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Have been wondering why I don’t give a shit about “interactive storytelling” or “enhanced books” or “transmedia.” No matter how many times they pop up in my Twitter feed. You’d think, as a dealer of traditionally-printed books, fear would be creeping into my heart as I confronted inevitable proof that the world continues to pass my profession by, or maybe on my better days, I’d muster interest in things to come. But it was mostly boredom. Then was shelving. Saw blurb on cover of The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante. Alice Sebold sez:
“I could not put this novel down. Elena Ferrante will blow you away.”
Pretty standard blurb. But it’s true. This novel will blow you away. This novel will not just knock off your socks. It will rummage through your sock drawer and take all the socks you were planning to wear this week and knock them off too, to various corners of your bedroom, and also the freezer. It will make you hold your breath until spots form in front of your eyes. I literally paced around my apartment, unable to sit still, as Olga’s mind slowly unraveled in front of her children and she struggled to keep from complete nervous breakdown. This novel took up permanent residence in me.
So if a linear novel, simply composed of sentence after sentence after sentence in the usual way, printed in order on paper, can do that to me—-in translation, no less—-what on earth do I need interactive storytelling for? I cannot imagine feeling any more strongly about a piece of art than I already do about this book and many others. So I don’t get what’s with all the gadgetry and the hoo-ha and the reading of the tea leaves. Save it for something that could really use improvements, like printers. Printers suck. Can’t we make them better instead?
I mean, yeah, I really don’t think I could physically have a higher level of regard for something than I do for, let’s say, my three hundred favorite books of all time. And that number barely scratches the number of books that have left permanent marks on me. Outside of a select group of people and a few paintings, there’s nothing I esteem higher. Hey, maybe it IS fear. Maybe I am scared that anything that could mess with me more than good books already do would BLOW MY TINY LITTLE MIND. Hmm.
Anyway, glad I figured that out.
(NB that this does not mean, as a bookseller, I wouldn’t sell whatever everybody thinks is coming next, or whatever is coming next. If people want to buy it, and it’s part of the book family, I’ll sell it. As evidenced by the fact that I keep ordering Malcolm Gladwell and Bret Easton Ellis for the store. Different strokes.)
