Tuesday, September 26, 2017

The Temporary Book

The Temporary Book

The Temporary Book has very few examples. The most well-known is Agrippa: The Book of the Dead, an art piece by author William Gibson, artist Dennis Ashbaugh and publisher Kevin Begos, Jr. The complete run consists of 10 Deluxe Editions and fewer than 95 small editions. The Deluxe editions are handmade by Ashbaugh, packaged in a mesh case and covered with kevlar. The interior consists of 93 ragged and singed pages made to look as if they have survived a disaster. The text of the book is almost entirely double columns of DNA sequences, while the poem written by Gibson is contained on a single 3.5” floppy diskette that is set into the final, hollowed out pages of the volume. The small edition was printed rather than handmade, and did not come with the kevlar wrapping or case.

Image constructed for this work by a graphic artist. It shows a book-shaped object delicately wrapped in mesh cloth.
Agrippa case (left) and the volume resting in the open case. (right)

While the book is an interesting piece of mixed media in its own right, the disk is the most thought-provoking part of the work. The 300 line semi-autobiographical poem contained on the disk could only be read once, after which the disk would permanently, and supposedly irreversibly, encrypt itself. Gibson has stated that the intent was to force the reader to experience his childhood the way he did, exclusively through fading memory rather than physical or digital record.

Agrippa and the disk in its hollowed-out recess


While Agrippa was presented as “self-destructing,” the disk did not delete itself, and its supposedly unbreakable encryption was eventually broken. Considering Gibson’s role as the godfather of the cyberpunk genre of science fiction, it is possible that this was enabled or foreseen by the creators, adding another layer of meaning about the audience’s will and ability to uncover information that is theoretically lost forever.


This distinction gives us two definitions to pursue with the temporary book: One where the book does eventually destroy itself and its contents, and one where some particular state or missing information makes the book inaccessible or incomprehensible.

To my knowledge, there are only a few examples of the truly self-destructing book: James Patterson’s Private Vegas, published by Little, Brown and Company, released 1000 digital copies in advance of publication that would delete themselves after 24 hours, giving the reader a time limit and a heightened sense of suspense. However, the later publication of the work, along with the single physical copy that Patterson offered for $300,000 simultaneously with the time-limited digital editions, undermines its status as a truly temporary book. However, the advance digital editions do serve as an example of a book that did completely destroy itself, even if the information wasn’t gone for long.





The best non-unique or limited run example of the temporary book comes from Eterna Cadencia, an Argentinian publisher that has begun printing books by new authors in an ink that begins to fade after exposure to light and air, giving the reader two months to finish the book, rather than allowing to languish on the shelves, forgotten. Similar to Private Vegas, these works are also published via more permanent means, so while they do self-destruct, they are made with the knowledge that none of the information contained will be lost forever.





To my mind, the best examples of truly temporary books are those written in codes with keys that have been lost to time, destroyed, or deliberately hidden. While there are several well-known ciphers and codes, such as the Beale ciphers, that seem to be unbreakable due to the loss of their keys and /or authors. However, there is one famous book that is so indecipherable that some believe it isn't encoded at all: The Voynich Manuscript.

The cover of the Voynich manuscript and an example of its herbal diagrams.

The Voynich Manuscript is an illustrated codex hand-written in an unknown writing system. The books has been carbon dated to the 15th century, but some have speculated that the book may have been created on old parchment at a later date by Voynich himself, who supposedly rediscovered the manuscript after centuries of it being lost.

Whoever created the Voynich Manuscript, there is no question that they intended to baffle any potential reader. While the first portion of the book appears to be a medieval herbal folio collection, most of the plants have defied identification and appear to be fictional. While the astrological section of the work features familiar diagrams and symbols form the Zodiac, the cosmological section consists of diagrams of a completely obscure nature. The book concludes with pharmaceutical information and recipes that are as incomprehensible as the rest of the work.

Indecipherable text from the manuscript

There are no end to the theories about the book's nature and meaning. Analysis has indicated that the text is almost certainly not random, but little else has been determined. It could be written in a natural language using an unknown script. It could also be encoded with a cipher elaborate or clever enough to make cracking it effectively impossible, even with modern computing. However, none of this explains the fictional plants and cosmological diagrams. Explanations range from the work being legitimately occult (no doubt the intention of the author) to it being a complete hoax meant to cause exactly the sort of confusion it has. One of the more interesting theories that has arisen stems from the resemblance of the manuscript to modern role-playing-game supplements which often describe fictional creatures, planes of existence and magical remedies. It may very well be that the Voynich is the earliest example of fantasy world-building!

Being a fan of William Gibson, I discovered Agrippa: The Book of the Dead on the Internet years ago. I was fascinated by the idea that the book, something considered the enduring crystallization of knowledge, could be made to be deliberately temporary; forcing the reader to rely on their memory as if the work had never been set to print in the first place. While Private Vegas and the books printed by Eterna Cadencia may not have intended to provoke thought like Agrippa, they were intended to provoke the action of reading, defying the characteristic of permanence. Finally, the Voynich manuscript manages to block and and all attempts at understanding despite its continued existence, accepting permanence but denying comprehension.  The ways in which the temporary book defies our expectations for the printed word allow us to consider which qualities are essential to books and whether they can have value beyond their text.