{"product_id":"the-system-of-landor-s-cottage-a-pendant-to-poe-s-last-story","title":"The System of Landor’s Cottage. A Pendant to Poe’s Last Story","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eRodney Graham’s “The System of Landor’s Cottage. A Pendant to Poe’s Last Story” (1987) is a 312-page artist’s book that extends Edgar Allan Poe’s “Landor’s Cottage” (1849) by introducing a narrative addition about a mysterious machine. Graham’s alteration is influenced by the French writer Raymond Roussel, whose literary techniques employed polysemy, pastiche, and mathematical systems. As Graham explains in the exhibition catalogue published by the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1988:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“I have taken over Poe’s first-person narrator’s voice and his viewpoint, describing in this voice and from this viewpoint a small room which houses a machine ... highly complex and of no apparent rational function, a machine which seems ‘out of place’ and which calls for an explanation. The explanation is subsequently provided by Mr Landor himself, the owner of the house and the narrator’s host who undertakes to describe the origin and history of the annex. The main body of my novel is taken up with Mr Landor’s account of the components of the annex-machine, and the relation of the apparatus to the cottage as a whole.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe book also incorporates references to William Beckford’s Gothic novel \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eVathek\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, which Poe originally quoted in “Landor’s Cottage”. Through this layered, “meta-meta” approach, Graham uses experimental structures and interconnected narratives to explore literary processes of appropriation and alteration. The back cover features a drawing by Graham’s friend and fellow artist Jeff Wall.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Metabooks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54188001952083,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1068\/8898\/6963\/files\/TheSystem.png?v=1783084747","url":"https:\/\/metabooks.art\/products\/the-system-of-landor-s-cottage-a-pendant-to-poe-s-last-story","provider":"Metabooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}