Friday, August 12, 2005
The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective)
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published by Jonathanames.com. Ames, our mentor at this website, has an excellent new book out called, Wake Up, Sir! and an even newer book out (he is the editor) called Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transsexual Memoirs.
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The Case of the Curiously Bound Book
Question: Dear Literary Dick (as in Private Detective),
About 6 or 7 years ago, I purchased A Clockwork Orange from a certain "tropical" internet retail source. A few months after paying for the item, I got an e-mail addressed to those who enoyed A Clockwork Orange, one of those "If you liked this, you might enjoy..." messages. Apparently, there's a novel of sorts that came in a box and is very loosely bound. In other words, the box contained mostly individual leafs, and only a few sets of two or three pages bound together, which are meant to be read sequentially. The rest of the pages can be read in any order, and apparently the pages were all written in a way that no matter what order the pages are read in, the story makes sense. I can't remember what the title was, or if it even existed...it was something like The Containers or The Consignments.... I've been curious for a long time, maybe you could shed some light on this mystery?
A.
Answer: I took A’s question to the librarians at the New York Public Library on 42nd Street, but the usually very helpful people there were unable to offer assistance, so I asked my friend Chris, who is a librarian somewhere in upstate New York, and also well read. He suggested the book was The Unfortunates by B.S. Johnson.
Amazon’s description of that book (which you can see in its entirety here) reads in part:
“You open the box and find a half-inch thick stack of loose-leaf printed pages. Some pages are bound in four or six page signatures, other are loose single, or double- sided pages. The instructions inside the box lid tell you that these pages make up the 27 chapters of the novel. To start you must read the pages marked First, then the other 25 chapters in any order you like, and finally the chapter marked Last.”
So it is the opinion of The Literary Dick that B.S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates was recommend by Amazon after A’a purchase of A Clockwork Orange.
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published by Jonathanames.com. Ames, our mentor at this website, has an excellent new book out called, Wake Up, Sir! and an even newer book out (he is the editor) called Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transsexual Memoirs.
---------------------------------------------
The Case of the Curiously Bound Book
Question: Dear Literary Dick (as in Private Detective),
About 6 or 7 years ago, I purchased A Clockwork Orange from a certain "tropical" internet retail source. A few months after paying for the item, I got an e-mail addressed to those who enoyed A Clockwork Orange, one of those "If you liked this, you might enjoy..." messages. Apparently, there's a novel of sorts that came in a box and is very loosely bound. In other words, the box contained mostly individual leafs, and only a few sets of two or three pages bound together, which are meant to be read sequentially. The rest of the pages can be read in any order, and apparently the pages were all written in a way that no matter what order the pages are read in, the story makes sense. I can't remember what the title was, or if it even existed...it was something like The Containers or The Consignments.... I've been curious for a long time, maybe you could shed some light on this mystery?
A.
Answer: I took A’s question to the librarians at the New York Public Library on 42nd Street, but the usually very helpful people there were unable to offer assistance, so I asked my friend Chris, who is a librarian somewhere in upstate New York, and also well read. He suggested the book was The Unfortunates by B.S. Johnson.
Amazon’s description of that book (which you can see in its entirety here) reads in part:
“You open the box and find a half-inch thick stack of loose-leaf printed pages. Some pages are bound in four or six page signatures, other are loose single, or double- sided pages. The instructions inside the box lid tell you that these pages make up the 27 chapters of the novel. To start you must read the pages marked First, then the other 25 chapters in any order you like, and finally the chapter marked Last.”
So it is the opinion of The Literary Dick that B.S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates was recommend by Amazon after A’a purchase of A Clockwork Orange.
