In thinking about this week’s
question and trying to find a compelling example of an e-book that reinvents
the page, I experienced a block. It dawned on me that I actually don’t read
e-books very often, and I think this is mostly because I’ve never found one
that creates the same atmosphere or experience that a physical book does. I
decided to do some research and what I noticed was that e-books categorized as
interactive (containing photos, links, videos, animations) are those that are
considered exceptional. This resonated with me as I thought of Piper’s comment,
that these inclusions do not necessarily improve the page or the book itself,
but instead serve as distractions from the actual content, “a departure from,
not an enhancement of, reading” (Piper 2012, 48). Perhaps this is why I’ve
never felt a strong connection with e-books. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying
interactive apps and e-books are a bad thing! Clearly, I just need to
familiarize myself with more examples before I can really appreciate what they
do for the reader.
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| Kindle-Andy Weir's The Martian |
As it turns out, I have a decent
collection between iBooks and Kindle, though I’ve never actually read any of
them from front to back—or should I say from start to finish. The one e-book I
read this year was Andy Weir’s The
Martian. While I really enjoyed the story, the experience of reading it on
a Kindle felt somewhat detached and hollow. I don’t mean to sound sentimental,
and I do see the value and benefits of e-readers, but it simply didn’t do
anything for me. The page, as it appeared while reading The Martian, was not distinct or unlike any other digital
conceptualization of the page that I had seen before. There were basic blank
margins and a bit of white space. It could technically fit the parameters of
the “pages are windows” classification by the somewhat inherent or expected
qualities it featured (Piper 2012, 49). Needless to say, the enjoyment I
experienced from this first experience using a Kindle was because of the size
and portability of the reader itself and not the innovative page design,
aesthetic properties or functionality.
If we understand and expect that
a page will adopt the standard rectangular shape and vertical orientation, and
consider what Stoicheff and Taylor suggest about this qualities as related to
the shape and size of the human hand (Stoicheff and Taylor 2004, 5), then is a
page still a page if resembles anything else? After going through my
collection, I discovered a version of The
Night Before Christmas that I had downloaded for iBooks. Despite my earlier
scepticism, I found this e-book to be very compelling. When you first open the
book, the animation is designed to hover on the cover before fanning open to
the standard page spread where the left-hand page features standard information
about the book (title, author, artwork, copyright) and the right-hand page
discusses the inclusion of original artwork and information about Bookbyte
Digital, a self-publishing company. What strikes me about this book, aside from
the unique range of illustrations and photographs provided as a backdrop for
the text, is that it no longer represents “Pages are folds,” and instead adopts
the characteristics of a poster (Piper, 2012, p. 52). Instead of the gradual
unfolding of the book by flipping its pages, the reader seems to swipe through
a series of posters that tell the story. And it works. As a children’s book,
the intent of the pages, which are ultimately transformed into a series of
posters, provides an effective and enjoyable reading experience. While reading
this e-book doesn’t quite feel the same as reading a physical book, I don’t
believe that it diminishes the experience in any way due to the nature of the
story, the creativity and individuality behind each of the illustrations, and
its oblong orientation. I suppose it could be argued that this, then, is not a
page since there is no white space, no margins, no verticality, and no
rectangular shape. But does that make it any less “book” because it lacks that
particular set of features? No, I don’t believe it does.
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| The Night Before Christmas, iBooks--as it appears on the computer |
References:
Piper,
Andrew. "Turning the Page (Roaming, Zooming, Streaming)." In Book Was
There: Reading in Electronic Times. University of Chicago Press, 2012.
Stoicheff,
Peter, and Andrew Taylor. Introduction to The Future of the Page. University of
Toronto Press, 2004. 3-25.
Thanks for sharing Angelique!
ReplyDeleteI also "read" The Martian in an alternative format, but for me it was an audiobook on my way out East this past summer. I think The Martian is an interesting case for looking at alternative reading formats because of the way it's written in "log entries". I too found that listening to the book created a similar "hollow" experience as the log entries came one after another. For me, I think it was likely the temporal pacing of the story when read aloud - it didn't give me the same sense of time as I imagined I would experience by reading it on paper (which would have been in smaller chunks and not over two or three long periods driving).
Thinking about it now though, this could also be an effect of the genre. I love science fiction, but have never read "hard" science fiction, like The Martian. While it is impressive to have your work backed by scientific fact, I found the writing itself to be quite dry and one-dimensional. Maybe this is a place where both content and form effected my reading experience.