Hypothetical question for you.
Have you ever seen a group of trees going for a swim?
Or gazelles that do, uh, this?
Or a, um, you know.
One of those?
If you find these images baffling, you’re not alone.
This is Codex Seraphinianus — one of the most unusual books ever written.
Originally published in 1981, it’s not an easy book to track down.
Written by surreal artist Luigi Serafini, the book is designed to be completely alien
to anyone who picks it up.
The world of impossibilities within at first don’t seem to follow any logic.
Not only are the images utterly mind-bending, but it’s written in a made-up, and thoroughly
untranslatable language.
And yet, the more you read, the more you find a strange sense of continuity among the images.
That’s because Serafini intended this book to be an Encyclopedia.
An encyclopedia of a world… that doesn’t exist.
So, for this entry into the archive, I’m going to do my best to document the alternate
dimension Serafini created, bearing in mind the codex is, by design, meant to be untranslatable.
Like a real encyclopedia, the book is divided into sections.
The first one seems to be on plants in this made-up world, and they certainly aren’t
any kind we’d recognize.
One page displays alien fruits and vegetables, which seem to be hybrids of more familiar
produce you might find in a grocery store — or hybrids of produce and inanimate objects.
Oh, and watch out for trees.
It seems they tend to run away.
Continuing our psychedelic tour, the next section is on animals.
We’ve got some very unusual species of birds, some fish which look like watchful eyes, and,
uh, this guy: who seems to burrow underground.
The codex also goes into microorganisms, tiny species which are impossible to categorize,
and seem to emerge from a gigantic rainbow.
We’re just going to have to roll with that one.
The next section is on legs.
Just pairs of legs with peculiar objects emerging from where the torsos should be.
And it seems there’s a lot of them in this alternate dimension.
Sometimes the legs walk in the park.
Sometimes the legs walk in the street.
Look: I’m not going to pretend I understand this section, but there’s something about
it I find strangely hilarious.
The next section is also difficult to categorize, but seems to dive into the world of chemistry
and subatomic particles.
Within these pages, you can find rows and rows of molecules which feel so scientific.
Of course, like the rest of the book this is all made up, but there’s something about
going all the way down to the atomic level that makes this fictional realm feel strangely
real.
Next, we have a short section on vehicles, like this car made out of flies and white
goo.
Or this other vehicle made out… something?
Or this cloud shaped vehicle, which in another section can be seen making rainbows, although
it seems to mess them up on occasion.
Nearing the end, the next, and by far the largest section is on the people who inhabit
this world — or, as close to people as this world gets.
And I will say, the people of this alternate dimension do seem to know how to throw a party,
whether it be doing… uh… this, or doing… this?
Honestly, with most of these your guess is as good as mine.
And the final few sections, are just completely incomprehensible.
I feel like Serafini wanted to make sure no over-thinkers (like me) would ever be able
to puzzle this world out completely, so he filled the ending with stuff that would take
centuries to understand.
And with a final page which seems like a back-of-the-book glossary, we’ve reached the end.
So, stepping back from all this madness, what is Serafini trying to get at with showing
us this glimpse into another world?
Well, as trippy — and somewhat unsettling — as some of these images are, there’s
also a strange sense of beauty to the drawings, and an enthralling feeling of genuine mystery.
In the end, I think Codex Seraphinianus captures a feeling.
The experience of reading it reminds me of being young and flipping through an encyclopedia,
staring at the pictures and not comprehending the words — but feeling a strange untranslatable
world, hovering just outside ones understanding.
So, maybe it’s okay that we can’t puzzle out Serafini’s one-of-a-kind masterwork.
Maybe some things are best if left truly unexplainable.
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