Re: Non-linear / full-2d writing systems?

On 5/11/05, H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...> wrote:
> 
> 
> I think, in 2D writing, storytelling would not so much be a matter of
> tension-and-release, but instead a matter of visual and aesthetic
> beauty in the resulting layout and in the manner in which the various
> elements are presented. 

This puts me immediately in mind of Hesse's "The Glass Bead Game". I've read 
it two or three times, and it always makes me desperate to know how in the 
world the Game actually works. For those who haven't read it, it's described 
as a sort of two-dimensional written game, played for intellectual and 
artistic stimulation, in which the players write Chinese-style hieroglyphs 
encoding all of musical, mathematical, and intellectual history. What are 
the rules? How does it progress? How is it a game? I really don't have any 
idea. It's worth a read by any conlanger, if only for the inspiring 
bafflement... no, baffling inspiration... it produces.

-- 
Patrick Littell
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