Friday, May 4, 2012

Read This House!

By Stephen J. Gertz

An anonymous author’s novel written on the walls
of an abandoned house in Chongqing, China.


The writing's on the wall: Amazon won't be selling this book. Yet perhaps the innovative new format, in a striking Domicile binding of full Chinoise dry-wall with pictograph decoration in black, clapboard trim, and five residential spine compartments, will kindle a new trend if not an app: live-in literature for the completely immersive reading experience.

What is this book about? The novel, its mortgage diced and sliced into packets sold as  unregistered securities, will blow up if confidence in the writer erodes. Will the bottom drop out of the literary marketplace? Only the novelist can fight the charge of derivative but will the bank foreclose before the last chapter is finished? Can this book be bailed out? Is it too big to fail? Will the author be evicted from his book?

Market analysts at the New York Times Sunday Book & Real Estate Review suggest a re-fi is in order but the author is reportedly resistant to editorial changes from mortgage bankers who know how to cook the books but not how to write them - sub-prime novelists, each and every one of them.

The Chairman of the Federal Literary Reserve Board earlier today issued the following statement,  already criticized by publishing-world pundits as exhibiting "irrational exuberance":

Bless this book, O Lord we pray,
Make it safe by night and day.

Bless these walls so firm and stout,

Keeping turgid language out.

Bless the roof and chimneys tall,

Let the words lie overall.

Bless this door that it may prove
Modern lit.'s a solid groove.

Bless these windows shining bright,

Don't let Goldman Sachs hacks write.

Bless the scribe who dwells within
With cigarettes, drugs, and gin.

Bless us all that we may be,

Fit, O book, to dwell in thee.
__________

Image courtesy of Tumblr, with our thanks.
__________
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1 comment:

  1. Very cool! Reminds me of the end of "The Moon and Sixpence," both the novel and the film, where Charles Strickland had painted his masterpiece on the walls of his hut in Tahiti, which he ordered burned after his death.

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