Tree of Codes is a haunting new story by best-selling American writer, Jonathan Safran Foer. With a different die-cut on every page, Tree of Codes explores previously unchartered literary territory. Initially deemed impossible to make, the book is a first — as much a sculptural object as it is a work of masterful storytelling. Tree of Codes is the story of an enormous last day of life — as one character's life is chased to extinction, Foer multi-layers the story with immense, anxious, at times disorientating imagery, crossing both a sense of time and place, making the story of one person’s last day everyone’s story. Inspired to exhume a new story from an existing text, Jonathan Safran Foer has taken his "favorite" book, The Street of Crocodiles by Polish-Jewish writer Bruno Schulz, and used it as a canvas, cutting into and out of the pages, to arrive at an original new story told in Jonathan Safran Foer's own acclaimed voice.

Unfortunately, the gimmick of this book takes precedence over the content. Even for an "experimental" book, the plot is barely there and the characters are barely characters. ( )

Foer’s is a bold experiment and a great work from an artistic and design perspective. It should have been done in hardcover, because more than anything this book will be an objet d’art, something to remark at on the shelf, the coffee table. As literature, I’m not so sure. There is compelling imagery here – most of it Schulz’s – that amounts to a long prose poem. [ full review] ( )

This is the strangest concept for a book that I’ve ever read. I’ve always enjoyed Jonathan Safran Foer’s work, so when this one came out I was immediately intrigued. I bought a copy in 2011 and it’s been on my shelf ever since. It’s not one of those books you can easily pick up and read.

The entire book is created out of the text of another book, Bruno Schulz’s The Street of Crocodiles. Foer chose his favorite book and then painstakingly chose a few words from each page to craft a new work. Every single page is die-cut, which makes it difficult to read. I finally found that the easiest way for me to read it was to place a dark sheet of paper after each page that I read. It was time-consuming, but that slowed me down enough to reflect on the words.

It’s absolutely a gimmick that could be a crutch, but somehow the novel is beautiful and haunting in its own right. Here’s one section…
"In the depths of the grayness, weeks passed like boats waiting to sail into the starless dawn, we were full of aimless endless darkness."

The plot revolves around a boy watching his father’s decent into madness or depression. The lyrical lines convey the anguish, but the plot is secondary.

My only regret is that I didn’t read The Street of Crocodiles first. That’s the main reason I waited so long to read Foer’s book, but I just haven’t found a copy yet. I need to just order one online, because I’d love to compare the works.

BOTTOM LINE: A fascinating work of art. The plot matters very little, but Foer’s skill as a writer comes through even when he is whittling away instead of building from scratch. It was an experience to read it. Not one I’d repeat, but definitely worth doing once. ( )

Already for some time our town had been sinking at the edges,
lowering under the fantastic domes of night.
We lived in one of those dark houses, so difficult to distinguish one from the other.
This gave endless possibilities for mistakes.
the wrong staircase, unfamiliar balconies, unexpected {…}

Yes, this is a gimmick (though a meaningful gimmick) and yes, it works.

Bruno Schulz’s The Street of Crocodiles is Jonathan Safran Foer’s favorite book, and he likens its existence (amid the destruction of most of Schulz’s work) to the fourth wall at the ancient temple site that resisted destruction and became the Wailing Wall. Foer had long wanted to “sculpt” a new book by redacting words from an existing “block” of text, and Tree of Codes is that, and an homage to Schulz.

I went through phases as I read: he’s stealing Schulz’s story; then: no, he’s just using words that are freely available, including in Schulz’s work. In the end, it did seem to be Foer’s own work, yet with a feeling of the larger original, particularly that so much is a father, mother, family in decline. Most pages are a mere sentence or two, written with the brevity and imagery of poetry. Schulz’s work is surreal fantasy and Foer’s even more so. ( )