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Codon
A macabre ménage inspired by Boccaccio's eulogy for ten raconteurs dying of the bubonic plague but really just an excuse to jibber jabber about the death of a funeral, star dementia, statutory immortality, the algorithmic assassination of a subculture, impotent architecture, headless demagogues, tips for the aspiring ghost fucker, doctors as a suicidal species and even death itself (the boring kind).
156 pages, Paperback
Published January 15, 2025
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January 8, 2025“Horseness is the whatness of allhorse” - James Joyce, Ulysses
//
“Unborn horses driven mad. The horse-repellent elephant charge, their feet like celestial battering rams.”
Written in code, fragments, and vignettes. Young’s CODON is a novel of spiritual tissue holding together legends, myths, and eulogies for people, for times, for eulogies themselves.
In many ways, the book is a fetishistic object, bringing everything from ancient texts and the rites of funerals into the language of sex, of worship, and of idolatry. The customs and traditions of a funeral outweigh the moment of death entirely.
“Creampunk Christ.”
Theology rules this text. William Blake looms large, and so too does Western Christianity, in a, sometimes, sexualised recreation. A distortion of the Buddhist eight-fold path utilises contortion and erosion in an attempt to philosophise. In terms of philosophy, there are moments of Kristevan abjection, moments of departure from the body, from the self, from life, but not yet into death. Aristotle gets a fair shake, and Marcel Proust is referenced directly, but it is Joyce’s love of language itself that most obviously leads the way for a text so bravely untethered from narrative convention.
“Both had sexy thoughts about God, though one was dom, one was sub.”
The archaic, the broken, the forgotten myths sit beside advice on topping, bottoming, and getting ghosts hard. ‘Dank memes’ and Greek Gods. A wide, ranging piece of work in time and topic.
Arreshy Young is a writer. Vivid prose fills the text, serving as a grounding tool when narratives and thematic connections threaten to fray. “Lagoons of Lacunae” and “poet-parasites”. “Barren brides” and “mellow fellow travellers” fill the page when Young decides the novel needs poetic precision.
“All deaths are anonymous.”
You could read this as Ballard suggests readinf Atrocity Exhibition in which you flick through until a paragraph compels you, or like Finnegan’s Wake with a search engine open besides you. Any which way is worthwhile, and any which way will offer numerous and unique reflections on our relationship to death, and how this informs our relationship to life.
“Hell is a cellar, a sewer, a subway station.”
Thanks to Calamari Press and Arreshy Young for the ARC.
//
“Unborn horses driven mad. The horse-repellent elephant charge, their feet like celestial battering rams.”
Written in code, fragments, and vignettes. Young’s CODON is a novel of spiritual tissue holding together legends, myths, and eulogies for people, for times, for eulogies themselves.
In many ways, the book is a fetishistic object, bringing everything from ancient texts and the rites of funerals into the language of sex, of worship, and of idolatry. The customs and traditions of a funeral outweigh the moment of death entirely.
“Creampunk Christ.”
Theology rules this text. William Blake looms large, and so too does Western Christianity, in a, sometimes, sexualised recreation. A distortion of the Buddhist eight-fold path utilises contortion and erosion in an attempt to philosophise. In terms of philosophy, there are moments of Kristevan abjection, moments of departure from the body, from the self, from life, but not yet into death. Aristotle gets a fair shake, and Marcel Proust is referenced directly, but it is Joyce’s love of language itself that most obviously leads the way for a text so bravely untethered from narrative convention.
“Both had sexy thoughts about God, though one was dom, one was sub.”
The archaic, the broken, the forgotten myths sit beside advice on topping, bottoming, and getting ghosts hard. ‘Dank memes’ and Greek Gods. A wide, ranging piece of work in time and topic.
Arreshy Young is a writer. Vivid prose fills the text, serving as a grounding tool when narratives and thematic connections threaten to fray. “Lagoons of Lacunae” and “poet-parasites”. “Barren brides” and “mellow fellow travellers” fill the page when Young decides the novel needs poetic precision.
“All deaths are anonymous.”
You could read this as Ballard suggests readinf Atrocity Exhibition in which you flick through until a paragraph compels you, or like Finnegan’s Wake with a search engine open besides you. Any which way is worthwhile, and any which way will offer numerous and unique reflections on our relationship to death, and how this informs our relationship to life.
“Hell is a cellar, a sewer, a subway station.”
Thanks to Calamari Press and Arreshy Young for the ARC.
April 6, 2025
Easily the most exciting book I've read this year, starting from the copyleft declaration on the first page. Fiendishly difficult to encapsulate, Codon wisely eschews any prefatory or explanatory text, instead dropping the reader straight into a series of intertextual, self-referential, intertwined shorts stories, themselves usually divided into constituent sections and footnotes.
The most obvious and inescapable influence is Borges, but also Browne and Butler, and even Nabokov and Gibson. Themes of religion, history, the body, the self, division, and replication dominate the text, heavily leavened with terms and concepts taken from Western philosophy, Islamic jurisprudence, and cyberpunk (a stunningly effective combination). Although the prose is often willfully abstruse, which may frustrate some, it's also learnèd, deeply thoughtful, and perversely hilarious. Upon first contact, some sentences initially seem to parse as word salad, but when read closer, or considered poetically, they reveal themselves to be clever neologisms densely conveying les mots justes.
Probably the easiest place to start is the short and funny "The Girls Gvide to Ghost Fvcking" or the Borgesian+Boschian "The Idol of Enoch," but my favorite piece was the Alexander Romance "An Vnpublished Obituary," ostensibly (and, for the motivated cross-referencer, verifiably) about Alexander the Great and his cohort. A more thrilling tromp through antiquity I haven't come across, unless of course we consider the great Thomas Browne, whose semi-real / semi-mythical lists and miscellanies are prefigured [sic] here by Young, especially in works like the wry, astrologically-inclined "The Stars in Middle Age." (I recommend reading this one with Wikipedia open.)
The most obvious and inescapable influence is Borges, but also Browne and Butler, and even Nabokov and Gibson. Themes of religion, history, the body, the self, division, and replication dominate the text, heavily leavened with terms and concepts taken from Western philosophy, Islamic jurisprudence, and cyberpunk (a stunningly effective combination). Although the prose is often willfully abstruse, which may frustrate some, it's also learnèd, deeply thoughtful, and perversely hilarious. Upon first contact, some sentences initially seem to parse as word salad, but when read closer, or considered poetically, they reveal themselves to be clever neologisms densely conveying les mots justes.
Probably the easiest place to start is the short and funny "The Girls Gvide to Ghost Fvcking" or the Borgesian+Boschian "The Idol of Enoch," but my favorite piece was the Alexander Romance "An Vnpublished Obituary," ostensibly (and, for the motivated cross-referencer, verifiably) about Alexander the Great and his cohort. A more thrilling tromp through antiquity I haven't come across, unless of course we consider the great Thomas Browne, whose semi-real / semi-mythical lists and miscellanies are prefigured [sic] here by Young, especially in works like the wry, astrologically-inclined "The Stars in Middle Age." (I recommend reading this one with Wikipedia open.)
February 14, 2025
This book is unlike anything I've ever read. I feel like I cannot put precise words to the intention or vision of Codon, but it is engrossing and fascinating to read. Many parts feel like alternative micro-histories - glimpses into new worlds or reimaginings of ancient history. It is frequently interspersed with dark, dry comedy. Occasionally absurdist and fantastical, I think this book would appeal to anyone who loves poetry or unusual forays into new linguistic realms. Highly recommend, it is one of the most interesting reading experiences I can remember! It is a vivid, surreal and richly written novel.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews