One of the most interesting aspects of eReader technology is the potential for formally experimental fiction and interactive narratives.
This advertisement for Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, for the iPad hints at interactivity, but is more appropriately compared to a pop-up book for the 21st century. While the animations and illustrations are a do make the product look very stylish, they are really only value added features to drive up sales of this ‘app’. The text is available on Project Gutenberg for free in digital form.
A sub-issue this raises is related to the connection between imagination and reading which I won’t get into here!
The idea that the iPad is somehow revolutionary eReading technology is well wide of the mark. The decision not to show any Flash content by Apple seriously undermines any connection between iPads and digital literary products. Poems like Michelle Leggott’s Oes & Spangs are designed to be read on the screen. An example of an award winning digital story is Inanimate Alice, which funnily enough has been designed to be read outside of the page, but cannot be read on eBook readers. Obviously using a web browser on a tablet it could be read (as long it’s not an Apple product!), but that is not really the point. The difference between the two Alices is that while one is a genuinely interesting experiment with technology and storytelling, the other is an excellent piece of marketing.
The iPad is not the only eReader to come under criticism for failing to add anything substantial to the world of books and literature.
In the interesting link from Matt, Mark L. Sample, assistant professor of English at George Mason University explains how eReaders are not capable of showing textually and formally experimental and unconventional works. He sights House of Leaves as an example, in which the form is very reflective of the content: multiple narrators, mazes and mental illness are effectively reflected in the labyrinthine structure of the novel.
There was also a pop album (Haunted) released, by the author’s sister, which contained songs inspired by and complementary to the novel. If eReaders truly supported digital narratives or with further technological advances in eReaders this could be more effectively incorporated into the text.
The synthesis between digital reading technology and writing techniques that will merge games, films and novels is the really avant-garde and interesting subtext around digital technologies and works of the imagination, but eReaders (in their current realization) are as Sample says, “marvels of engineering and commerce”.
This particular Creative Commons license means I have to attribute the work to the author, that I cannot use it for commercial purposes and that I cannot alter the track in any way. Thus it just plays through on the background until it fades out at the end. I had chopped it up and moved some parts around, until I looked more closely at the license!
