Commentary on "Approximations to the Object": Readings in Designed Literature
By Pedro Bernstein This book provokes its reader. Aimed at bold designers, typographers, writers, and curious minds who thrive on provocation, Commentary on Approximations to the Object leads to a fundamental question: how does the flux between design and literature produce a distinct engagement with meaning? Bernstein’s Commentary on the oeuvre of Approximations to the Object, a nineteenth-century treatise attributed to Edmund Stone, explores the possibility that certain material objects may have prefigured particular literary modes of understanding. As long as this thesis persists, the commentary keeps the reader on edge, engaging in its own material logic, only to diverge from it—reaching a peak of utmost emancipation, ultimately to: comment on it. Harnessing historical gaps, predication, speculation, and the shifting boundaries between objects and texts, Bernstein’s textual and design inferences are far from incidental deviations. They propel the commentary into something beyond a mere study of influence, raising intriguing questions: What other objects might have influenced certain literary forms? How can the interplay between design and literature uncover the structures that shape interpretation and meaning? Why has Stone’s treatise remained overlooked for so many centuries? Designed by Pedro Bernstein With illustrations by Pedro Bernstein and Irene Casado Published by Set Margins' Publications, 2025 Hardcover, 114 pages, 20 b&w images, 5 × 7.75 inches ISBN: 978-9-08-353250-9