- Annandreas

"I'll tell you what, Ygberg, I believe one has to be very unscrupulous if one wants to get on in the world." That's how The Red Room could be summarised through one of its sentences. Through a number of cultural workers Strindberg asks the question of how life should be lived. As a young person, you can pretend to be an ardent idealist; as an older, somewhat sober person, you can come to realise that what you from the beginning thought to be idealistic may not really be. Through its straightforward language The Red Room (1879) is often called the first modern novel in Swedish. It constitutes a representation of Stockholm in the 1870s and is known for its depictions of the urban environment as well as its satire. The book is an attempt to stand by the lower classes by humorously attacking the hypocrisy of the higher classes. The Red Room was described as dirt by contemporary critics, but it was an immediate success. This edition of The Red Room constitutes the first novel in the cluster text style, which could be 20 percent better than ordinary texts, and is intended to function as a kind of survey for how we look at text, reading and book design. This book, in Swedish, was made as an entry for Svensk bokkonst, which every year rewards good examples of book design. The winners get to participate in Stiftung Buchkunt's Best Book Design from all over the World which in German is called Sch nste B cher aus aller Welt. This difference captures an important gap. Book design has long been about designing beautiful books. Now we'll see how Svensk bokkonst and possibly Stiftung Buchkunst see this. What do you think? Should we read cluster texts? You will get an answer to that question by reading this edition of The Red Room. PLEASE NOTE that the text in this book, i.e. cluster text, cannot be reflown and therefore needs to be read on tablets/screens at least 13 centimetres wide, which can handle line lengths of 95 characters (i.e. smaller screens are not suitable).

Denna bok f rs ker att visa vilka unders kningar man b r anv nda sig av f r att besvara fr gan om texter r felskrivna. F r att f rst ett fenomen, s som det b r f rst s, m ste man urskilja och relatera dess relevanta aspekter till varandra p ett l mpligt s tt. Typografiska unders kningar f rs ker att visa hur man b r unders ka typografi f r att s ska ske. Utifr n skillnaden mellan rektangeltext och klustertext behandlas, f rhoppningsvis, alla de aspekter som g r att man kan f rst typografin. Detta g ller om den f reslagna klustertexten r riktig. Bokens huvudm l r att man ska beh rska fenomenet klustertext genom l mpliga typografiska unders kningar. En typografisk unders kning kan samtidigt bli en pedagogisk unders kning - man kan unders ka det l rande som sker (eller uteblir). Om strategin f r l rande fungerar kan man anv nda den ven p andra omr den f r att l ra mer och b ttre. En typografisk unders kning kan ocks fungera som en filosofisk unders kning. Descartes tvivlade sig fram till cogito ergo sum och Locke tvivlade sig fram till ett tabula rasa. B da ville n s ker kunskap. M jligen n r vi en s krare s dan f rst genom en klustertext. Det r f rst nu vi f rst r hur vi ska fylla ett tomt blad. Detta betyder att vi ocks genomf r en vetenskaplig unders kning. Eventuellt har all tidigare vetenskap varit felskriven och det r kanske f rst genom klustertexten som vi s tter vetenskapen p en stabilare grund. Observera att texten i denna bok inte kan fl das om och d rf r beh ver l sas p l splattor som r minst 13 tum vilka klarar en radl ngd p 95 tecken (mindre sk rmar r allts ol mpliga).