I like the books reflection being normal. Vital to the image.
This is not Rene Magritte. /s
Unsure if it relates in any way, but what I could make out of the book’s title is “Adventures of (???) Gordon Pim”. Searching about it, DDG suggests “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” by Edgar Allan Poe. Not familiar with Allan Poe’s works, thus can’t say if it’s related.
Great catch. I love Poe and so did Magritte.
Poe’s style features a lot of mystery, surrealist logic and some very interesting psychological stuff. Particularly to do with identity, guilt etc.
Now i haven’t read Arthur Gordon Pym, but know of it. It is full of unreliable narration, featured identity etc.
So drawing parallels to an image with a man facing a mirror, while the mirror refuses to reflect his face allows easy interpretation.
Theres repetition without revelation (this phrase sounds so ai)
The book ends ambiguously, smth poe does in his work often. So the self is unlearnable in the book, as is the case here.
For this image ironically. The book reflects fine, objects behave, people do not. We can trust representation of things, but not people.
