S - A prelude

Yesterday, I slipped and bought a book I'd been eyeing up in the window of the Cambridge International Book Centre for a while. It's going to take some getting through, since I really can't read it on the train without things falling out.

S is written by Doug Dorst, based on a concept by JJ Abrams and inspired by Bookcrossing. I'm only a few pages in, so a review will have to wait, but the production of the thing is such a factor that I feel it's worth exploring first.

Held within its slipcase is a hardback novel called Ship of Thesus, by V.M. Straka. The book carries a library stamp, and its pages are defaced with columns of handwritten notes from two readers, conversing only by this medium and discussing the mysterious identity of the book's reclusive author, and also the identity and reliability of the editor and translator of the novel. Slipped between the pages are other documents relating to the mystery.

It is a thing of beauty, in a format I've only seen before in a handful of children's and YA novels and carrying the form to new heights. It's a text and a metatext, which I've only just begun to explore (I'm not even through the foreword yet; the one document I've got to is a letter, in German, with an attached translation.)

It may yet prove a triumph of style over substance, but I think I'm going to have fun finding out.