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A review by hammo
Book from the Ground by Xu Bing
3.0
Mildly diverting.
It's a story told in icons, and there's really not much beyond that. If I tried to write a story using icons then I expect I would end up with something vaguely similar. Which is to say, Xu Bing completely fails to transcend the medium. There are a couple of passable jokes, but that's about as clever as it gets.
The experience of reading a story in icons is interesting. It was more mentally straining than I expected. Less like reading a picture book and more like solving a rebus puzzle. It rather made me appreciate the existence of words. I also found myself compelled to narrate the action aloud, first in prose and then in song. Perhaps my brain didn't like the word vacuum.
It's a story told in icons, and there's really not much beyond that. If I tried to write a story using icons then I expect I would end up with something vaguely similar. Which is to say, Xu Bing completely fails to transcend the medium. There are a couple of passable jokes, but that's about as clever as it gets.
The experience of reading a story in icons is interesting. It was more mentally straining than I expected. Less like reading a picture book and more like solving a rebus puzzle. It rather made me appreciate the existence of words. I also found myself compelled to narrate the action aloud, first in prose and then in song. Perhaps my brain didn't like the word vacuum.