.
Regardless, I did thoroughly enjoy reading Composition No. 1. It was kind of thrilling, even if it was confusing. Also, I thought Dagmar was really awesome, though I get the feeling she was dead the whole time ...
On the other hand, I felt like there were several different stories that didn't (or hardly did) coincide. Which wouldn't have been a problem if I'd known about that in advance, but here I was trying to intersect several stories that didn't go together. Even within each story, I didn't feel there was a beginning, middle, and end. Some things were happening and those same things kept happening over and over and over again.
Regardless, I did thoroughly enjoy reading Composition No. 1. It was kind of thrilling, even if it was confusing. Also, I thought Dagmar was really awesome, though I get the feeling she was dead the whole time ...
November 27, 2011
so this book came out on Sept. 13, I recommended it to Greg on Sept. 6 and MJ recommended it to me on Nov. 13. and now I've finally gotten around to reading it. so that's all well and good except when it's not.
I think that every person who asks for a recommendation based on the fact that the girl with the dragon tattoo is about violence toward women should be handed this book. mostly because i'm a jerk, but also to prove a point not all books about violence against women are about violence against women. most in fact aren't I mean if the point of a book is women getting beat up and violated for not other purpose than to do it you have the story of O, just kidding that one had a point, in reality you have this book... I feel quite bad making such a statement in all honesty... because the books idea is so neat and after I shuffled it only I can be blamed for what I read, right? not so much when the author clearly states young girls need to be trained like birds, and how do you train a bird? by all appearances you tourture it until you get learned helplessness and it's willing to make you supper barefoot and pregnant. wait that came out wrong that isn't the right idea, the right idea is for you to rape it but while you rape it you convince it of how much it enjoys what you are doing to it. hello rape trauma syndrome.... um... right i'm trying to figure out how to save this review because I did like the book but I've got nothing, perhaps MJ can do better.
I think that every person who asks for a recommendation based on the fact that the girl with the dragon tattoo is about violence toward women should be handed this book. mostly because i'm a jerk, but also to prove a point not all books about violence against women are about violence against women. most in fact aren't I mean if the point of a book is women getting beat up and violated for not other purpose than to do it you have the story of O, just kidding that one had a point, in reality you have this book... I feel quite bad making such a statement in all honesty... because the books idea is so neat and after I shuffled it only I can be blamed for what I read, right? not so much when the author clearly states young girls need to be trained like birds, and how do you train a bird? by all appearances you tourture it until you get learned helplessness and it's willing to make you supper barefoot and pregnant. wait that came out wrong that isn't the right idea, the right idea is for you to rape it but while you rape it you convince it of how much it enjoys what you are doing to it. hello rape trauma syndrome.... um... right i'm trying to figure out how to save this review because I did like the book but I've got nothing, perhaps MJ can do better.
October 1, 2011
I quit. This book is utterly boring. An experiment for experiment's sake. I really prefer Milorad Pavic, who actually achieved something while experimenting with the medium itself. Don't buy it, unless you want to experience the silliness of it. I had big hopes, but Saporta just couldn't deliver.
January 31, 2016
Concept book. How can you ever be "done" with this book? Loose leaf pages collected in a box, can be read in ANY order. Unrate-able. But I love the concept, the execution, the design. Wish it had been printed on heavier paper. Good reads should have two more categories (added to "read" "to be read" and "currently reading")-- to whit, "Abandoned" and "will never be done"..this one is in the latter.
Read
April 21, 2018I read 100 of the 155 pages. For a book like this that is enough.
All the hype around this book has to do with the gimmick of shuffling the pages and building a story (read through other reviews and see what I mean). I LOVE this idea. Like most readers I went into this novel fascinated by what I would find.
In the beginning there is little more than confusion and a longing to make connections but for the persistent reader names and places start to repeat. This is exciting as you begin to think that it will all make sense and that a story will be formed.
After 100 pages, I no longer care. A few threads of narrative were formed. One about rape and one about a woman who is a little nuts. I liked the latter and couldn't stand the former. I believe there was supposed to be a WWII thread as well and I did get glimpses of it but nothing definite.
I am left with two possible conclusions:
A. This book is a case of the Emperor's New Clothes and relies heavily on the perceived notion that it is a brilliant literary experiment. If you didn't like this book it is not because the prose was lackluster or there was no character development but solely because you are not intelligent enough to "get it." Books such as these will always escape you and your need to have a story told in a more simplistic way.
So give this book 5 stars or admit that you are not as well-read or intelligent as other readers.
B. The order of the pages that I randomly chose was a bad one. This is an odd thought though as it is supposed to be able to be read in any order.
Though I have no problem admitting to A for the moment I will give Saporta the benefit of the doubt and say it is highly possible that I am a victim of B. For this reason I will put this book down for a year or so and then when the characters and situations have faded from memory (although for them to truly fade would require all of 15 minutes) I will shuffle the pages and attempt it again. For now I will leave it unrated.
As a final note I will say that I would love for this book to have included a brief forward by Saporta describing why he felt the need to write it in such a way. What was he trying to prove? B.S. Johnson included (or his publishers included) such a brief forward in The Unfortunates and it was the better for it. I understood exactly what he was going for and loved the book all the more for it.
All the hype around this book has to do with the gimmick of shuffling the pages and building a story (read through other reviews and see what I mean). I LOVE this idea. Like most readers I went into this novel fascinated by what I would find.
In the beginning there is little more than confusion and a longing to make connections but for the persistent reader names and places start to repeat. This is exciting as you begin to think that it will all make sense and that a story will be formed.
After 100 pages, I no longer care. A few threads of narrative were formed. One about rape and one about a woman who is a little nuts. I liked the latter and couldn't stand the former. I believe there was supposed to be a WWII thread as well and I did get glimpses of it but nothing definite.
I am left with two possible conclusions:
A. This book is a case of the Emperor's New Clothes and relies heavily on the perceived notion that it is a brilliant literary experiment. If you didn't like this book it is not because the prose was lackluster or there was no character development but solely because you are not intelligent enough to "get it." Books such as these will always escape you and your need to have a story told in a more simplistic way.
So give this book 5 stars or admit that you are not as well-read or intelligent as other readers.
B. The order of the pages that I randomly chose was a bad one. This is an odd thought though as it is supposed to be able to be read in any order.
Though I have no problem admitting to A for the moment I will give Saporta the benefit of the doubt and say it is highly possible that I am a victim of B. For this reason I will put this book down for a year or so and then when the characters and situations have faded from memory (although for them to truly fade would require all of 15 minutes) I will shuffle the pages and attempt it again. For now I will leave it unrated.
As a final note I will say that I would love for this book to have included a brief forward by Saporta describing why he felt the need to write it in such a way. What was he trying to prove? B.S. Johnson included (or his publishers included) such a brief forward in The Unfortunates and it was the better for it. I understood exactly what he was going for and loved the book all the more for it.
March 8, 2024
Mia piccola riflessione su questa assoluta bizzarria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itNtC...
August 31, 2016
Got this one as a wedding gift (from the wife herself, bless her). I'm a sucker for anti-novel/experimental works like this, though I was surprised how much I enjoyed it given its mixed critical reception.
"Composition No. 1" takes the form of 150-odd loose leaf pages that the reader can shuffle and read in any order. Think, if you've read it, of BS Johnson's "The Unfortunates", though without stabilisers: In the latter, you're only shuffling sections of the novel; in the former, literally any page can open or close the work.
POTENTIAL LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD(?)
Anyway, I thought it was brilliant. The book's multiple narrative elements - an affair, a car crash, a rape, etc. - are connected by the lightest possible thread, which allows the reader to swoop in to interpret to some extent the book's narrative chronology. More importantly, the reader is left to decide which event is the trigger for the others.
Saporta indicates (I would suggest) that in doing so we are possibly being as destructive as the 'interpretive' protagonist himself, even 'raping' the loose pages for connectivity where none is necessarily found.
I thought of hacking off a star for a few typos I found scattered throughout, but glued it back on thanks to Visual Edition's gorgeous redesign and Richard Howard's lyrical translation from the original French.
"Composition No. 1" takes the form of 150-odd loose leaf pages that the reader can shuffle and read in any order. Think, if you've read it, of BS Johnson's "The Unfortunates", though without stabilisers: In the latter, you're only shuffling sections of the novel; in the former, literally any page can open or close the work.
POTENTIAL LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD(?)
Anyway, I thought it was brilliant. The book's multiple narrative elements - an affair, a car crash, a rape, etc. - are connected by the lightest possible thread, which allows the reader to swoop in to interpret to some extent the book's narrative chronology. More importantly, the reader is left to decide which event is the trigger for the others.
Saporta indicates (I would suggest) that in doing so we are possibly being as destructive as the 'interpretive' protagonist himself, even 'raping' the loose pages for connectivity where none is necessarily found.
I thought of hacking off a star for a few typos I found scattered throughout, but glued it back on thanks to Visual Edition's gorgeous redesign and Richard Howard's lyrical translation from the original French.
July 8, 2014
I expected to like this book as a curiosity, in the way that I like all books as objects. I did not expect to be so enthralled with the story.
Composition No.1 is a loose leaf book - the pages are not bound together, and so can be read in any order. This works out rather better than you would expect. The version of Composition No. 1 which I read was unique, nobody has ever read this book as have, and nobody ever will again.
But there is more to this than a clever idea, it is a well written novel, with an intelligent narritive, that always fits together wonderfully. The chronology of the book is necessarily complex, and gives one exactly the feeling needed to empathise with the characters
Come for the idea, stay for the story.
Composition No.1 is a loose leaf book - the pages are not bound together, and so can be read in any order. This works out rather better than you would expect. The version of Composition No. 1 which I read was unique, nobody has ever read this book as have, and nobody ever will again.
But there is more to this than a clever idea, it is a well written novel, with an intelligent narritive, that always fits together wonderfully. The chronology of the book is necessarily complex, and gives one exactly the feeling needed to empathise with the characters
Come for the idea, stay for the story.
August 17, 2018
After being enthralled by House of Leaves I started looking into oulipian novels and anti-novels and this one rather caught my interest. This avant-garde novel comes unbound, with one hundred and fifty loose sheets that can be read in any order. I thought this sounded really refreshing and interesting.
The reason you can read it in any order? The writing is so generic it becomes completely interchangeable. But this isn't as exciting as it sounds, the plot revolves around three or four different women and strands of stories to do with the war, a car crash and someone being raped. Saporta describes one of these rape scenes along the lines of: the women had gone without it for so long they probably enjoyed it. Overall, the women are completely two dimensional, strangely projected fantasies from this sexist and incompetent author.
The reason you can read it in any order? The writing is so generic it becomes completely interchangeable. But this isn't as exciting as it sounds, the plot revolves around three or four different women and strands of stories to do with the war, a car crash and someone being raped. Saporta describes one of these rape scenes along the lines of: the women had gone without it for so long they probably enjoyed it. Overall, the women are completely two dimensional, strangely projected fantasies from this sexist and incompetent author.
April 1, 2015
Read for exams. Without any real connection to the protagonist, I had trouble connecting each of the storylines to him (this was complicated by the fact that it's completely ambiguous when each of these things happens chronologically in his lifetime). Hence, inspiring lots of pondering over the role of order in narration and how much it is relevant to make sense of what's going on--I found myself doing what Christy Dena calls an "anachrony audit", putting the events of the story in order as they would have happened (at least within that narrative focus, i.e. Marianne's descent into madness).
Am interested to see how the reading experience changes with the app version, since I was literally sorting the pages into piles based on what I perceived as the focus of each event.
Am interested to see how the reading experience changes with the app version, since I was literally sorting the pages into piles based on what I perceived as the focus of each event.
November 9, 2012
....good when gimmick meets good writing.
only fault is that there is no point to it... the story or structure of words does not necessitate nor encourage randomness or chaos of the page. there's no link between what is done and why...
still, found it worthwhile for a while.
only fault is that there is no point to it... the story or structure of words does not necessitate nor encourage randomness or chaos of the page. there's no link between what is done and why...
still, found it worthwhile for a while.
January 7, 2015
Had a random shuffle read-through, and then turned it into a story about jealousy, love, dishonesty and malevolence. Also known as my kind of story.
Want to read
April 30, 2016VIsual Editions VE3
February 21, 2018
Oh boy - I'd been looking forward to this for around 13 years, and wow is it not interesting. The shuffle-able loose pages ends up as just a gimmick as the different threads don't really intersect.
Not only is the writing bad, it did not age well. Half of the pages are devoted to describing the women characters' legs, calves, thighs, throats, arms, backs, lips, breasts, eyes, over and over again. Lurid description is not character development.
Oh yeah, and the rape scenes. There are a bunch of them spread throughout, and though the descriptions don't venture into pornographic, the fact that the male actor is always totally anonymous just confirms that this supposedly innovative work is thinly-veiled voyeur porn masquerading as some triumph of original thinking.
Not only is the writing bad, it did not age well. Half of the pages are devoted to describing the women characters' legs, calves, thighs, throats, arms, backs, lips, breasts, eyes, over and over again. Lurid description is not character development.
Oh yeah, and the rape scenes. There are a bunch of them spread throughout, and though the descriptions don't venture into pornographic, the fact that the male actor is always totally anonymous just confirms that this supposedly innovative work is thinly-veiled voyeur porn masquerading as some triumph of original thinking.
March 29, 2020
A box of loose pages, shuffled. An interesting read. It comes across as a mystery in a way, or poetry, since it is so disjointed. There are several storylines going on - I may not have gotten how all of them fit together. But I did enjoy the experience.
Thoughts a day later: I do have a soft spot for these 'formal experiment' books, and I realize I enjoyed participating in the experiment more than I enjoyed the story. I wished there was more of a thematic link between the story and the structure. (As with "A Void" by Georges Perec - a novel without the letter "e", and the characters are haunted by an unnamable absence.)
Thoughts a day later: I do have a soft spot for these 'formal experiment' books, and I realize I enjoyed participating in the experiment more than I enjoyed the story. I wished there was more of a thematic link between the story and the structure. (As with "A Void" by Georges Perec - a novel without the letter "e", and the characters are haunted by an unnamable absence.)
September 23, 2018
I wanted to like this book. What a cool idea! A book you can shuffle -- loose pages, a different story every time (sort of). This sat on my "to-read" list for almost five years after I heard about it. When the book arrived at the library, I couldn't wait to pick it up. I eagerly checked out the bright yellow box and went home to dive in.
It didn't take me long to realize that the author doesn't like women very much. I was not at all impressed.
The concept could have been amazing, but sadly it was disappointing at best.
It didn't take me long to realize that the author doesn't like women very much. I was not at all impressed.
The concept could have been amazing, but sadly it was disappointing at best.
September 6, 2023
you know, the concept is cool but the story is nonsense. you could technically read the pages in any order, but the actual story is so convoluted, half-formed, ill-explained. it's an experiment, but only a half successful one.
March 29, 2022
The idea was good, the execution not so much. Also not keen on reading such a detailed rape scene.
Read
May 16, 2023Se trata de un libro que requiere librero para llegar a él. No es algo que uno entre preguntando a una librería. Necesita guía y curiosidad para enfrentarse a un libro que rompe con los esquemas tradicionales de cualquier género literario (con excepción de Rayuela de Julio Cortázar).
Composición No. 1 es un viaje infinito a través de 150 páginas que pueden no tener nada entre sí o ser absolutamente coherentes. Esta disyuntiva se deja al azar, pues siguiendo las instrucciones del autor (muy similar al tablero de dirección que da Cortázar al momento de establecer un "orden" para leer Rayuela) el libro al no estar cocido ni con numeración (vienen todas las páginas sueltas en una caja), debe ser revuelto como una baraja de naipes. Esto de entrada implica una inquietud real por parte del lector, pues la trama dependerá necesariamente del orden que arroje la mezcla (o mezclas si decide barajar más de una vez).
El resultado en mi caso fue un entrelazamiento de historias que parecen independientes pero que de una o de otra manera conservan la unión de los personajes y circunstancias que a cada uno le están ocurriendo. Se insiste en destacar que no tiene ni principio ni final y mucho menos una trama lineal como la tienen las novelas. Esto se debe a que más que un libro, es un experimento literario que pretende hacer ver al lector cómo en la vida los acontecimientos son más importantes por el momento en el que ocurren que por su contenido.
Estoy seguro que cuando me vuelva a enfrentar a este experimento el resultado será diferente y eso es sin duda el mayor valor y propósito que le encontré y por lo que es difícil dar una calificación de uno a cinco.
Recomendado sólo para lectores avezados que no les importe enfrentarse a algo que sin duda es realmente desconocido.
Composición No. 1 es un viaje infinito a través de 150 páginas que pueden no tener nada entre sí o ser absolutamente coherentes. Esta disyuntiva se deja al azar, pues siguiendo las instrucciones del autor (muy similar al tablero de dirección que da Cortázar al momento de establecer un "orden" para leer Rayuela) el libro al no estar cocido ni con numeración (vienen todas las páginas sueltas en una caja), debe ser revuelto como una baraja de naipes. Esto de entrada implica una inquietud real por parte del lector, pues la trama dependerá necesariamente del orden que arroje la mezcla (o mezclas si decide barajar más de una vez).
El resultado en mi caso fue un entrelazamiento de historias que parecen independientes pero que de una o de otra manera conservan la unión de los personajes y circunstancias que a cada uno le están ocurriendo. Se insiste en destacar que no tiene ni principio ni final y mucho menos una trama lineal como la tienen las novelas. Esto se debe a que más que un libro, es un experimento literario que pretende hacer ver al lector cómo en la vida los acontecimientos son más importantes por el momento en el que ocurren que por su contenido.
Estoy seguro que cuando me vuelva a enfrentar a este experimento el resultado será diferente y eso es sin duda el mayor valor y propósito que le encontré y por lo que es difícil dar una calificación de uno a cinco.
Recomendado sólo para lectores avezados que no les importe enfrentarse a algo que sin duda es realmente desconocido.
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