Book Instructions

 

 

Instruction no 1

Choose an object, any object, which resembles a book.
You have now written a book.

 

Instruction no 2

Buy a book, any book.
Underline any word in it.
You have now written a book.

 

Instruction no 3

Buy a book, any book.
Read it.
You have now written a book. It's in your brain, unfortunately unreadable. Nobody can acquaint oneself with it, not even you yourself. Every attempt will again rearrange it into something else.
You have, however, written a book.

 

Instruction no 4

Buy a bookshelf. Suppose the shelf has room for 390 books of various thicknesses.
Buy 390 books of various thicknesses. Put them in the shelf.
You have now written 390 books (of various thicknesses).

 

Instruction no 5

Take a walk.
You have now written a book.
(Possibly on dictation from Charles Baudelaire.)

 

Instruction no 6

Take a walk with your dog.
How many books wouldn't that be?
(Possibly on dictation from Tomas Bernard.)

 

Instruction no 7

Run a relay race.
Will one or more books be written thereby?

 

Instruction no 8

Write a book. Carefully.
You have now written a book. But you will never get to read it.
Give the book to a friend. Your friend will never be able to read it either.
The only ones who can read your book are its characters.

 

Instruction no 9

Take a book. Talk like it.
Whose voice is sounding?
Did you publish this book or did your write it?

 

Instruction no 10

Thread a sufficient number of wild strawberries on a blade of grass.
Eat them, one by one, sufficiently slow.
Surely, it's a prayer book?

 

Conclusion

The book is a metaphor for the world - thus also including and symbolizing itself. In a similar way, the dove folding its wings is a metaphor for the flight of thought, when it has finally settled. Still, maybe it must be white.

 

 

[June 1998, Engl. transl. February 2003, published in "Human IT" no 3/2002]