I Met An Extraordinary Man Re-Typing 100 Novels Word For Word

Transformative Performance Art

A few days ago I met an artist doing something extraordinary.

His name is Tim Youd. He is 11 years and 80 novels into an ambitious project. He is typing, word for word, 100 novels.

Upon hearing this, I was desperate to meet him. Luckily, my friend Claire Foussard, a NYC-based curator (incidentally, she’s also an impassioned advocate for Inuit art), introduced me to him.

1. He uses the same make and model typewriters the original authors used.

2. He tries to write either in the city the novel was based in or some place with a connection to the novel or author.

3. He types the entire novel onto two sheets of paper. So this is almost an ephemeral act. It produces nothing legible. Yet the output is strangely beautiful.

Credit: Cristin Tierney / Tim Youd

I spoke to him and he described his work as “devotional” and modestly said it made him a better reader. I don’t doubt that. But it’s hard to list the cascading implications. I had a series of thoughts in no particular order that I’m sharing below.

1. What are the neuroplastic implications of so deeply engaging with 80 works? How has his brain changed?

2. This newsletter is about information saturation. There is an overwhelming amount of data being generated. 328 terabytes daily, I read, but that seems like a low-end estimate. Everyday, MORE content. MORE original works. More. More. My book, too, when it comes out later this year, will be adding to this MORE. But Tim Youd’s project is not about “more”; it’s about “deeper”; I have been saying for a while that discernment and careful, almost hesitant consumption of media are increasingly important. I am happy for Tim that he has chosen to become intimate with his personal cannon. Is there an opportunity cost to his time? Could he have read more books? Of course. But this project negates the value of “ephemeral moreness.” That’s what I love about it. Its moreness is inward.

3. How do we teach writing in America? We get students to write original works. We workshop them. We read the masters, of course, and discuss them, but we don’t copy their passages word for word. I recall meeting a painter who had trained in a fine art school in China and she said to me, “For the first five years, I just learned to paint rocks.” While that’s one extreme, I think there is room in the curriculum to sit down and copy, word for word, the masters. We put a premium on originality. But sometimes we don’t lay the foundations for it.

4. I felt a desire to copy Tim. I’m going to though not quite as ambitiously. I’ll likely do short stories and simply type them into a word processor. But why did I feel this instant desire? I felt, deeply, wordlessly, that this was a good use of time, that I’d enjoy myself, that I’d find a tempo, enter a flow state, and experience loss of ego, and deep immersion in the mind of a master, all available at no extra cost except the cost of slowing down.

5. This week, inspired by Tim, I had my students bring an excerpt from one of their favorite books to class and rewrite it, word for word, anywhere between 2-4 times. These were substantial excerpts. I saw them type or write until their wrists hurt. But my obsession with squash has made me believe in the value of reps. Lots of reps. (Repetitions for the uninitiated). My students are gamecocks. At the end, all reported that the exercise had unintended value. I could see it cultivated “care” in them, “care” in the sense of “intimate regard”. In a world with too much information, we need “intimate regard.” In a massive convention hall at Navy Pier, amid the booths of 170 renowned galleries at EXPO 2024, Tim Youd’s work showcased “intimate regard.”

Very broadly, humans “consume” information. It shapes us. Changes us. Becomes us. It can radicalize us, humanize us. But unless we become intentional about our relationship to information, we’re doomed. Because a plague of locusts is upon us and we barely seem to realize. Tim’s project is a beacon of hope.

There’s many, many more cascading implications. But I’ll stop there. Here’s a link to Tim Youd’s website where you can see the list of books that he’s already completed.

Now — something completely different:

1. The Office of Modern Composition, an organization that I’m part of along with writers Sophie Lucido Johnson and Jill Riddell, has launched a substack newsletter organized around resources for writers or people interested in getting into writing - subscribe here.

2. For those of you in Chicago, Eddie Izzard is doing a one-person Hamlet show at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. It runs April 19th to May 4th. This is intimate immersion into one text similar to Tim Youd’s project. I’m going Wed 24th and am excited. If you go that same day, drop me a line.

3. And finally, this weekend, I am playing a squash fundraiser, the Metrosquash Cup. The MetroSquash program utilizes four components (sport, academics, social-emotional, and college & careers) to support students getting to-and-through high school and college.

Any contribution would be greatly appreciated.

No matter what, carve out some time this Spring/Summer and copy, word for word, some passage from a book you admire. When you do, please write me. I’m interested to hear if you find it valuable.