Art is that which escapes definition and classification.
The process of accretion continues, as it does in the Hospital of Siena, the book's physical model invoked in the Preface. Essays, stories, stray thoughts, sundry quotes plucked from favorite books, and diary entries keep piling up apparently at random. The randomness is what Bon strives after, for he thinks of it in terms of an infinite order that bypasses all traps of apparent meaning. Designed in Venice, the author's elective home, and made in Italy, the book is a pleasure to hold. Like many a book of old, it requires a leap of faith, a somersault, a pinch of personal courage to approach, but once the first step is taken, once the commitment is made, it is difficult to abandon, drop, exorcise.