Quotations

It would make sense to include some important quotations from the book, perhaps designing an image to go with each one, once I've carefully selected a few (about 5).


Here's one just that sprung to mind to catch people's attention and to show that the Odyssey is far from boring, and actually very different to how it is perceived!


Then looking at her darkly, resourceful Odysseus answered: "I think I will go to Telemachos, you bitch, and tell him how you were talking, so that he will cut you to pieces"


(Now what was Carol Ann Duffy saying about poetry being like rap music...?)

Where can I put these images?

One of the ideas I had about where to locate my images occured to me when I criticised online study guides such as Sparknotes for not including enough visual aids.

Obviously the images I have produced so far are very rough, but as an experiment I added colour to this one and edited it into a screenshot of Sparknotes using Photoshop. It already looks a lot better than the usual bland, inaccessible page of text.

Here's how it looked before

My last rough Odyssey experiment - Book 23

Obviously these cartoons are only basic scribbles - my next task will be to develop them. I need to ensure the characters are consistent and recognisable and carefully select the text/speech I include as it has to make sense to someone who knows nothing about the Odyssey whereas these are as much to refresh the story in my mind as anything. They were helpful to try out format though, the little boxes are an obvious and easy-to-read way to tell a cartoon story.


I may also present a visual guide to the book's characters (perhaps only major ones as there are hundreds!) to go alongside the plot summary.

More rough cartoons - book 10 and 12

I have tried to select (for these rough experiments) the most interesting/relevant/famous parts of the Odyssey, for example in book 10 the sorceress Circe turns Odysseus' companions into pigs.



The simplifying skills I developed in my earlier Jane Austen exercise are proving very useful here, and will do when I come to condensing the whole Odyssey as I plan to eventually.



In Book 10 Odysseus' companions betray him by opening a bag of winds which propels them to a land of cannibal giants. They escape after some of them are eaten and split up to explore the new island, but half are turned into swine and Odysseus has to sleep with a sorceress to get them turned back. She then helps him travel to the underworld. 
In Book 12 Odysseus is back from Hades so they leave the island, avoiding sea monsters. They reach a new place and the men vow not to eat the cows but a storm traps them there so they eat some. Unfortunately he cows belong to the gods and Zeus sends a storm which kills all of them except our hero, who manages to avoid the monsters a 2nd time and wash up on a beach.

The beginnings of a cartoon Odyssey

What I have observed from my research of Horrible History books is that images, particularly cartoons, make learning entertaining and easy. The success of these books illustrates this.


A passing reference to The Simpsons in my last post was actually really useful in explaining that cartoons aren't just for children: adults enjoy and understand them too.


Keeping this in mind, I have started to develop cartoon-style summaries of the Odyssey starting with just a few of its 24 books (chapters). 


Here's Book 9 in which Odysseus (or Ulysses as the Romans rebranded him) introduces himself to his hosts in a place called Scheria and begins to tell them the long story of how he got there.

The Odyssey

For my visual study guide I have thought in depth about choosing a work of literature and finally settled on the Odyssey. I chose it because its extremely old and doesn't appear often in popular culture (like Jane Austen's work). This unfamiliarity makes it daunting and unapproachable, but I can change this.

It was also essential for me to select a book I knew well as, though I'm going to simplify it (visually) it helps if I know what I'm talking about! I wanted to choose a story that was exciting, not just so I could spread my enthusiasm for it to others, but also so I don't get bored along the way. 

Perhaps most importantly, I chose the Odyssey because it precedes any kind of literary technology, having been orally narrated. Handmade books did exist when the poet Homer was alive, but he would have struggled to write one - he was blind!


I'm aiming to make images which can be understood by the masses, most of whom are only familiar with this Homer:

Horrible literature!?

It is worth noting that spin-offs of the hugely successful Horrible Histories series encompass (gruesome) geography and (horrible) science. But there's none about english literature!

There is definitely a niche in the market for such study guides, particularly for boys as statistically they prefer school subjects like Science but struggle with English.


"Last year 85% of 11-year-old girls reached the expected level in English for their age compared to 76% of boys"
"Nearly a third of the teachers questioned said boys were put off before the book had even been opened, if they saw it had more than 200 pages."
"Teachers also revealed that classics of English literature, such as those by Jane Austen, are putting boys off reading." (via BBC News)

Visual study guides

Though I thought the email format in my previous post would be really helpful in a study guide to the book, not all works of literature contain letters from one character to another. It was entertaining but not very universal.


As I established earlier, VISUAL information is what's missing from a lot of online study guides. Before I begin creating my own images, I had a quick look at existing examples. 


Though not available online as a study source (their website simply promotes their TV show and live tour) the 'Horrible Histories' series dominates this market, outside of the internet.

What makes them successful?

Though aimed at children old enough to read, they use images on every page. These include fake adverts, cartoons and comic strips. 

Also, the information provided isn't what you'd learn at school (teachers are made fun of in the introduction of each book) it's more tailored to children's interests: 'history with the nasty bits left in'. 

A text from Mr Darcy

I took my last experiment a step further and reduced the same letter down from an email to a text!

I feel like this has gone too far in abbreviating the message; a lot of meaning has been lost and it's almost incomprehensible. Perhaps it's fair to say that people communicated on a deeper level, though less frequently and easily, in the 1800s.

For me, a text is not the right format for such drastic information and too much has been discarded here. Or perhaps Carol Ann Duffy is right in claiming a text forces us to choose our words more carefully and powerfully. It could be that this text, in its brevity, is more dramatic than the email or the letter!

Be not alarmed madam on receiving this email

I thought it would be amusing to take letters from well-known work of literature and turn them into emails.


I looked at Pride and Prejudice and changed this famous letter from Mr Darcy into an email by abbreviating it and incorporating colloquial language, sloppy spelling, internet slang and nicknames. 

The result is quite funny but I wonder if this kind of thing would work well as a study tool? I think it might as the language is simplified/easier to read while i've tried to maintain all the same ideas.

Where next?

I made a mind map of my ideas based on what I've looked at so far and how I have questioned it.

Though I initially considered the Internet detrimental to literature and education I have realised its visual potential as a study tool and need to explore this now through a series of practical experiments: time to get drawing!

It's nearly Christmas!

The images I have been making have ignored an important element of books - their three-dimensional physicality, as opposed to the flat computer screen.

Here's a festive way of showing you can make sculptures from books. While I don't think this is hugely relevant to the way my ideas are developing, it's a good reminder of the ways real books have more uses than e-books.

Book collage

I've been making these from scrap paper to try and capture the physicality of books as obviously they are composed entirely of paper. I have been trying to explore this in terms of texture and meaning, for example being made of paper means they last a long time if looked after, but also that they can be recycled.

What if I was to make similar stack of 'books' using digital imagery and textures?

Books vs. The Internet

After realising Books vs. Technology was a misleading title I have been thinking a lot about how recent technology is able to improve literature. I have researched the ways the Internet may be destroying literary environments and even books themselves, but maybe I can prove this idea (and myself) wrong.

The main advantage the Internet gives books (and most things) is accessibility. I don't just mean ability to discover and locate titles online but rather, ability to understand them. The Internet has proved useful for study support (games on BBC Bitesize would be a good example) and makes difficult texts less intimidating through sites like Sparknotes, and even Wikipedia.

A student daunted by a huge book they have to read (and understand) might go to one of these sites for a plot summary before they begin. Twenty years ago this would not have been possible. 

However, I feel like what these sites are missing (as you can see from above) are images. Many people learn visually, and for them, a wordy online study guide might be almost as scary as a big book. The Internet floods our brain with images daily (popular sites like Facebook and Youtube are obvious examples) whereas, like I discussed before, websites full of texts are boring and repellant.


It seems odd that online study guides don't utilise the obvious visual potential of the Internet!

Literature and technology timeline

I made this rough timeline from my research. If it continues to be relevant I'll make a more detailed version.

Books vs. Technology

This would be a terrible title as it's very misleading; we forget that books themselves are the product of technology.

A childrens' book about the invention of the Gutenberg press

In the 15th Century, the printing press would have been the height of technology, causing similar controversy to new technology today. People mourned the loss of the beautiful illustrations and calligraphy that filled the handmade books previously used. As books were more widely available, reading aloud became much less prevalent. Some were worried that reading the Bible (the first book to be published on the Gutenberg press) alone would allow then to interpret it their own way - very dangerous! 

Kindle fail: a book never runs out of battery

A better title might be Books vs. NEW Technology, as I have been researching Kindles (and other e-readers) 

A list I made from my research on forums and articles

As you can see, on paper Kindles look like a vast improvement. But a lot of the reasons why people prefer real books are difficult to describe. It's more to do with the experience of handling them, or the atmosphere of a bookshop or library; these things are very important to some, myself included.

J.K.Rowling hates e-books, Carol Ann Duffy loves texts

I've been reading about how the bestselling author won't release any Harry Potter books as e-books; as her (rarely used) Twitter says: she prefers 'pen and paper'.

This rejection of new technology seems to be in keeping with my thoughts, but other famous authors disagree.

Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, compares texts to poems:

"The poem is a form of texting...it's the original text"

read the full article here

She explains that poetry is now more accessible than ever because of its brevity; we are used to sitting in front of a computer screen in front of Twitter or Facebook and communicating in short statements. Poetry is a way of saying more with less, perfecting a feeling, like texting.

Perhaps there could be a study-guide system which uses texts to reinforce key facts to students of the 'Facebook generation'. I tried this out to see what it would look like

Twitterature

I have been reading 'Twitterature', which on the outside looks like any Penguin classic. However, the inside is a little different...

The blurb claims it has 'distilled' 60 great works of literature, 'relieving you of the burdensome task of reading' them. They have disregarded proper English for language typical of Twitter: capital letters for emphasis, extreme punctuation, short statements, swearing.

Some highlights were Oedipus (MY EYES MY FUCKING EYES AGGGGHHGHGHGHGHHH!!!!! I was totally not expecting that to hurt so much') and my favourite book The Odyssey ('Finally home. Everything good! Wait, who the fuck are these dudes hitting on Penelope?')

I was interested in how bizarre it seems for books to be rewritten in an internet format... and then put back into a book. But it works; it's funny.

I looked at the Twitter pages of present-day authors, like Neil Gaiman (above) but these are simply to update and communicate with fans, rather than a medium for writing. I wonder if I could use Twitter for my idea.

Shakespeare's Twitter

Someone has been regurgitating the entire works of Shakespeare, one play at a time, via Twitter.

What does this do to the works?

It certainly puts emphasis on certain words as often sentences have to be broken up to fit into the '140 character or less' format. The context is interesting, as people are most likely to read the posts amongst the other posts on their Twitter feed rather than all together.

It's amusing that the person doing this claims to be Shakespeare himself "tweeting from the grave". It leads us to imagine how great writers would cope if they were alive now; would they adapt to our fixation on social networking sites?

Amazon vs. real bookshops

I made some images on photoshop juxtaposing images of book shelves with the obvious modern alternative; Amazon. I imagined that I could hack into Amazon.co.uk and replace the homepage with this image to remind people what they were missing.

I could add a statistic, like 'The volume of books being bought is in decline. In 2010 a total of 229.3 million books were sold in Britain, a 1.7 per cent decrease on 2009, according to research company Nielsen Bookscan.'


I tried this in the quick animation i made below. It would be great if I was a computer genius and could actually hack into the Amazon website to change the homepage! I would like to try out more animation, like making bookshelves pop up one at a time.

I'm really interested in this idea of hacking/terrorism with good and harmless intentions.

Shakespeare & Company

Me at Shakespeare & Co.

Last April I visited this famous book shop in Paris. Their eclectic scrapbook-style homepage brilliantly encapsulates their aesthetic and promotes instore events, and they use their mailing list to email information to people all over the world. But despite embracing (not fighting) the internet, it is a huge threat to them and other independent book shops.

Clip from Mourir Auprès de Toi (To Die by Your Side) by Spike Jonze 

Full version on Vimeo

This animation by Spike Jonze was made in the shop. I think it effectively uses (the internet and animation) technology to present the old fashioned world of the book shop as an exciting place.


This is useful in thinking about how I can adapt books so they translate into an online language which improves rather than destroys or cheapens literature.

Tutorial

I talked to Jason about where my ideas are going. For my next steps I am going to summarise my research on book shops and libraries closing, and add it to my blog. I am going to compare online and analog environments, for example a real life book shop vs. Amazon, and record them photographically. I will look at the differences in experience and consider if anything is lost or gained.

I will also be looking more at the aesthetic experience of books vs. kindles and similar book 'replacements', remembering of course that books are technology themselves.

Links for investigation:

Interesting bookstores

The canny little library

Telegraph article on Internet killing book shops

Forbes article: are Hollywood and the Internet killing reading?

1 star Kindle reviews on Amazon.com (dissapointed users)

Kindles and their kin are the evil spawn of satan (forum)

USA Today: JK Rowling refuses e-books

I need to do lots of thinking and mind maps.