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Ebook Project

The objectives of this project can be summarised as follows: 

To blend the distinctions between digital and physical books

To show how digital platforms can adopt skeuomorphic designs to simulate the tactility of physical books

To show how ebooks can employ ergodic effects

The primary objective in creating an ebook adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “William Wilson” was to create an immersive reading experience of this classic horror story. Capitalising on the features of both material and digital books, I tried to combine the texture, historicity and personality of a physical book with the multimodal effects made possible by digital platforms.

I incorporated a skeuomorphic design. Aside from the portrait-layout, margins, and page numbers, the iBook platform allows mobile/iPad users to manually hold the “book” and flick through the pages in much the same way as with its physical counterpart.

iBooks Creator 

In addition to this, the ebook had to look old, used, and dog-eared. To achieve the illusion of the journal’s age and wear, the perfectly white, smooth and even surface that comes as standard had to be dulled down and given texture. I used images of tactile materials, like parchment and leather, to give the ebook a rougher, more lifelike effect. To make it look more authentic as a journal, I sourced PNG images of various details I might expect to find in an old diary, including ink blotches, bookmarks, and coffee stains. By making the journal look as authentic as possible, I wanted to replicate the unheimlich effect, where an everyday object is strangely familiar.  

As for ergodic effects, I used different fonts, colour tones, background shading, shadows and text layouts in order to replicate the textual content in the form. I also added atmospheric audio effects to enhance the suspense of the story. These can be triggered by tapping on the associated image. 

By framing the story in a personal journal, the tone of the story changed from a confessional, retrospective piece to a less formal, self-counselling account. (The authentic) William Wilson appears to be writing out his experiences in an attempt to make sense of what the events, apparently contemporaneously to his haunting. This narrative shift gave greater scope for psychological insight, enhanced by the ergodic and multimodal effects.

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House of Leaves as a Digital Text

Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves is widely considered to rank amongst a select few contemporary novels that wholeheartedly resist translation into eBook format. The reason being that physicality is an integral component of House of Leaves. Not only does its famously fragmented narrative require the reader to perform some manual gymnastics when pivoting the book and flipping between footnotes, but its pretence of being a manuscript that has passed through the hands of multiple authors reinforces the sense of it as an artefact. This resistance to digital formatting is ironic, as much of the structure of Danielewski’s novel was in fact written with digital practices in mind. Its decade-long assembly before its eventual publication in 2000 was set against a culture that was just beginning to embrace the internet. With the onset of new digital worlds, a whole new vocabulary of textuality emerges, including hyperlinks, coding, hypertext and multimodality. House of Leaves is an example of a print text adopting digital structures to widen its narrative artillery. 

The focus of this blog has been on the intersection between material and digital textuality, a struggle for supremacy that finds relative equilibrium in House of Leaves. As N. Katherine Hayles writes in “Saving the Subject: Remediation in House of Leaves” (2002), it is difficult to determine whether House of Leaves better symbolises the ‘rebirth of the novel’ or its ‘displacement by a hybrid discourse that as yet has no name’ (781).  

The text is rich in multimodality. It includes letters, sketches, photographs, footnotes, academic referencing and even an index. Because this is a highly mediated text with a strong emphasis on subjectivity, the typography goes further than purely aesthetic choice – it alters how the reader navigates through the text, and ultimately determines the text’s meaning. We find codified in the use of different fonts, colours and textual formatting clues to identify not only the narrators, but also subliminal indications of their psychological state. 

The four fonts of the novel represent four independent narrators. Zampanò’s impersonal narrative, formatted as a purely academic endeavour, uses Times New Roman. Johnny Truant’s use of the typewriter font, Courier, reflects the informality of his note-taking. The editor’s Bookman Old Style lends a neutral, authoritative influence, while the letters from Johnny’s mother are typed in Dante, a romantic font that fits with her quixotic mind-set and Latinate prose. The red font and strike-through render the revision process visible, reinforcing the idea of the book as a living, breathing entity.

It is in Chapter IX, which documents Navidson’s descent into the labyrinth, that we find the most forceful illustration of what Lev Manovich calls the ‘spatial wandering’ of eye across the page (The Language of New Media, MIT Press, 2001: 78). Danielewski’s manipulation of the reader's textual navigation leads us inevitably to considerations about the power imbalance inherent to reading. The author is fully in control of what information is included or withheld, and can present the chosen information in ways that influence our readings. Danielewski may be making the point that the manipulative design that is overt in his novel is in fact lurking in all forms of writing. Just as Navidson navigates the infinite depths of the labyrinth in search of a discernible design or purpose, we as readers feel around blindly for meaning in the text itself.

More than being purely a horror story or cynical deconstruction of narrative structures, House of Leaves’ real achievement lies in bringing to the forefront the routinely overlooked structures that constitute the book’s genetic code.

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The Binhai Library in Tianjin, China opened last year to crowds estimated to be in the tens of thousands, eager to see its futuristic design. Its distinctive terraced bookshelves double as stairs and seating, and they surround a spherical auditorium illuminated from within. Bearing some resemblance to Jorge Luis Borges’ vision of the library in “The Library at Babel”, Binhai is also nicknamed “The Eye,” as an external view of the building reveals that the globe-like auditorium doubles as the pupil of the eye-shaped window.

Despite boasting the capacity to hold over 1 million books, the library – or cultural centre, as it is being marketed – met controversy when it emerged that the books that appear to line the atrium are in fact images of book spines printed onto the shelves.

While officials were quick to report that the reading rooms are stocked with books, the irony of a library without books speaks to the conundrum at the heart of modern book culture. Caught in a transitional period between physical and digital formats, publishers and libraries are under pressure to make the physical act of reading as much of an aesthetic experience as possible. In this library, visitors are more likely to be holding cameras than books. 

Jacqueline Rush Lee’s deliberate deconstruction of old books in her Ex Libris collection garnered surprisingly beautiful results, and in many respects, the Binhai library represents the next logical step. Unfortunately, this prioritising of aesthetic beauty over substance unwittingly threatens to have a corrosive effect on literary culture. 

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The fossilised book

In the previous blogpost, I looked at the deconstruction art produced by Jacqueline Rush Lee amongst others. Her 1998 collection named “Ex Libris” (meaning “out of the library”) exposed books to conditions that included kiln-firing, water, and chemical solutions. The intent was to capture the effects that unforgiving conditions would have on the book. 

Inevitably, the timing of the collection imbued these sculptures with new meanings. With the approach of the new millennium and technological innovations that threatened to overthrow physical publishing, these eroded, warped and wasted visions of the book exposed a newfound fragility of a medium that had for so long presided over the culture.

In Lee’s eyes, the works represent the distress inherent in change. Yet her perspective is hopeful. She considers each piece as a man-made fossil, “a profound, simultaneous erosion and preservation of culture”. Change, although unsettling, opens up new avenues of beauty and possibility.

The books were no longer recognizable in their usual context, but transformed into poetic remnants of their former selves–ephemeral and ghost-like forms; suggesting internal landscapes and a trajectory of time, transformation and memory… 

Two decades have passed since Ex Libris, and Lee’s confidence in the resilient beauty of the book appears to have been well founded. Despite the democratising effects of the internet on publishing, sales of physical books have experienced a resurgence in popularity, exceeding sales of eBooks in recent years. Digital platforms continue to use skeuomorphic interfaces that mimic codex conventions, reinforcing the authoritative power of those endoskeletal structures uncovered in Ex Libris. For now, at least, Lee appears justified in trusting physical books to withstand the threat posed by digitalisation.

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The sacred and sacrilege

How do you respond to this image? Is it a successful attempt to locate humour and art in old, disused things? Or a cynical act of defacement on history?

Negative responses to the emergence of “book deconstruction art” have reinvigorated notions of the book as a sacred object. The elevation of books to the realm of near-holiness owes to the longstanding association between the printed word and scripture. The large, immovable copies of Bibles found in churches, for example, make clear the importance of their physicality. Much of their value hinges on the colossal investment of time and resources into producing them; the process of intricately embellishing inscribed text using expensive coloured inks would have taken scribes years, even decades.

The materials used to create documents of public importance have, historically, signalled their own authority. Parchment made from animal skin, a material celebrated for its durability, has been widely used for important legal or political documents, including the US Constitution. Certain practices, namely those of sacred texts or grimoires, necessitated the use of an appropriately unblemished material. Among the rarest and most expensive grades of parchment is so-called “virgin” parchment, made from the skins of new-born or still-born male calves, lambs or kids (goat, not human, offspring!). These untouched, nearly-white parchments emerged as symbols of purity and high-status in a time when parchment would commonly be reused to save money.

Given this equivalence between materiality and sanctity, the deconstruction artworks created by the likes of Guy Lamaree, Robert The, and Jacqueline Rush Lee can be viewed as acts of desecration. In The’s case, the act of sacrilege is a form of violence.

Robert The

The idea of “defacing” a book is not new. Many examples of handwritten marginalia can be found in medieval manuscripts, ranging from serious scholarly commentary to scribes’ woes about their aching hands. In the 19th century, Laurence Sterne actively encouraged readers to commit creative acts of “defacement” on his book, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. More recently, the global phenomenon of Keri Smith’s Wreck This Journal transferred the creative responsibility from author to “reader”, the title again inciting a form of literary violence.

What connects these treatments of the book is their embrace of destruction as a means towards creation and rebirth. By eroding textual stability (and therefore the texts’ innate sense of authority) we allow greater degrees of subjectivity and reader-engagement. Book deconstruction sculptures should not be dismissed as violent acts of defacement. They are also acts of salvation, as the inevitable fate of disused books is a dismal choice between neglect or destruction. Book crafts offer a creative alternative to pulping unsold or disused books, giving new life into books that were nearing their end.

Jacqueline Rush Lee

Among the most inventive examples of book art are the book “carvings” of Guy Lamaree, who reshapes old books into painstakingly detailed topographical scenes. In his art, the book returns to the natural landscape from which its component parts came.

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Forbidden books

The written word has long been associated with power – whether cultural, political, economic, or intellectual. Unsurprisingly, this power has the potential to produce genuine fear and mistrust over the moral or sociological capabilities of books. This sense of danger that presides over certain books, is, of course, substantially influenced by the ideological content of the text. Some are containers of forbidden information, requiring their seclusion. There have been book-bannings in schools, ceremonial book-burnings in 1930s Germany, and efforts (in some cases successful) to assassinate authors of particular texts.

Less acknowledged in modern society is how some books can threaten with their mere physical existence. One such example is the Codex Gigas  manuscript produced by Benedictine monks in 13th century Bohemia (now the Czech Republic). Included in its 620 pages are the complete Vulgate Bible, a medieval encyclopaedia, assorted medical works, and, handily, instructions on how to conduct an exorcism. The title – meaning “giant book” – refers to the manuscript’s colossal size: at just under 12 stone (165 pounds), and with pages measuring almost 3 feet in length, it is far from light reading.

Interest in the Codex Gigas extends beyond its size and scope. It is thought to have been handwritten and illustrated by a single scribe over a duration of perhaps thirty years (according to estimations by the National Library of Sweden which holds the manuscript). However, the manuscript’s production remains a source of mystery and supernatural conjecture. Buried within the Codex Gigas is a full-page, bestial depiction of Satan, with striking red claws and horns and a serpentine forked tongue. This forms a double-spread with the adjacent page, which counters evil’s embodiment with detailed descriptions of heaven. It has been noted that the parchment of these bizarre pages is noticeably darker than the rest of the manuscript. Given that the manuscript is made from vellum, which, with prolonged exposure to ultra violet light darkens in colour, it has been concluded that these “satanic” pages have simply been the most viewed.

The characterisation of the Codex Gigas as “The Devil’s Bible” has been compounded by tales of its supernatural powers. In the 17th century, the manuscript was seized from Prague by the Swedes and stowed in the royal castle, Tre Kronor. In 1697, when a devastating fire broke out and destroyed most of the castle and its archives, the manuscript survived. Furthermore, observations of the writing’s uniformity – notable given the protracted timescale of its creation – spawned speculation of its possible satanic origin. It became a long-held belief amongst … that the Codex Gigas’ scribe was in fact an incarcerated monk awaiting execution who sought absolution by promising to inscribe in a single night a book that was bigger and more impressive than any other. Enabling this bold agreement, the scribe supposedly handed over his soul to the devil, who emblazoned the manuscript with his image.

Another manuscript that cultivates an aura of danger around itself is Le dragon rouge. Said to be written under satanic influence, estimations of this work’s origins vary as widely as the 15th to early 19th century. Some sources claim that the original manuscript was found in 1750 within the tomb of King Solomon. This biblical association, along with the use of ancient Hebrew and Aramaic languages, cemented its reputation as a veritable source of magical power. Following a boom in production of cheap grimoires in 18th century France, a version of Le dragon rouge, or Le grand grimoire, began to circulate throughout the French colonial empire. To this day, Le grand grimoire remains popular in Haiti.

A grimoire is an instructional book on magic. It acts not only as a repository of incantations, but as an instrument of magic that is imbued with its own talismanic powers. Le grand grimoire would have been particularly feared because it contains black magic, including instructions on necromancy and how to invoke and control Lucifer. In professing to engage with powerfully malevolent forces, the book becomes associated with the occult, or forbidden knowledge. Today, Le grand grimoire is supposedly held in the Vatican’s secret archives. It is rumored to be indestructible even by fire.

These manuscripts hold powerful positions as objects of both awe and terror. They are just two examples among many wherein the physicality of the book, its production and its subsequent function, are of prime importance.

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On false perceptions of the ‘book’

Books can seem to us almost like natural organisms, owing at least partly to their plant and animal-derived components. They are, in all their various forms, a familiar part of everyday life, whether we approach them as novels or cookery books or dictionaries. And yet the emergence of digital media has underscored the true fragility of definitions of the book.

If we were to collate a cursory list of features associated with the book, it might read as follows:

tangibility 

linearity 

biofoliate structure 

printed text 

mass production

But as so happens with many social perceptions, this vision of the book collapses under scrutiny.

The production of books long predates the establishment of mass publication in mid-15th century Germany. In the millennia that preceded the production of the Gutenberg Bible, the book was a handwritten product, created on a commission basis. Early texts would have been written onto clay or wax tablets, or in later eras, papyrus scrolls (and eventually the parchment codex that would precede today’s paper books). Each would have been hand-copied by scribes working for patronage. Such was the laborious nature of this practice, coupled with the expense of materials like vellum and coloured ink, that these early manuscripts were highly valuable and circulated primarily amongst the wealthy elite. The emergence of movable type revolutionised the book industry. Books could be manufactured much more efficiently and cheaply, and as their readership expanded to the middle classes, they began to be produced in languages other than Latin. New methods of production brought new features to the book, notably the popularisation of page numbers in the 16th century.

More recently, the emergence of digital editions or ebooks has again revolutionised the publishing industry by providing an alternative to physical book copies. The materiality that we have for so long associated with books is no longer a necessary feature. Yet it’s not accurate to say that technology has displaced books. Books are themselves a form of human technology, a means to encode information in symbols for storage and transmission. In this sense, books are precursors of the internet, something that Jorges Luis Borges appeared to foresee in his short story, “The Library of Babel.”

So the materiality of the book cannot be guaranteed, but neither can its textual layout. In the 1990s, Norwegian hypertext theorist Espen Aarseth established the term "ergodic literature” for books in which the textual layout takes equal prominence to the content of the text. Authors such as Julio Cortázar, Mark Danielewski, and Anne Carson have experimented with fluid, unstable structures, challenging our expectations of the book as a two-leaved structure based on linear progression from A to B.

Cortázar’s Hopscotch (1963) is an antecedent of the “choose your own adventure”-style narratives that grew in popularity during the 1980s. As its name suggests, Hopscotch allows the reader to jump sinuously between chapters in any order they choose, deconstructing fixed ideals of linearity, sequence and order. It therefore imparts a degree of narrative ownership to the reader, whose interpretative role becomes more active as a result. 

The reader becomes part of the creative process, altering the relationship between reader and writer to one nearer equivalency and interdependency. Ergodic literature also allows a greater degree of authorial control than would normally be facilitated in a process that compartmentalises the work of the writer and that of the publisher or editor.

While perceptions of books as tangible, linear objects may persist, the book is in reality a dynamic and continually evolving form. This blog will consider the development of the book and its longevity as a cultural product.