Dear Publisher, I am writing to you regarding my manuscript titled The Web for your perusal. “In every art there must be a whole made up of connected parts modified by the artist so as to manifest some character; but it is not necessary in every art that the whole correspond to real objects; it is enough for it to exist. Hence, if it is possible to encounter wholes made up of connected parts that are not imitative of real objects, there will be arts that do not have imitation as their point of departure…” Against Architecture: Writings of Georges Bataille, The Architectural Metaphor Pg 35, Denis Hollier The book revolves around the protagonist wandering in an unfamiliar territory; encounters himself in different settings of the city; from commuting in crowded trains, to walking in alleys to his dingy motel, to never ending arcades and shady by lanes, to sipping a quick tea, visiting the local Market (social space) or being a part of the festivities. He finds himself in a microcosm of the macrocosm, which he connects and disconnects with. He hunts for similarities, polarities within a city; questioning, exploring it as a living organism and his relationship between the built and the un built; as a language. With his journey he discovers something each day; creating an interesting imagery of his travels; entangling and overlapping them with drawing analogies and dissimilarities to a place where he belongs. Each short story is woven around a figure of speech, where the text slowly unfolds itself into a narrative, a narrative of rhetoric creating a story within a story. While each figure of speech gives constraint to the text within the language; these fictions would then unwind to reveal the larger context on which the book is based. What materializes of the rhetoric in this book is his interaction with the city as a living organism (people), and construction of this is used as a tool to structure the narrative. So that each story becomes independent of the other but is still part of the whole; giving it a more playful approach to language, in terms rhetorical tropes of Metaphor, Parataxis, Antithesis, Euphemism, Irony, Oxymoron, Paradox, Apostrophe, Parantheses, Glossolalia, Innuendo, Personification, and Pun because while he transpires the city he also unfolds the nuances of experiences and relationship he shares with its people. While this interaction with the city is at personal level is ‘private’, his journal (travelogue) becomes ‘public’ Targeted for young readers, I intend to reactivate the book as a device to approach language and the city in both, tangible and intangible space. These thirteen short fictional stories will let them engage and explore ways of seeing cities they live in with a whimsical rhetoric. On the day we last met, I remember you sharing with us your experiences as a nervy traveller, I hope I can do justice to some of your experiences with this book. Thank you, Rajeel Arab
Bibliography: Denis Hollier, Against Architecture: The Writings of Georges Bataille, 1992: The MIT Press. 200. Adrian Forty, Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture, 2012: Thames and Hudson.336. Elisabeth Tostrup, Architecture and Rhetoric, 1996: The Oslo School of Architetcure. 209 George Perec, Species of space and other pieces (1st Edition 2010): Penguin Classics. 320. Jorge Luis Borges, Fictions, 1994: Grove Press. 180.