Monday, April 27, 2009

Beyond Tristam's Blank Page

Artist Lydia Chai posts an intriguing piece at contemporary art magazine Arteri on the completely black page in Lawrence Sterne's c18th novel Tristam Shandy, and asks :

Is the page covered in ink because Tristram has filled it with an elegiac outpouring of words? Or does the black page indicate a blank? ... How much time ought we spend on this black page? Is the page a moment, or an eternity?

And in the interest of research, she even dissects the page physically ...

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

thank you for introducing such a cool website

Anonymous said...

1.57am was burhan, btw.

D'Rimba said...

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Drachen said...

Check out this book: Everything Men Know About Women by Alan Francis

Anonymous said...

How long before some blogger blames this on the censors?

Amir Muhammad said...

All readers of this blog are hereby invited to the 2nd KL Alternative Bookfest (KLAB), the weekend of 9-10 May at The Annexe gallery, Central Market KL. Details here.

Katya said...

oh wow, just a blank page?..

as weird as it seems at first, this is definitely something to make a book stand out. Come on now, how many of us will spend more time thinking about why the page is blank than thinking about the plot of the book? :)

Edmund Yeo said...

Kinda reminds me of the empty Chapter 9 in David Mitchell's number9dream.

Anonymous said...

I am SO suffering from blog withdrawal now :P

Anonymous said...

Aha.. someone approved that comment, someone is reading this :)