Features Editor:
Lisa Toth
lisatoth@dailyemerald.com
Monday, October 15,2001
Byrne’s book redefines sin I
■ Forget the commandments;
David Byrne’s “The New Sins”
outlines the 11 sins to avoid
David Byrne The New Sins’
By Aaron Shakra
for the Emerald
I’ve only met David Byrne once.
It was in Seattle in July, and he was
autographing copies of his latest
book, “The New Sins,” in a small
corner of the Elliott Bay Book Com
pany. I waited in line and eventual
ly reached the front. There, Byrne
not only autographed the dedica
tion page, but also wrote one word
in large, capital letters below his sig
nature: “CAREFUL.”
“The New Sins” is the kind of book
that begs for in-depth discussion. The
content is a short 93 pages, but each
One demands careful evaluation.
But I didn’t know that at the time.
I hadn’t even had a chance to read
the book. So I not only didn’t catch
his one-word joke, but also missed a
once-in-a-lifetime chance to discuss
such rich content material with the
author himself.
Like Byrne’s previous books, —
“True Stories,” “Strange Ritual” and
“Your Action World” — “The New
Sins” is hard to place within a spe
cific genre. Emulating a small bible
in appearance, it’s compact and
bound in maroon “pleather.” It’s
bilingual and, according to Byrne’s
paper “Why I Had to Make This
Book” (available on the publisher’s
Web site), was originally commis
sioned for an art biennial in Spain.
Turn it around and the reader is pre
sented with “Los Nuevos Pacados,”
a Spanish edition of the text.
To call the content specifically
philosophical, humorous, ironic or
erudite would be depriving a reader
of the line it walks between all of
these things. The immediate topic
is sins, but the concept isn’t nearly
as focused or narrow as it seems. In
fact, it’s the opposite: The ideas pre
sented can be applied universally,
but they aren’t shoved in the read
er’s face. At no point is there a spe
cific statement like, “This is the way
it is.” Because the ideas manifest
themselves in such tricky and
clever ways, they can be viewed as
either entertainment or philosophy
or both; readers get to choose.
The book begins with an explana
tion that sins have been traditionally
considered acts of "evil" that one
should avoid at all costs. Dispelling
this myth, Byrne places these acts in
a broader, historical context by ex
plaining that sins are constantly wa
vering and transient. This leads to a
redefinition of sin: something en
compassing both the darkness and
light. Without one, the other can’t ex
ist. Explaining the fluid medium be
tween these opposites, he writes,
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“The difference between poison and
medicine is in the dose.”
Byrne applies his definition to all
kinds of interesting topics. He
writes, “Words were invented by
people who never experienced
them. Pride was invented by some
one who never felt pride. Sin by
someone who never sinned.” This
fascination with the lines between
virtue and vice becomes a founda
tion for the text and a segue to the
heart of the material — the new sins
themselves.
One function of these sins is to
free the reader from many of the
common assumptions contained
within everyday life. The concept
of “Hope” is described in this fash
ion. Byrne writes, “Hope allows us
to deceive ourselves into thinking
that life is parceled into discrete
chunks — that our lives are stories
beginnings, middles, and ends.
That there IS narrative, linearity,
and not chaos, chance and luck. ”
“Cleanliness” is another new sin.
Speaking to the anal compulsive in
us all, Byrne writes the following
passage: "Cleanliness is not next to
Godliness. Cleanliness is an artifi
cial concept, a state that does not ac
tually exist. This in itself is not a sin,
of course, but the striving for it is."
Each of the sins — there are 11 al
together — has a one to two page en
try, and to describe the rest of them
would deprive readers of much of
the magic and surprise contained
within the book.
The text is complemented with
Byrne’s own photographs. These im
ages are sometimes specific, some
times abstract, but they’re really best
explained by Byrne himself. Describ
ing them as necessary, he writes the
following passage: “The pictures in
this book will explain what the text
obscures. The text is merely a distrac
tion, a set of breaks, a device to get
you to look at the pictures for longer
than you would ordinarily.”
Readers of “Los Nuevos Pacados”
will find an alternate set of images
in place of the English edition.
It’s often hard to keep works such
as these free of ego or pretension, but
Byrne counters with a sense of humor
aimed at chiding religious texts and
“established” ideas. (With deft self
mockery, he also places himself in the
fifth rung of his self-diagrammed cir
cle of hell). Readers won’t find his
name on the cover, either. This is
ironic, considering it’s his largest
piece of written prose, but it is neces
sary to keep the reader from identify
ing the ideas with any one person.
“The New Sins” certainly isn’t
perfect, but it’s the most lucid work
of Byrne’s career. He eschewed the
mainstream a long, long time ago to
create works such as these: beauti
ful, obscure and thought-provok
ing. Read it twice, or more.
Aaron Shakra is a freelance reporter for the
Oregon Daily Emerald.
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pride ■ passion ■ promise
UNIVERSITY OF
OREGON