feed.gass/ Designing The Tunnel
As both a writer and a book designer, William Gass's instructions regarding layout and design of The Tunnel are nothing short of fascination (and I'm really glad it wasn't my job to design or typeset the book... er, or am I?):
Tunnel, The
by William H. Gass
CONTEXT: Issue No. 18: Designing The Tunnel: This MS will naturally be manufactured and presented to the public as a book, and it will be a real book, no doubt about that, but it must not be a book symbolically. Symbolically it is a heap of pages on various topics which the narrator has shuffled together. This must seem to be the case although at another level the work is tightly organized and determined. The narration therefore contains anachronisms, inconsistencies, redundancies, repetitions, confusions, as well as a lot of silly playfulness and other monkey business not to be found in an ordinary text: there are shifts of form and style from section to section; some sections are labeled, others not; there are cartoons and other kinds of drawing; there is a page that is supposed to be a silver tray covered with calling cards, another that’s printed on grocery sack paper, and so on.I'm curious how much wrangling he was actually allowed, and how long it took to finally produce the thing. I'm listening to “Rock the boat” by The Hues Corporation from the album Top 100 Dance Hits on
Tags: book | bookdesign | design | gass | thetunnel | williamgass.
