J. J. Abrams

Doug Dorst

S. La nave di Teseo di V. M. Straka

J.J. Abrams

One book. Two readers. A world of mystery, menace and desire A young woman picks up a book left behind by a stranger. Inside it are his margin notes, which reveal a reader entranced by the story and by its mysterious author. She responds with notes of her own, leaving the book for the stranger, and so begins an unlikely conversation that plunges them both into the unknown. THE BOOK: Ship of Theseus, the final novel by a prolific but enigmatic writer named V. M. Straka, in which a man with no past is shanghaied onto a strange ship with a monstrous crew and launched on a disorienting and perilous journey. THE WRITER: Straka, the incendiary and secretive subject of one of the world's greatest mysteries, a revolutionary about whom the world knows nothing apart from the words he wrote and the rumours that swirl around him. THE READERS: Jennifer and Eric, a college senior and a disgraced grad student, both facing crucial decisions about who they are, who they might become, and how much they're willing to trust another person with their passions, hurts and fears. S., conceived by filmmaker J.J. Abrams and written by award-winning novelist Doug Dorst, is the chronicle of two readers finding each other in the margins of a book and enmeshing themselves in a deadly struggle between forces they don't understand. It is also Abrams and Dorst's love letter to the written word.

The place smells of antiquity and quiet determination.

Words are a gift to the dead and a warning to the living.

It is at this moment that the murmuring voices return, overlapping, sharpening, then fading, twirling through one another in a chorale of lament.

To be a self rewritten from a lost first draft.

What begins at the water shall end there, and what ends there shall once more begin.

One book. Two readers. A world of mystery, menace, and desire. A young woman picks up a book left behind by a stranger. Inside it are his margin notes, which reveal a reader entranced by the story and by its mysterious author. She responds with notes of her own, leaving the book for the stranger, and so begins an unlikely conversation that plunges them both into the unknown. The book: Ship of Theseus, the final novel by a prolific but enigmatic writer named V.M. Straka, in which a man with no past is shanghaied onto a strange ship with a monstrous crew and launched onto a disorienting and perilous journey. The writer: Straka, the incendiary and secretive subject of one of the world's greatest mysteries, a revolutionary about whom the world knows nothing apart from the words he wrote and the rumors that swirl around him. The readers: Jennifer and Eric, a college senior and a disgraced grad student, both facing crucial decisions about who they are, who they might become, and how much they're willing to trust another person with their passions, hurts, and fears. S., conceived by filmmaker J. J. Abrams and written by award-winning novelist Doug Dorst, is the chronicle of two readers finding each other in the margins of a book and enmeshing themselves in a deadly struggle between forces they don't understand, and it is also Abrams and Dorst's love letter to the written word.

Amna A.

I have spent about 3 months reading this masterpiece. The reason for that (other than being preoccupied with college) is that this book is DENSE. Both metaphorically and literally. The project "S." contains three layers. The first being the actual book, "Ship of Theseus" by V.M. Straka (mysterious fictional author). The phrase "ship of Theseus" is a paradox that explores the question of whether or not an object still remains fundamentally the same after all its components have been replaced. The paradox is a recurring theme throughout the book, first appearing at the very beginning when the main character finds himself on a harbor with no memory of his past, so he naturally goes on in search of his history and trying to figure out if it has any relation with his current identity. The book was "published" in 1949, so it has many historical elements of that time period. 

 The second layer of this project is the footnotes in the book added in by the book's fictional translator, F.X. Caldeira. And although she did not know the true identity of the author, she was in love with him nonetheless. For her footnotes contain hidden codes and messages directed towards the author. 

 The third aspect of this book is my favorite. It's the story of two strangers, Jen and Eric, who use this book as a form of communication without meeting face to face for a while. They fill the margins with annotations concerning the storyline, the identity of the mystery author, and F.X.'s relation to him. Much of their personal lives are spilled out there between the printed words, which later evolves into an intimate story of their own relationship that somewhat runs parallel to the events in the book. In addition to all that, the book includes Jen and Eric's postcards, letters, newspaper articles, and doodles. 

This review may seem choppy, I've tried to include as much as I can without spoiling the book for anyone who is interested in reading it.

This book is so cool conceptually but so hard to actually read. 

hannah

Cristian Garcia

I got this book for 3 reasons: (1) JJ Abraham's Lost (2) JJ Abraham's TED talk on the mystery box and (3) the book as an object. But I flopped. I struggled to finish.

This meta book has no instructions manual and you could either read the Ship of Theseus all at once, continue with the marginalia or do both at the same time. I did the latter and I REALLY had issues following the story.

I felt the marginalia characters were building up and up, but at the end their story felt weak and not that relevant. The Ship of Theseus as a standalone book was ok, at some point it all felt like a dream or an altered state of mind for the main character - however, I kind of enjoyed SOT.

Now the book as an object was delicious: it smells old (even though I got it brand new), the hand written notes are beautifully done and all the +20 objects to accompany the lecture were so refreshing and unique. The job of creating an immersive experience was great.

In summary, I think the book was an amazing exercise to create something unique (I still wonder what the workflow for a regular day would've looked like to for Doug Dorst) but it felt tremendously complex, ambitious and by the end, the joy of reading was not there for me.

Nelson Zagalo

Para uma novela estruturalista, uma crítica estruturalista: 1) Conceito e Premissa: 5/5; 2) Execução Técnica: 5/5; 3) Experiência Estética 2/5. Nota final de 4, nada mau, mas será melhor ler sobre cada um dos itens para ver se a nota quantitativa reflete o interesse qualitativo da obra.

Ler com imagens e links no blog:
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...

Absolutely loved this book. It was like reading 4 plot lines at once and it was wonderful. If you like philosophy and ideas of resistance or rebellion, this is a wonderful combination.  Almost hard to describe it other than being so conceptually ambitious and philosophically adventurous that you keep running though it even when the book is put down. 

Cathy

DO YOU THINK MAKING ME CRY IS COOL?

ok onto the actual review.
• jen and eric shut up shut up
• where can i fall in love with a girl through the annotations of a book we share over the course of a year
• the different colour pens were really bloody helpful and i am definitely doing another reread in a month because this is the type of book where you reread it forever and only then catch things
• i gave up reading the actual story and just read the annotations sorry its just the colours were catching my attention

spoilers‼️
• i was so happy when the dot mentioned earlier in the book made it in! 🟠 rights !!
• the i love you declaration during the end ???? o h m y god im just a puddle im a puddle
• the “i hate reading this” in the black box when they throw jabs at each other???? MY FUCKING HEART
• the way they still communicate through the book towards the end??!!!!! BITCH UGH STOP MY HEART

spoilers over ‼️


the concept is absolutely amazing, only thing is dont be like me and lose the position of the postcards and things otherwise you will be super confused. 

best $60 i’ve ever spent!

Jennifer

Mayra Melo

4.8 stars

This has been such an amazing, unique experience. I wholeheartedly applaud J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst for creating this puzzling, entertaining side of literature. Everything was so well developed, every facet coming together in such a satisfying way. Prose, notes, postcards, pictures, maps, newspaper articles, codes… This was not just a book. It was a project. A bold one at that. 

It was almost entirely perfect were it not for the Obituary. Being Brazilian, one of my biggest pet peeves – in books, movies, TV series – is when they depict Brazilians speaking Spanish. We don’t. And Abrams/Dorst thankfully used Portuguese when Brazil was involved in the storyline. In all of it, but a little piece of the Obituary, which was all in Portuguese except for 12 little displaced Spanish words left unnoticed by the editors. I know it seems like nothing, but in a book like this, where every minor detail counts toward bringing the whole story together, it broke the magic a little bit.

Other than that, it was flawless. It was an ode to literature and mystery, and I had the most awesome time reading it. In a process much like Inception, the reader got to dive deeper and deeper, finding a young Eric, inside Eric and Jen, inside Straka, inside Ship of Theseus, inside 
  S.
 

I found it extremely hard to put this book down, even while it proposed such a huge commitment. Because trust me, folks, it’s a commitment. But it’s such a thrill if you give in to it.

Brianna Best

Chloe Killigrew

I loved the concept of there being two stories in one. The main story being Ship of Theseus and the secondary story of Jen and Eric in the margin notes as they try to solve the mystery of V.M.Straka. 

There are several ways to read the book. I first read through the book page by page reading everything as it came but I ended up going through the book again several time to read the annotations in chronological colour-coded order which really helped to understand Jen and Eric's story. After reading this I would recommend reading the main text then reading the annotation in their colour-coded order; 
1) The pencil annotation (Eric's initial annotation).
2) The blue (Jen's first thoughts) and black ink annotation (Eric's response).
3) The green (Eric) and orange (Jen) annotations which is their second pass of comments.
4) The purple (Jen) and Red (Eric) comments after they have met.
5) The black annotations by both Jen and Eric. 

The annotation start when Jen finds Eric's book in the library and begins to read it adding her own thoughts. They then begin to have a conversation in the margins leaving the book for the other to find. They discuss the themes in the Ship of Theseus with the main one being identity. 

There are a lot of interactive elements with the additional information in the inserts making you feel involved in the mystery they are trying to solve along with the chapter ciphers. 

I throughly enjoyed reading this although it's not an easy read. It's probably the book I've spent the most time reading as you need to pay a lot of attention to everything that's going on! But it was very engaging and kept me curious throughout. 

b.andherbooks

A multi-media experience extraordinaire. This is the future of print-publishing. Please make all of my books have margin notes, inserts, and napkin maps. The bonus, the totally real old book smell! 

Besides the awesome packaging of S., the novel and the story that plays out in the margins between Eric and Jen is so enthralling, yet leaves just enough to the imagination to keep you wanting more. Now that I have finished, I'm doing a lot of message board surfing to see what I missed. I will definitely be ordering a copy soon and will need to do a re-read (many times over).

Lynn Braden

I just purchased this book. I've heard so much about it. Every reviewer I've read has either loved it or hated it, but I thought it might be worth giving it a try.
I finally finished this book. It has an interesting concept, but it takes a lot of focus and energy to follow the three simultaneous story lines. In the end, this book is about love and redemption in a world where there is little of either. In one of the story lines neither love nor redemption is ever found, but in the other two, some measure of it is discovered by the characters. If you have the time and energy, this book is worth a look.

beatrice ferrarini

Loved the idea but it was a bit difficult to keep up with the whole stories (more than one) that are in the book.

Ben Nathan

This was one of my favorite books ever. So much going on, so many layers, so engrossing. I can't even explain how much I loved it without possibly ruining some of it for someone and that would be a travesty. Read it and you'll understand :)

Tim Vos

An absolutely fantastic book, truly one of the most original I've read in quite some time. Who else but J. J. Abrams could have thought of such an interesting practically novel idea for a book? To be fair one of my other favourite novels, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski features a similar theme, though in quite more post-modern vision. Nevertheless I loved both stories in S. A definite must-read!

Sans

When I started reading the book I was like


Then I was all


And when I finished it I felt kinda


But after thinking about it for a day or so, now I'm just

Elad Schulman

That was definitely an adventure. Although I wish I enjoyed the book more than I actually did, the experience of reading the book was, without a doubt, like nothing i've experienced before.

S. La nave di Teseo di V. M. Straka

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