You know, when I made this book, I didn't think of it
as something that would be difficult to read at all
and I imagine everybody who writes something difficult feels that way
when they send it out into the world.
So, the book is somewhat confusing because it has
a three dimensional aspect.
You can see literally into the book.
I should describe what the book is first.
About maybe three years ago, I got an email
from someone I'd never heard of before
saying, I'm starting a new publishing house
a kind of art literary publishing house, and would you like to make a book? And I can't promise you...
and there's a long list of things she couldn't promise.
I can't promise you lots of sales. I can't promise you
an advance.
I can't promise you this and that and that,
but what I can promise you is that we'll make any book
you want to make.
We'll make it as beautifully as it could be made.
And it's not that I was bowled over by that
so much as I didn't believe it,
and I thought, well she probably doesn't know what she's saying.
Maybe she thought I would want to
I don't know, doodle in a book or something,
but to say we can make any book you want to make...
and so I started thinking, what are the limits
of a book I would want to make?
Not because they were the limits of what a book could be,
but because they were the limits of what I wanted.
And I had for a long time been interested
in a process called die-cutting,
which is an ancient, I don't know if it's ancient, but it's very, very old.
It's been used as long as there's been manufacturing
of pretty much any kind, and it's basically
taking a material out of a material
with a stamp.
Pushing something through a material.
So your car door is made by die-cutting
a piece of steel or whatever.
It's a tough word. I mean, die-cutting.
Die-cutting.
When I saw it the first time, I thought, wow.
Die hard cutting.
It's almost onomatopoeic.
It's not because it doesn't make that sound when it's done,
but it's almost like a Yiddish word.
It sounds like what it is.
In any case, I had wanted to do something
with paper, with die-cutting,
and so I asked her if that would be possible,
and she said yes.
And so we entered into this process that
ended up taking a couple of years,
and I started with one of my favorite books,
which is Bruno Schulz's Street of Crocodiles,
and tried to carve out of it another story.
And I did.
How do you choose words from a text that you
love as much as you love the text by Bruno Schulz?
Well, in a way, loving the text didn't have anything to do with it.
I loved the text because it was so almost exactly because
it was so good for this purpose.
You know, it's just so...
you know, if you were going to eat a food that you love,
you would prefer that the plate be overflowing with it
rather than that there be a tiny little bit in the center of the plate.
I would, anyway.
That's probably a very American thing I just said.
But his book is overflowing with things that I love,
and so when I had to choose the book to commit to a book
to use this process with,
I wanted a very rich palette.
You know, if you're a painter, you don't want a palette with two colors.
Well you might, but you would rather have the choice of as many colors as there are,
and I think his book offers as many colors as any book that there is.