it was not because it was unique that bartlebooth, as a child, grew attached to this map, which he could look at in the great hall of the manor house where he grew up,but because it possessed another feature also: the map’s north was not at the top, but at the bottom. this difference in orientation, much commoner in the period than is often realised, fascinated bartlebooth to the highest degree: representations rotated not always by one hundred and eighty degrees, but sometimes by ninety or forty-five, completely subvert

habitual perceptions of space;

the outline of europe, for instance, a shape familiar to anyone who has been even only to junior school, when swung ninety degrees to the right, with the west at the top, begins to look like denmark. and in this minimal switch lay hidden the very image of his jigsaw mind.

a few days ago i finished georges perec’s LIFE: A USER’S MANUAL, which i’d been wanting to read since i bought species of spaces and other pieces as research (partially) for my phenomena project. LIFE is good, excellent, but such a chore to go through (it’s much like reading multiple narratives simultaneously) but completely worth it.

now i’m moving on to A VOID. (the entire novel uses no ‘e’s. intense!)