The Book Of Disappearances & Book Of Tractations

by Raúl Ruiz

What could a Moor and a Christian living in the seventeenth century possibly have to write to each other about? The answer to that question is found in The Book of Disappearances & The Book of the Tractations --an extravagant and playful book-object based on a correspondance that miraculously survived fire and destruction via rodent. These letters are the living testimonial to secret deals and passionate debate between the two communities. By following the thread of vowels and consonants printed in bold type and strung and hidden throughout the main text, readers can retrace the story of a captive girl from Marrakech whose story echoes that of the prostitute who incarned Spain in Velasquez's scandal-stirring painting, “The Allegory of the Expulsion of the Moors.” This delicate, wonderous and precious book is a real adventure for the reader who attempts to different\iate between the puzzle's daring fiction and reality.

97 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2005

About the author

Raúl Ernesto Ruiz Pino (25 July 1941 – 19 August 2011) was an experimental Chilean filmmaker, writer and teacher whose work is best known in France. He directed more than 100 films.

Reviews

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A real book-freak's book, this collection of fictions by the filmmaker (director of Night Across the Street, Shattered Image, Marcel Proust's Time Regained, Mysteries of Lisbon, and That Day, among many others) combines the formal experimentations of Italo Calvino with the magical-realist attitudes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. With texts moving from "front" to "back" and from "back" to "front," with graphic poems and occult designs, with mirror-writing and near-invisible text, the book is probably most striking as a monument to Ruiz's enormous energy as a creative force. It's a pick-me-up/throw-me-down book, mystifying, frustrating, and entertaining by turns. It's a misery to try to figure out, but a joy to grasp in snatches.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fucking awsome. Gave it a light reading. Now I'm putting it down for a while, but yes: I must return.