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Foreword A guidebook has a direct relationship with space, place and geography: how far, where, which and a specific relationship with time. We use them to explore unknown lands. Guidebooks belong in the time they were written, new roads are built and bars deserted. The writings of the first explorers are in effect guides to the new world which are now mostly out of date. I am concerned with the process that goes on between the reader, the writer and the book in relation to this book form that cannot be taken from its time. The analysis of the reader writer book process are translated into an element of It such as the bridge of infinite paths. The whole of the thesis is a metaphor that needs to be translated in order to unearth the reader writer book process. The World of It is a representation of the reader writer book process and the things on It are all representations of ideas or the cogs in the reader writer book process.
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WELCOME TO It Introducing It
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Arrival- Boat Train Plane
Geography of It
Where to Stay
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Areas of It- Itselfville Iteville Itecoville
Getting Around Mini Metroite The Portability Technology
Things to Do
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The Bridge of Infinite Paths The Museum of It
Map of It Index Glossery
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The creation of It
The birth of It was key to unveiling the roles played in the process of the reader, the writer and the book. The purpose of It was to give a functioning everyday process a physical presence: plotting the location of the museum and naming districts gave an invisible process, clarity. The process contains both physical entities and mental movement. It came about because of the amalgamation between the creative and the analytical. It enables a grip to be had on something which otherwise remains described with words when it is a thing on its own.
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Introducing It
Stress at home proving too much? Cabin fever? Or just plain sick of the world? It is the place for you. Routine journeys can be mundane but at times an event or a thought occurs that carries great significance. Rediscovery is vital to change and creation, ‘by a new eye, the eye of one who has broken with the paradigmatic vision of the path and strayed outside the boundary’ (maurice blanchot, the space of literature). The records of Captain James Cook in the 18th century gave an insight into lands few people had seen, a chance to see that there where other cultures out there. Lands of fantasy were given a firmer foundation in reality, geographically as well as previous perceptions people had in their minds. The image is not often what is there in reality, [DE BOTTON]. Perceptions of place become distorted. We think we know where Australia is because we can see on a map and research every fact there is to know but without going there all we have is an image based on others’ experiences. The facts Banks and Cook brought back from their voyages, inspired the production of a pantomime, Omai, Or a Trip Around the World (1785). Facts were being established geographically and ethnographically but Omai, Or a Trip Around the World displaced the discoveries. Costumes and props for the pantomime were bought at auction from Cook’s voyages, ‘the
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distinctive orders of reality and representation become utterly confused.’ (p143 ...other worlds). Fantasy had been brought out of the discoveries that had been made. There is nothing quite like a quick get away and It couldn’t be quicker; within seconds you could be swimming in placid blue lagoons or walking through towering tree tops or even flying over them.
The
monk that travelled with Christopher Columbus wrote of getting rid of the myths that surrounded other cultures and whose writings were taken for the truth. The plateau of an imaginary city to set up an enquiry into the process of the reader, the writer and the book. What goes on behind closed doors is what It reveals in all the imaginary glory of a becoming world. It is in fact what you can’t see where all the action is taking place. They do say the grass is always greener... ‘even a simple narrative text is full of blank spaces.’ (p121 michael caeser on umberto echo) The process of the reader the writer and the book being the founding fathers of It which, although often forgotten is preserved in the three districts. Each district’s function originates from the role of the reader the writer and the book (see page). As the New World was being ‘discovered’ and explorers where writing about their travels, literature
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was taking from these readings and inserting them back into the world of fantasy. Peter Martyr de Angleria wrote of the New World ‘with authority and passion and imagination and irony’ (Warner other worlds p33) without having been there and the book was seen as one of the ‘most important work on the New World’ (Kirkpatrick Sale). The report was entirely based on second hand sources. ‘The New World was not only a zone of discovery, but also of fantasy: it offered extraordinary possibilities for thinking differently.’ (p35 warner other worlds) As a result of discoveries being made and new lands and people being met with, things that were unknown been given a fact and a label, fantasy thrived. Because the perceptions of that was out there was being questioned, fantasy was used as a way of questioning the geographical revelations that were happening. Everything that people new of the world was changing, their perceptions of the world were being transformed. Reports of the New World were being written such as Ramon Pane’s Account of the Antiquities of the Indians. These first encounters have an interesting link with the myths and beliefs and historicizing. Historical ‘fact‘, myth and the book. The myths that he was told were relayed to him orally which he write down which were then translated several times and used by Peter M A in his second hand report of the New World.
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From the first purposeful explorations of the world fantasy and discovery go hand in hand. Using fantasy to talk about an invisible process makes sense. Fantasy is sued as a tool to give a distance and a different perspective. Writing is this era could not have been more important, sharing and documenting the discoveries being made and observations form different continents and charting seas and what these new places were like needed to be written down. This link with place and fantasy ‘the paths that have been least travelled and that are only possible to uncover once they have been rediscovered.’ (maurice blanchot, the space of literature) ‘one book maybe understood a thousand ways no single book can exhibit even one of those thousand to any new reader’ p63 rattle ‘paths that do not dictate, but allow them to break free...’ p63 rattle The space that the process inhabits is important to the workings of the process. Each role has its space and from these spaces the text is given birth to in a different space. The reader rediscoveries the text each time, finding new ‘paths’ and therefore new spaces within the text. The geographical rediscovery of the text is what becomes apparent. In the vast area that is It, you will have an indefinite number of worlds open
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to you and no doubt you will find yourself entering places you never thought possible. It comprises of three main districts: Itselfville, Iteville and Itecoville, disconnected from all visible land masses and surrounded my nothingness, you’ll have a lot to explore and a diverse array of sights to see. Expect awe-inspiring scenes by the dozen. Nothing is ever seen twice unless that is your wish, anything can happen and whoever you desire to accompany you on your visit will be there. In the process of the reader the writer and the book thrives on rediscovery. It is more important to re-discover things, other wise once great fascinations will be forgotten because someone else once knew what they were. There are no long term citizens in It but It remains a temporal place between places. No solidarity is to be found in It which makes it an ideal place to get away from it all. It may be that the world needs to be put back in its place and insight into another culture, an alternative way of living, is just what you need. Desert one day, Tahiti the next, followed by a short spell in Reykjavik, all in a timeless succession. Although not the first explorations, the period of enlightenment was when geography came into its own
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and clearer boundaries where being drawn. Lands that had physically existed in the world were beginning to be have a physicality on paper. As a founding farther of this world it is my honor and privilege to announce to you all to day how proud I am to present to you this glorious island. Not just glorious for its visual conundrums but what you can’t see. The meaning under each name, the attractions original function all form our beloved It.
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Arrival
• Plane • Boat • Train
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Arrival
When you first touch down in It you may find yourself wondering how you got there, so swift and easy is the transition between locations. You may have noticed when planning your trip to It that there are three ways of arriving: the Port Itself (see p3), Airport Ite (p4) and Ite-collegiate Station (p3). When deciding how to travel, you should bear in mind that there is no time difference in the different modes of travel. All three roles in the process are beginnings. A process of constant new beginnings, centered ‘...not in its origin but in its destination’(R.Barthes)1. The process is in constant motion, an evolving triangle.
Boat
Port Itself
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Writer
Exploration, trade, travel, connecting people with places, sailing the seven seas, exoticism and far off lands all point towards the boat. The writer could in fact be all forms of transport as ‘the writer ...is a “transitive man”’ (R.Barthes)2. The boat is a durational mode of transport and is often used as a destination in itself.
Levi Strauss‘ writes of the stresses of traveling by boat. Both writer and traveler are subject to a long period of time in a confined space with little chance of escape. A commitment to space, a commitment to a page it did however allow the writer to fulfill its function of
generating content. Taking inspiration
from everyday scenes from observations plays an important part in writing. Strauss’ anthropological studies shows this but in some ways all writers are anthropologists, it is the observations skills that enables them to question the world around them.
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The writer has a need to express, to ‘communicate’ “thought” and “ideas.”’ (Derrida p4) It is without request or the need of others it writes and what it writes could contain the very depths of the soul. The writer is always in a state of beginning, there is never an idea of an end because as soon as the writer is conscious of the end, by a curious contradiction, something is lost. The writer is like an unwanted gift. A gift is not asked for but sometimes expected. It is usually unwanted, without function but comes with good intentions. When the gift is received there is an expected response which is performed in a pantomime of expression. The responsibility of the gift at this moment is passed on from giver to receiver. This exchange marks the writer abandoning its text in favour of an absent reader. The reader doesn’t exist in the eyes of the writer but the writer continues to write for the invisible reader.
Within the text the reader reads, between the words, ‘the writer’s world can be glimpsed.’ (p66 rattle) The writer never leaves the text completly, the hand of the writer always remains. The writings of Captain Cook,
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for example have or had a use a specific function, he is not primarily a writer but an explorer with a brief, of showing the 18th century world a study of unknown lands. But the character behind the brief cannot be helped but shine through. Kafka on the other hand, says his writing are ‘linked word for word with his life’, writing becomes a way of surviving, a ‘psychological salvation’. p 63 space of lit). In De Quincey’s The Confessions of an English Opium Eater, it could not be more explicit a part from the few blanked names.
With the abandonment of the writer of his text, there brings about a new beginning, the text is its own, no longer controlled by the hand of the writer. The writer goes through its own process where only the ‘final path is available for the reader to follow.’ (p63 Rattle). The writer could never write exclusively for the reader because it can never control how the reader will read the text; the writer ‘cuts itself off from him and (the text) continues to produce effects interdependently of his presence’ (derrida p5) resulting in an abandoning of the writer. or a writer to be a writer there must be a
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conflict, a reason not to write, for if there is nothing to against there is nothing at all. In The Space of Literature (1989), Blanchot goes into this in detail taking examples from, at first Kafka and then Holderlinn. What is so striking about Kalfa is need of absence, to not be tied down by anything other than himself: The plight of the writer; for the eternal beginnings to start, there must be a reason against beginning.
There is no way of predicting the weather the boat will encounter during its course to It; it is, therefore, hope that drives the boat on through the journey. The boat carries on through al weather and has not had a delayed arrival yet. departed.
‘ subject is sometimes the text and sometimes the author’ p12m.caesar
Plane
Airport Iteville
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Reader
The readers entrance into the process. A plane evokes easily accessing exotic places, perfect for a readers escapist tendencies. The reader has a choice of whether to read or not and to some extent it is the writers job to create a text that will hold a reader. The reader often reads ‘to escape from the restrictions of his own social life’ (pxiii implied reader) and enable the possibility of traveling beyond the visible world.
The reader sits/lies where it is, and ‘holding a book in my hands and suddenly feeling that peculiar sense of wonder’ (p3 looking glass): reading begins. The reader is reminded of something, a memory perhaps which leads the way to thinking about something else which spreads and spreads and thus the thoughts of the reader become the creative act. The first instance in the process where an action in the present finds itself linked with an ‘abscence’ (p6 Derrida lim). The reader carries out the action in the present, and in doing so rediscovers the text in the writers past text in the present presence of the book. The origins of which are
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sparked by the text and it is this process of reading that enables the reader to re-discover the text as its own. The writer diveolges itself and the reader, in turn, takes these things and discovers knowledge of itself.
The reader now seems to be the main focus in the process but is that because it is the reader who has the active role in the present? The reader is an easily accessible role whereas the writer and the book both remain out of time or outside of time.
Train
Itecoville station
Book
The train arrives at Itecoville station and holds you in its clutch from start to finish, a journey where time no longer exists. The train allows you to be separate from your surroundings and simultaneously to be in them. Through traveling by train, particularly across counties, you get an alternative perspective, a view from of the outside, from inside.
The book itself acts as a container and an open palm; open to new thoughts of the reader but contains the
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thoughts of the writer, resulting in a ‘slow form of exchange’ (p27 FOTB) between the reader and the writer. The physicality of the book itself, the commitment of the reader and the writer all suggest that it is a ‘mode of temporality’ (p27 FOTB).
The book is a space for thought and reflection and the train has the same tendencies. In the mind of the reader, thoughts mingle with the writing being read, the process of reading becomes not so much about the text but the thoughts of the reader. Although it acts as a physical container the book,
gives a space for the
action of reading and of ‘reflection’ (p27 FOtB) in which both the reader and the writer communicate and perform.
The book is the only physical part of the process- the others are actions that take place. The book gives a solidarity and an entrance point that activates the process.
Geography of It
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‘The study of the physical structure of the earth (page).’
In a guidebook you are given an idea of a place. Inside the guidebook, a place is fragmented but all the fragments are placed in relation to one another and the guidebook informs the traveller how the spaces work together.
The geographical placement of land in the enlightenment meant that people were given a sense of a physical context in the world; currently physicality is almost of no significance. Charts and maps where created of new lands, such as Barthelemys’ Plan d’Athrnd pur voyage du jeune Anacharis which included a combination of information from ancient authors with data form recent (1784) voyages. They werne’t just maps to give direction but a way of sharing knowledge of a place.
The books that where written of discoveries falls into a similar patten. Edmund Burke said of the enlightenment “now the Great Map of Mankind is
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unroll’d at once”(p14 En and geo) which is more relevant now in relation to the internet rather than the discoveries in the 18th century. The enlightenment movement spanned across the world and it is possible to see trends of thought between different countries: The beginning of networking.
We are now connected to far off places. Places that could not have been imagined before. Reading what we now have as a form of exploration.
The reader will always be closer to the text in the present and a distance will always exist between the text and the writer. Daniel Rourke writes in his article Topology of Movement ‘I am aware of what I am trying to say, and what I am actually saying. There is a gap between, a significant chasm that this text will never bridge.’ (p67 rattle) in the 18th century, explorers where able to fill the gaps in world through exploring the geography of the earth’s surface. There will always be a distance between intention and the reality of the situation. The explorers had not only a new way of thinking on their backs (against supersticion and
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myths) but also over come great distances in order to fill the gap between what the ‘institutions of civilized Europe and those living in a state of Nature’ (p14 Geo and eng). This space between difference. Not all agreed with the collecting of information through first hand observation. George Cuvier, for example wrote a review of Humboldt’s Tableaux de la Nature (1807) declaring that traveling to far off places meant that the explorers saw a ‘great number of places’ and a ‘great number of interesting objects’ but none had the time taken over them and thus the observations were ‘broken and fleeting’ (p286 Geo and eng). It seems unimaginable now that such a statement could be made, if there had not been explorers who know what shape the world would be in now.
Cuvier goes on to say, ‘...one can only roam freely through the universe, by staying in ones’ study.’ The reader could not agree more with this statement, but the truth that is found there is that of the writer’s, a perception, a small path of observation that is from one mind. The reader activates the book, two minds, but still there is a limitation of perception from truth from
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interpretation and assumption. The mind/book is open to the world but the origins of the words came from a very different place.
In the 18th century trust had to be placed in the explorers because people had no chance of seeing what they saw. The writer has to place trust in the invisible reader, the writer has to hope that the reader will comprehend the text in some way and have a certain level of intelligence. When the writer detaches itself form the work, it is never guarenteed of an understanding reader. The reader can follow its own desire lines and decipher for itself what to believe. ‘Paths engineered by a writer do not destine the realities of readership.’ The reader is given ‘a surface reality,’ (p66 rattle) from which it makes up its own mind. Whereas the receivers of the explorers eyewitness observations and narrative accounts were told that they were true, they had no option of deciding of what was real and what wasn’t. They had no choice but to accept and trust the facts they were confronted with.
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Where to Stay
Where to stay in It, now there is a good question. There are a vast number of places and spaces available.
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Accommodation when going away is dictated by budget, whether you go to the five star luxury hotel with breakfast and in-room safe or a hostel with 12 beds in one room and a toilet at the end of the hall but the focus of the traveler is the same, to experience a different place. A similar story can be applied to reading. Reading on the bus compared with reading under a tree. On the bus there is movement, anticipation of when to get off and the noise of people on the bus. Compared with reading under a tree on a warm summers day a bus could seem like hell. But it seems that the goings on in an environment act as catalysts for ideas and new branches for thought to grow from. The environment adds to the possibilities of new ideas, the bus lends itself to the free flow of thought and the minds aeroplanes taking off in every direction. The environment, the space around an action affects the action taking place. When the reader reads or the writer writes, the context of the action affects how the process is carried out.
Area of Itselfville
Writer
A romantic landscape of steep steps and secret passages leading to ancient lovers courtyards.
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Itselfville is home to countless winding streets which escalate through the hillside. The architecture reveals the visible layers of time; picture your typical romantic hillside town and you have Itselfville. Loosely based on the Italian hillside town of Perugia, the town translates into the traditional perception of the writer. The time that both De Quincy and Wordsworh spent in the Lake District is a clear example of where the perception came from.
The possibilities of the way to write is now numerous: they ‘sit in well-appointed desks in offices or they slouch in less well-appointed classrooms...preferring kitchen table, or a lap or the dashboard of a car’ (p4 writing tech). Has this change of environment altered what the writer writes? The writer moves with the changing times, rather than a creature of stone, stuck, it is made of the roots of an old oak tree that although seem to be still are still moving with the ages. As writing ‘unfolds across time’ (p9 writing technology) so does the writer. The writers space is what determines the writing. It is this space whether it be filled with creativity or
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blankness. The writer is only at odds with itself. The space of the writer is inside mixed with outside. The writer, thrives on being inside itself, shutting out the rest of the world but this existence is not possible it is the work that, ‘makes the world disappear’ p52 Space of lit), nothing can be seen past it. The writer must always return to the outside world, when it reaches a detachment from a work, the outside world is again visible.
You will pass many a different house from different ages in Itselfville. There is much that you will undoubtably recognise from all over the world which haven’t been deposited as much as recreated but more along the lines of re transmitted. What does the writer know of its own work? It never reaches an end but has to compile a set of thoughts into a physical form. If the writer didn’t distant itself form its work, which it does from creating the physical form, there would be no reader or book. The writer needs to be dead in order for the process to live on (p23 space of lit)
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Area of Itevillle
Reader
We take books wherever we go. Transport is a particular favourite along with holiday reads, which seems contradictory given readings tendency to ignore all surrounds and writings power to displace. Even on transport, we are physically transported to a different place but reading transports us mentally.
Area of Itecoville
Book
The majority of Itcoville is covered with a large area of swampland. There are no detailed maps of Itecoville so just be carful where you tread, visitors are advised not to step off the paths. Itecoville is home to the book and the role it partakes in relation to the reader and the writer. The book acts as an other world the reader has been sucked into; it is the reader’s point of departure into unknown lands.
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The environment the book grew up in, amongst the Latin Christian “textual community” (p40 FOTB) introduced the book to its power of persuastion and its hold on authority. James J. O’Donnell tells a history of the sacrilege of the exploitation of the authority of the written word. The writing of the papacy ‘publishing official lives‘ (p38 FOTB) of which a counterhistory was then written. The Symmachan Apocrypha were assumed to be historical documents but are in fact a collection of ‘elegantly forged‘ texts to counter an argument, a ‘deliberate creation of textual authorities‘ (p39).
The use of the book originating
from religious truths and the control that the written word had over people, the belief that was placed in the words they were reading. The re-gaining of personal truths with leaning to read and write and the growing knowledge of the world as a whole. The book took another transformation in the technological revolution with e-books which again shifted the idea of what a book is and ownership.
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Getting Around
Knowing how to get around is very important when entering unfamiliar territory. Itselfville and Iteville are at the opposite ends of It and yet couldn’t be more connected. Often you will find that you can’t go back the way you came. Technology is one of those tools that help us to get around. Traveling around a new city is often accompanied by getting lost. It is not always easy to go in the direction you desire in It, so watch out for which side of the street you are on. In engineering terms this is because ‘the transaction takes place neither between the author and the reader nor between the text, but between text and reader’ (Iser p90). Often you will find that you can’t go back the way you came.
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We are often guided to the direction of travel, arrows, maps and when on boats and planes for which we have no control over our direction of travel. Technology has been, almost inexculsivly assigned the total responsibility of the direction in which we travel. The best way to get around it is by using your eyes but the minimetroite and PT will give a new perspective of It.
Mini Metroite
The Mini Metroite communicates the movement and direction of thought in the process of the reader the writer and the book. The book comes into being from the efforts of the writer carrying out the action of writing which is generated through thought and this thought subsequently takes the form of the book. But not all the writer’s thoughts are confined to the book, leaving the book as ‘an endless task‘ p21 space of lit). Most of the text, therefore, does not reside in the book but in the mind of the writer, never to be seen. The reader is never confronted with a whole and a good thing too. If the answers were laid out before the
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reader there would be no ‘peculiar sense of wonder’ (p4 looking glass) that reading evokes.
Movement starts with the reader, the accidental creator, the thoughts of the reader are all the process needs. The writer and the book are unified in the mind of the reader. The text is taken over by the readers thoughts and the reader morphs into the form of the writer; which turns the direction back to the book. The book is the space from which thoughts merge in and out, a bridge between two distant points that will never meet.
The process moves between the reader, the writer and the book, passing through them, turning around, but never going back. Although the process is brought around to the same three enterties, it never repeats itself: only rediscovers new points of origin.
There is constant motion, that is except for a small pocket of time before the reader discovers the book. The movement exists in the text but ‘can only come to life when it is read.’ (p4 Iser Prospectives). The
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movement of the text and the action of reading begins with direction of that movement, ‘its actualization is clearly the result of an interaction’ (p21 Iser act of reading) between the text and the reader. The book lies in wait of the future reader. The book cannot be acknowledged until the reader ‘discovers the meaning of the text’ (pxiii implied reader). The starting point is not significant becasue there is not more particular direction but it seems to travel in all directions.
The Portability Technology (PT)
PT is a way of getting around it like no other. Travel at any speed you wish to travel and the PT will get you where ever you need to go, within It. The Pt promises a different way of seeing It. A new It is what you will discover.
When you visit a new place half of the experience is navigating around new territory. The ways in which find our way around a place has changed from compass to AT&T Navigator but the aim is the same.
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The technology of writing has changed the way writing is produced but not at the detriment of the content.
A recent article in the The Interprendent said ‘reading and literature (is) in danger of being "swept away" by new technologies’ (independent article) but it seems that rather than veing ‘swet away’ the reading process has been taken up with the development of technology which signifies the perminent place of reading and literature. New ways of reading, publishing and writing are created and run along side our changing lifestyles.
The original creators for the PT took their inspiration from the way in which technology manifests itself in writing. Writing is a form of technology and tools have been and still are created specifically for writing. Once more these tools have had, according to Christian Hans ‘profound implications for the development of human nature’ (p5 writing technology).
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It is reasurring to know the writer will always be there in some shape or form, asking questions and rediscovering. Technology pushing the form of how the writer writes is a testiment to the content; the writer need not rely on the physical form but goes beyond it. This had previously been confined to the leaves of a book. It doesn’t need the physicality of an object.
Technology is not a part of the process as such but more of a shifting context; it is a tool that changes how the roles are carried out. The starting points have changed but ‘the meaning lies not in the origin but the destination’. It could be said the technology has freed the writer from wires, from desks and from paper but the writer was never static but remains a ‘transiant man’. The very act it is doing dictates that the writer be free and at the mercy of the world around it, being hit, and pushed with a head full of strife and woe.
Technology strips down the process, it is becoming more obvious, visually with the diminishing of the physical form that it is not the physical that carries the
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weight of the book but the reader. It is the reader who holds the book on its shoulders, the book itself never holds its own. Technology ensures the portability of the book and the flexibility of reading which is what our current dominating lifestyle dictates- mobility and accessibility.
The technology of the book itself has gone through its own hardships, they were thought of as ‘repositories of falsehoods’ and that there were ‘dangers in the illusion’ of books (the future of the book) and now. Technologies are tools that aid us rather than the controlling factor of what is being written or read.
There has been a lot of controversy over the PT. people were naturally worried that about the distance between the visitor and the environment. But this was soon discovered to be a false accusation.
In The Future of the Book Paul Duguid talks of the longevity of technologies such as door hingers and pencils which have lasted despite alternatives. Duguid suggests that this is because of the capacilty to use
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them expressively, slamming doors etc. Some technologies have developed ‘deep social resourcefulness’ (p65 FOTB) through time., their familiarity in everyday life has rendered them
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continuous prescence. It seems that these ‘established roots’ are a form of nostalgia, that hold back technological developments because they have become a part of our social landscape. The book has a longer history than both these technologies and acceptance of changing something so bound to humanity is hard to take. But there is no doubt that the harder it is to adjust to a new situation, the greater the impact it could have on future developments.
There is nothing quite like a romantic walk in the evening after dinner particularly in the hillside town, Itselfville. Even this has its potential to ‘experience changes with the development of technology’ (p147 sounding out the city)
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Things to see
The Bridge of Infinite Paths
One of the must-see sights of It has to be The Bridge of Infinite Paths. The Bridge has evolved gradually over many millennia.
A bridge links one place to another; in the process of the reader the writer and the book, the book connects the physical presence of the reader with an abstract world. The book acts as a mediator between the writer and the reader enabling them to communicate. The book is the physical structure that brings together the reader and the writer. Outside the confines of the book, it is communication that binds the reader and the
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writer. This communication between the two implies a space between them which can never be filled.
After the reader embarks upon its journey, then comes the realisation that no one reader will travel along the same line; the text has an unlimited potential of destinations which is laid open to the reader. The text is interpreted by the reader but there is also an act of translation taking place: the written word into thoughts of the reader. These written words originated from the thoughts of the writer. So before even getting to the reader, the content has gone through a process, does then writing have no effect on ‘either the structure or the contents of the meaning’ (derrida lim p4) or is it that what the reader sees is as a finished piece and therefore only ever reads the book as a completed whole?
There could be a loss (reduction) of information in the process of translation as a result of going through multiple processes. Less of a loss and more of a change or a morphing of the text occurs declaring the flexibility of writing: not only can it be written without
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a present reader but also tunes itself to the context it finds itself in.
A lot happens in the lifespan of the process before the reader makes an appearance, before interpretation of the text begins. In order for the text to be interpreted, it must be translated beforehand. Traditions that exist orally have their own implications of translation. Ramón Pané collected ‘stories of translation between worlds...(p32 Warner)’ amongst other things, in Account of the Antiquities of the Indians (1571). Pané had to document these ‘confusing’ stories of metamorphosis, filling in the unknown with his known, Catholic faith; resulting in a ‘conversion narrative- another form of translation, between faiths...’(p32 warner). Peter Martyr de Angleria later picked them up for his Of the New World (pirate edition 1504) and wrote of the New World with ‘authority and passion and imagination and irony’ (p33 Warner) even though he never went there himself. Which puts another case forward for books as ‘repositaries of falsehood’, the book was of such importance and so widely read and accepted it seems
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preposterous that he author had never been there. Subsequently the only surviving version of Ramón Panés’ findings is a translation of translation.
As you walk across the bridge of infinite paths, thoughts of sites and people you had seen that day will wonder through your mind. The bridge of indefinable length, allowing you to be realised from the stresses of time.
The meaning of the text is never predestined by the writer but rather ‘The reader discovers the meaning’ (iser implied reader pxiii). What is written on the page is almost like a recipe from which the readers take an ‘active part’ (iser implied reader pxii) in the process of the creation.
However, when reading Derrida, for example, it is of paramount importance that words are understood precisely as they stand. At the very beginning he makes that clear with the discussion of the word communication. The meaning of words and their possible interpretations is key. Words have a flexibility
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about them which is at once dangerous and unimginably brilliant. In this part of the process of translation, when Derrida is taken as an example, it is important that the translation of the words are as they were intended if not the understanding of the text would change because each word is hand picked for a specific purpose and to carry out a specific job. If it were the writing itself, every word could affect what is being communicated. Once the words have been translated, the interpretation can commence.
‘If a literary text could really be reduced to one particular meaning, it would be the expression of something else..’ (p5 Prospective). The reader creates his own understanding of the text. To not interpret a text is to not engage with it. If it cannot be engaged with it is as good as not read.
To say that ‘writing will never have the slightest effect on either the structure or the contents of the meaning’ (lim p4) would suggest that there is no expression in writing. That the technology of writing is run by a technology but it is controlled by human. By
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the writer. An exact replica of something cannot be produced, only a rediscovery of something.
The act Interpretation from the reader leads to the infinite possibilities that words have. The writer cannot help but be at the mercy of its own words. They are forever changing with the context they are in and the context they are read in, fluctuating with every eye that reads it.
The Museum of It
The museum of It gives an account of a history when fact became fiction. In the 18th century scientific and geographical discoveries meant that the perceptions of the world were changing and the perception of the book changed with it. Located in between Itselfville and Itcoville, The Museum of It’s creation was inspired by the Enlightenment Wing at the British Museum and hosts a showcase of the great explorers of our time.
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The book cannot help but have a close relationship to the past because of its perpetual absence from a constant reader and a present writer. Before the Enlightenment period John Locke believed that books were ‘repository of falsehood’ (p23 FOTB) and didn’t see how they cold be containers of knowledge. Even now, to some extent, this statement rings truths although the written word has a solidarity, ‘literature is always unrealistic but its very unreality permits it to question the world.’ (p189 Barthes reader). The books connection with the historical is counteracted with its relation to the imaginary; the form of a book makes us question the truth of what is being read because if its use of myth and fantasy.
The process of the reader, the writer and the book exists across time because of the phases of the process. The writer and the action the writer carries out will always be in the past, because in the present we are confronted with the outcome of this action. It is not as Derrida says that the text (mark) ‘cuts itself off’ (p5 Derrida lim)‘ from the writer. There is an abandoning, there cannot help but be one, as soon as the writer
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declares the work finished the writer relinquishes its responsibility over to the reader. The writer, however, still remains attached within the words he once wrote; he could never be taken out from that which it put itself. The text exists without its creator or rather finds a new one, the text ‘must continue to ‘act’ and to be readable’ (p8 derrida Lim) despite the text leaving the writer in the past.
The book, the container of the text, is accessible through time. Its physicality permits it to be transported. Currently it is its non-physicality that is preserving the book and allowing for its future travel.
When reading time passes quickly but it takes time to read a book and to write a book. The process of both is durational rather than instant, books allow for a ‘slow, reasoned refection upon events’ (p26 FOTB).
The exhibition is split into several sections that allow for easy navigation. There is just the right amount of information accompanying each object. Here is a run down of the best bits:
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Trade and Discovery-
Throughout literature there have been many great explorers who have created many fantastic worlds. The explorer Thomas More made the discovery of Utopia in 1516. The novel (if that’s what it can be called) was before its time, an introduction to another world or a different way of seeing his own. It is impossible to tell whether More’s creation was inspired by the imagination or a desire for something better. The fiction More created intended for a fact in future reality? The book as a disguise.
After the Enlightenment period, Robert Louis Stevenson, inspired by a map drawing he did, wrote Treasure Island where Captain Flint traveled around the Caribbean in the Hispaniola, now a resturant boat on the Thames you can eat ‘delicious modern European cuisine’ by head chef Ba Diakhaby. The Hispaniola provides a ‘gastronomic haven amidst the city bustle’. Both of which are destined for stationary travel.
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Classifying the world
Herman Melville gives example of John Locke’s denial of a book as a ‘container of fixed truths’ (future of the book p23): Typee (1846) written by Melville was originally placed in the publisher’s Home and Colonial Library amongst a series of ‘authentic narratives of travel’ (p8 Typee) but had to moved as it was found to contain more fiction than fact.
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It At a Glance
The labyrinth of archaic ally-ways and cobbeled streets, though to unforgetable forest walks and enchanting panoramic views. A no hassle journey to a place of peace and tranquility; with the hustle and bustle within easy reach. It is the place to please so wonderfully varied is the evenescent landscape.
In the 18th century the cook explorations, among others, changed the horizon of the world: how it was viewed culturally and how it appeared on paper. We assume we know everything because others have been here before us. In the 21st century De Botton traveled to Madrid and found that, ‘everything was already known, everything had already been measured.’(p109 Art of travel). But there are always re-discoveries to be made from seeing things from a different point of view. The perception of the world changed, what was originally fact changed to fiction, when the writer
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writes, the truth he is writing of is not set in stone. As discovered in the 18th century, truth is flexible. The change in the way of thinking in the enlightenment was different in different parts of the world. The movement of thought passed through geographical boundaries. Books allow us that movement of thought but they have now become an a sterile object of the past that has little room left in our lives. The book can never be separated from the past and the future. A book, for as long as it remains a book, will have a potential to be read, and that potential can only ever exist in the future. But its writer will always remain in the past. What happens in between is what counts, ‘every text is written here and now.’ p145 death of the author) but not necesarily by the writer. However, the process behind the book, that goes on outside the physical enteries, remains imperative: the movement of thought from one role to another via a mediator. There is something more to come from writing, words, literature in the digital world. Ebooks are fine but they were not written to be read this way, therefore, it doesn’t make sense for them to be read as such. There are other ways of exploiting the internet and the digital format to enliven a text. Thought is fluid and travels into unexplored territories of the nonphysical world.
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Historically it is often implied that Captain cook was a great explorer but one of the most significant achievements was his re-discoveries through the written word. The diary Cook kept, often concentrating on nautical observations and ‘systematic classification in collection’ (p1 geo en) but a large quantity consisted of his encounters with other cultures and critical observations. Re-discovery is an important part of creative processes; a thought enters the mind of the creator for the first time and appears as an origin but previously inhabited the outside world. A thought is a re-discovery, but the very fact that it has been rediscovered, pushes what was in some way and takes it in a new direction, it is ‘only possible to uncover once they have been rediscovered’ (space of lit maurice blanchot). And cook it seems epitimises a rediscovering of the world. If a guidebook is followed when visiting a new place, the words on a page become a re-representation of the site. In light of the fictional facts from preenlightenment era, authority and trust should perhaps not be placed in the words of the book. On the other hand, was it not the trust of the explorers observations that enabled the fictive facts to be rectified? Although the reader gains facts from reading, ‘discovered facts had at the same time laid down distinctions between what was significant...hardened, over time into almost immutable truths.’ (p113 art of t); the thoughts the reader would be having if the guidebook was not laid
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over the site are more valuable than any fact. Thoughts enable a re-discovery of something already attached with a historical label.
Bibliography
Bachelard.G. 1994, The Poetics of Space, Boston, Beacan Press. Bachelard.G. 2005, On Poetic Imagination and Reverie, Connecticut, Spring Publications. INC. Barthes.R. 1977, Image Music Text, Great Britain, Fontana Press. Bathes.R. 1993, A Roland Barthes Reader, London, Vintage. Bouges.D. 1852, Switzerland and Savoy: Volume two of Bogure’s Guides for Travellers, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Botton. de A. 2003, The Art of Travel, London, Penguin Books. Cotterrell.D. 2005, Dead Reckoning: William Bligh, London, Parabola.
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Debenham.F. 1960, Discovery and Exploration an altas-hostory of man’s journeys into the unknown, London, Paul Hamlyn. Defoe.D. 2000, Robinson Crusoe, London, Wordsworth Classics. Derrida.J. 1988, Limited INC, U.S.A, Nothwestern University Press. Flusser.V. 2002, Writings,
London, University of
Minnesorta Press. Nash.M. 1989, Eye and I: Bill Viola’s Double Vision, Parkett- Verlag AG, Issue 20, p6. Quincy De. T. 2009, England, Penguin Books. Shelly.M.2004, The Last Man, London, Wordsworth Classics. Stevenson.L.R. (Unknown), Treasure Island, Great Britain, William Clowes and Sons LTD. Vygotsky.L. 1997, Thought and Language, London, The MIT Press.
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Index Barthes Roland Derrida Jaques Bridge of Infinite Paths Cook James Enlightenment More Thomas -Utopia Melville -Typee Pane Ramon The British Museum Portability Technology Mini Metroite Perugia
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Glossary Mini Metroite The Mini Metroite provides a direct great way of getting a glimpse into what It has to offer. Coasting the main attractions and giving you a taste of the different parts of It. The Mini Metroite starts from the top of Itselfville, past the Bridge of Infinite Paths and into the heart of Iteville before entering back into Itselfville and terminating at Itcolville. The journey from Iteville to Itecoville is a chaotic landscape. and you will find that it is you’re dreams accompany you on your tour of It. The thoughts and fantasies of you’re own mind rather than the vehicle you are traveling in will be you’re transport to Itecoville. Portability Technology (PT) This mode of transport is unique to It and cannot be utilised anywhere except It. The Pt consists of two metal plates that are attached to the bottom of the shoe. These plates will get you where ever you need to go within It, at any speed you wish to travel. There were concerns when the idea was initially introduced because of the distance between the visitor and the environment. But the convinence of travel made the PT an irresistable technology. Itecoville
The dominating feature of Itecoville is the Bridge of
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Infinite paths, everything else leads to this point. A good place to go if you need some time to relax with nature as their are numerous gardens surrounding the bridge. A record number of people have, however, got lost and never returned. There are many different types of scenery in It and Itecoville has one of the most startling. The majority of Itcoville is covered with a large area of swampland. There is an increasing number of cases of people being sucked into the swamp. There are no detailed maps of Itecoville so just be carful where you tread. Visitors are advised not to step off the paths. Iteville There is no single sentence that can describe the magnitude of diversity you will find in this part of town but a dedication to pleasure would be one. Time is still in Iteville, no rushing only contemplation and relaxation. There are many gardens that you can visit to relax in, people watching is also a much loved pass time. In Iteville the numerous cafes and bars allow plenty of opportunities for people watching. Let the world swell around into your thoughts. Take the time to stroll the streets and let your surroundings and the people walking, talking infiltrate your thoughts, snatches of conversation knotting together. Itselfville
A romantic landscape of steep steps and secret
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passages leading to ancient lovers court yards. Itselfville is home to countless winding streets which escalates through the hillside. The architecture reveals the visible layers of time. Picture your typical romantic hillside town and you have Itselfville. You will pass many a different house from different ages in Itselfville. A large quantity is left for housing in Iteville. There is much that you will undoubtably recognise from all over the world which are bound to broaden your opinion of It. Not too long ago Itselfville went through a regeneration of accommodation ownership. There were too many things owned by the council and not enough privately owned properties. The Bridge of Infinite Paths One of the must-see sights of It has to be The Bridge of Infinite Paths. Easily accessible from the three main ports in It, The Bridge of Infinite Paths has become one of Its main attractions. The bridge is famous for leaving visitors feeing out of place and dislocated from themselves. The ancient stones and breathtaking height of 332m is nothing compared to the no-mans-land that lies beneath. All that can be seen is a spell-binding wall of damp fog that appears to go on for light years. The only thing that keeps visitors standing is the great physical mass of the bridge. Its austere presence gives a clarity to the visitors location and will lead you to an endless array of locations.
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