Nothing More To Say

That’s it – the end of this blog. Nothing more to say.

Why? Because tomorrow is my submission deadline for Digital Textualities? Perhaps – but also because, thanks to Jonathan Basile, it seems there will soon be nothing new I, or anyone, can think of.

But first, a little background. One of the central texts on this module has been Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Library of Babel” – an infinite library (how wonderful!), containing not only all possible human knowledge, but all possible combinations of all the characters of human language*. As Borges’ librarian puts it,

In all the Library, there are no two identical books […T]he Library is “total” – perfect, complete, and whole, and that its bookshelves contain all possible combinations of the twenty-two orthographic symbols* […T]hat is, all that is able to be expressed, in every language (114-5).

*Despite the vastness of Borges’ vision, it does appear that he has forgotten the great number of languages which do not rely upon the Roman alphabet.

It is an utterly brilliant idea. It reflects the idea that everything we think and say has already been thought and said before; we are only unaware of it because all these thoughts and speeches have not been recorded. Borges offers us a written equivalent of this idea: all of time and space, all of humanity’s history and future, contained within books. 

House of Hours, Book of Leaves

The margins of MS 1/17 don’t live up to their manuscript potential. Not only have we lost its illuminations, but the space which does remain is entirely empty. I mean, compare this…

…to a page from a glossa ordinaria, or annotated Bible:

http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/ds/ucb/images/DS002972aA.jpg

Big difference.

An Easter Bunny*

It’s easy to draw a distinction between physical books and digital transmission of information. Often, this constructed dichotomy is emphasised by arguing that one format is superior to the other. I admit that I can be as guilty of this as anyone.

Less discussed are the ways in which digital can work alongside manuscripts and print books. The British Library, for instance, have digitised thousands of manuscripts and made them free to view. These are texts which I would otherwise be unable to access. No matter how much you can argue that paper is superior to digital for whatever reason, this is one benefit of the internet age which I am happy to use.

Without the British Library’s online collection, for instance, I would never have come across Harley MS 647, an astrological and astronomical work from the Library’s Scientific Manuscript collection.

Why am I interested in MS 647, you ask?

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=harley_ms_647_f002v

Biblioclasts: Breaking Books (and Bibliophiles’ Hearts)

There’s a lot about MS 1/17 that interests me, as I have already discussed. Yet what stands out the most about this Book of Hours is what isn’t there. Take a look:

All of MS 1/17’s illuminations have been removed. Some, like in the images above, have been cut from the page, leaving only the text behind. Elsewhere, entire pages have been removed – presumably, they contained illuminations so large, detailed, or complexly connected to the text that it was better to take the page whole than to cut it up. It seems that no section of the book has been spared; we know that Books of Hours were often embellished with an illuminated at the beginning of each hour, depicting events of the Virgin Mary’s life (213). No such illuminations exist in MS 1/17.

To put it simply, at some point during this little book’s life, some ignorant idiot has taken a knife to it and hacked it to pieces.

Spoiler Alert

Up until recently, a character named River Song appeared in Doctor Who. An enigmatic figure and a time-traveller like the Doctor, she meets him at different points during their lives, and therefore knows a lot about the Doctor’s future. In order to save him from learning this information before the right time (something which would inevitably cause a huge paradox which would engulf the Universe, of course), Song has a catchphrase:

Source: http://www.not-literally.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/nl_images_fi_river_song_spoilers_10_12_2013.jpg

But, of course, it’s not just the Doctor that would be spoiled if she revealed this information before time; the viewer would be too. A spoiler alert saves us from the utterly horrific fate of learning a plot detail too early.

Illiterate Literature Appreciation

In my last post, I discussed my library’s Book of Hours. Looking back, I think I should expand on one thing I said:

[I]t’s a fantastic and fascinating artefact (even if I can’t read a word of it).

Not only is it written in Latin, a language I cannot read (my knowledge is basically limited to the meaning of spells with Latinate names in Harry Potter), but the Gothic script even makes working out characters a challenge. For me, I can’t appreciate this book in the way it was originally intended, because its most basic purpose – to be read – remains impossible for me.

Half an Hour with a Book of Hours

Last week, I gained access to the literary Fort Knox that is the McClay Library’s Special Collections. It took some time to sort the visit out – not least because I couldn’t work out how to open the door.

Now, why did I choose to embarrass myself trying to get into my library’s inner sanctum?

For this, of course:

Medieval Patronage in Modern Publishing

I stumbled across a fascinating website the other day. Unbound, in the spirit of other crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter, is a platform for writers to pitch their novel ideas to an online audience of readers. If a reader likes the sound of a particular pitch, they can pledge money to help the writer reach the target amount they need to write that book and get it published. The reader, in return for their pledge, will then receive a copy of the book once it is printed/published in digital format. They can even get rewards – from having their name automatically included in the book’s acknowledgements to receiving a fancy collector’s edition if they pledge a certain amount.

Unbound has been described as a ‘revolution’ in publishing. I would agree, but only in a very literal interpretation of the word.

A Particularly Old Book

In our first class of the semester, we were shown some pieces from our university library’s Special Collections. Among other things, we were allowed to handle a Book of Hours and an approximately 1000-year-old document. Geeking out over these old manuscripts was possibly one of my nerdier moments as a university student.

In the same seminar, we were also asked to bring in our favourite book (not necessarily our favourite text), and explain why it was our favourite. I selected Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair as representative of the whole ‘Thursday Next’ series. Inspired by the ridiculousness of its literary plot, each book in the series is designed to look like it belongs in the fictional world it describes – faux worn-out covers, adverts for products and services in Next’s alternate-reality Swindon, and so on. Very meta. I love the series anyway, but the designer of those books was rather clever.

But, if I had thought I could bring it along safely, there is another book I might have taken to class instead. This:

Not quite so snazzy.

Writers Don’t Write Books

Writers don’t write books – they write texts.

This line stood out to me in my reading for next week’s class. Gutjahr and Benton’s essay (2) deals specifically with font and typography – a topic which is interesting in itself –  but their statement resonates particularly strongly with this module as a whole.

As an English student, it’s easy to use ‘book’ as a synonym for ‘text,’ and to see the writer as the primary creator of that printed and bound object I skim-read the night before class.

But to think only of the writer is to ignore all the other people who contribute to the publication of a book. From editors and proofreaders, who deal with the writer’s raw text and make it suitable to publication, to those involved with the book’s design and printing, who help create the final, physical product – a book is a huge collaborative effort.