Welp, one of my coveted gems came in the mail today! I've wanted a copy of this book for a Long time, and now I have one! It is absolutely beautiful and magical--even the paper is super high quality; thick and textured. (Side note: Damnit! There's a Deluxe, Limited, Signed Edition!? . . oh thank God--it is Super expensive, haha). Someday. ;) From Amazon: "An extraordinary and surreal art book, this edition has been redesigned by the author and includes new illustrations. Ever since the Codex Seraphinianus was first published in 1981, the book has been recognized as one of the strangest and most beautiful art books ever made. This visual encyclopedia of an unknown world written in an unknown language has fueled much debate over its meaning. Written for the information age and addressing the import of coding and decoding in genetics, literary criticism, and computer science, the Codex confused, fascinated, and enchanted a generation. While its message may be unclear, its appeal is obvious: it is a most exquisite artifact. Blurring the distinction between art book and art object, this anniversary edition-redesigned by the author and featuring new illustrations-presents this unique work in a new, unparalleled light." And this excellent comment/review from Amazon user Solari: "Codex Seraphianus is one of my favorite books, but I have never read it. No one has, in fact, because this encyclopedia of a surreal world is written in an imaginary alphabet, with indecipherable texts. The book was first published in 1981, by Italian artist and architect Luigi Serafini. He claims he created the book during a three-year-long mental outbreak in Rome in 1976, and that he doesn’t consider himself the author of the codex. The true author, Serafini claims, is a white cat he found some day as he went back home and lay on his lap as he wrote and drew the codex. “The white cat was the true author. I passed for the author, but was only a manual executor. As the present confession could not be done before for copyright reasons, I take the chance to express, with the author’s permission, the most sincere thanks for the cat, in memoriam.” And how is the book the cat wrote and Serafini transcribed? It looks like a codex from Leonardo da Vinci if he was on acid. An alien encyclopedia written in an impossible language, describing a world that at the same time remembers and parodies our own. It is the kind of object Jorge Luis Borges imagined in Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, an artifact from another world that for some reason passed through the cracks of reality into our own. It is possibly the strangest book ever written. Linguists tried for over thirty years to translate the language, but only the numeral code, based on 21, has been cracked. Recently, Serafini said the writing is meaningless. This is how he says the crazy calligraphy of the codex was born: “It was the writing that contained the dreams of several other writings.” The book is divided in 11 chapters, with themes that can more or less be inferred by the images: flora, fauna, biped creatures, chemistry, culture, mythology, games, architecture, technology and so on. The images have a very characteristic surreal feel, like the way they mend together biological parts and machines. A book filled with migrating trees, impossible cities, half-built creatures, and the famous image of a copulating couple turning into a crocodile. Quite simply an incredible, one of-a-kind book." It is. . . Precious, to me. ;)
