Tree of Codes & Kaffir

In conceptualizing the notion of a truly mad or chaotic book in relation to an image, I thought of Jonathan Safran Foer's recently published novel/artwork, Tree of Codes. Though I've not had the privilege of reading it, I've heard quite a bit about it. To create this work, Foer cut out the majority of words from Bruno Schulz's Street of Crocodiles in order to fashion a new story (allowing words from successive pages to fill in the blanks left from the cuts -- the attached image should help with visualizing it). This provides for a plethora of interpretations and implications. It is sort of overwhelming to think about. Each page can be read through an altered ostensible scope of Schulz's original intentions or through Foer's potentially haphazard or ingenious manipulation. 

For my sociopolitical illusion of choice, I selected Anna's reference to the word "kaffirs":

--"Just as the word kaffirs would have become, in its turn, too crude in ten years' time." (96)

The word is derived from the Arabic word, "Kafir", which roughly translates to English as "non-believer" or "disbeliever". Though originally a neutral term for referring to South African black people, by the 20th century it was considered an offensive ethnic slur.