01101001
12-January-2005, 09:55 AM
Any readers of the Codex Seraphinianus (or Seraphinianvs) by Luigi Seraphini (http://www.almaleh.com/serafini-e.htm) here?
It's one of my most cherished books. I found it in the remainder bin at a bookstore and fell in love with it on the spot. It turned into a good investment. I have seen them for sale on the Net at 20 times the price I paid for my copy. If only I had bought a dozen!
How can I describe it... It's an art book, filled with colorful illustrations (http://www.almaleh.com/codex-e.htm#) on high-quality paper. The fun part is that it is pretty much unreadable. Yes.
It is as if it is a 400-page one-volume encyclopedia of knowledge for some alien culture, covering the sciences, arts, and people. It is somewhat whimsical, though, as many of the illustrations are pretty clearly things that could not be -- but maybe....
As I said, it is unreadable. As I heard it, the author invented a complete language and script for the work, but some say it doesn't appear to be so. The book is not typeset, but all hand-drawn. About all I could figure out was the numbering system -- by analyzing the symbols on successive pages -- and it was a warped one (http://www.math.bas.bg/~iad/serafin.html), a real challenge.
As you gaze at all the beautiful but opaque script, puzzling over the pictures, you yearn to be able to read the captions and explanations, you yearn perhaps for just a Rosetta Stone to help you begin to comprehend it.
And then, a good deal into the book, there is an illustration of a Rosetta Stone-equivalent for this weird place! You recognize the script on it. And the other language, it is... it is... equally incomprehensible. Argh!
Last I heard it was out of print, but if you ever get a chance, and you're into the weird and/or the beautiful, if you're near a good library maybe, check it out. Oh, I notice this website (http://www.io.com/~iareth/codindx.html) says it is back in print, in (it really doesn't matter) French and Spanish editions. Expensive, though.
It's one of my most cherished books. I found it in the remainder bin at a bookstore and fell in love with it on the spot. It turned into a good investment. I have seen them for sale on the Net at 20 times the price I paid for my copy. If only I had bought a dozen!
How can I describe it... It's an art book, filled with colorful illustrations (http://www.almaleh.com/codex-e.htm#) on high-quality paper. The fun part is that it is pretty much unreadable. Yes.
It is as if it is a 400-page one-volume encyclopedia of knowledge for some alien culture, covering the sciences, arts, and people. It is somewhat whimsical, though, as many of the illustrations are pretty clearly things that could not be -- but maybe....
As I said, it is unreadable. As I heard it, the author invented a complete language and script for the work, but some say it doesn't appear to be so. The book is not typeset, but all hand-drawn. About all I could figure out was the numbering system -- by analyzing the symbols on successive pages -- and it was a warped one (http://www.math.bas.bg/~iad/serafin.html), a real challenge.
As you gaze at all the beautiful but opaque script, puzzling over the pictures, you yearn to be able to read the captions and explanations, you yearn perhaps for just a Rosetta Stone to help you begin to comprehend it.
And then, a good deal into the book, there is an illustration of a Rosetta Stone-equivalent for this weird place! You recognize the script on it. And the other language, it is... it is... equally incomprehensible. Argh!
Last I heard it was out of print, but if you ever get a chance, and you're into the weird and/or the beautiful, if you're near a good library maybe, check it out. Oh, I notice this website (http://www.io.com/~iareth/codindx.html) says it is back in print, in (it really doesn't matter) French and Spanish editions. Expensive, though.