The Malaysian Insider :: Books
The Malaysian Insider :: Books |
| Liver and let die – James Bond was an alcoholic Posted: 12 Dec 2013 05:18 PM PST This, according to British doctors, is somewhat how James Bond would have been in real life. 007 boozed so much that in all reality he would have had the tremulous hands of a chronic alcoholic, according to an offbeat study published by the British Medical Journal. If statistics are any guide, Bond would have died from alcohol- and tobacco-related diseases in his mid-fifties, it says. And the paper darkly questions Bond's supposed success as a womaniser. Given the vast quantities of drink he consumed before bedding a conquest, the evidence may not have stood up, it says. The conclusions are made by a trio of British doctors who read all 14 of the original James Bond books authored by Ian Fleming, noting when and what the character drank. Two of the novels were excluded: "The Spy Who Loved Me", written in the first person by a waitress and thus deemed an unreliable source; and "Octopussy and The Living Daylights", a compendium of short stories that also fell short of the mark because it was not one single coherent tale. That left 12 novels, which yielded 123.5 days for analysis. Of these, 36 days were booze-free because Bond was incarcerated or in hospital. This leaves 87.5 days, during which Britain's top spy glugged down a whopping 1,150 units of alcohol, or 92 units a week — four times the recommended amount. "James Bond's level of alcohol intake puts him at high risk of multiple alcohol-related diseases and an early death," says the tongue-in-cheek investigation. "The level of function as displayed in the books is inconsistent with the physical, mental and indeed sexual functioning expected from someone drinking this much alcohol." On a cruel note, it concludes: "James Bond was unlikely to be able to stir his drinks, even if he would have wanted to, because of likely alcohol-induced tremor." - AFP, December 13, 2013. |
| When books go digital – “The Kills” and the future of the novel Posted: 12 Dec 2013 03:52 PM PST "The Kills" has been described as both a "multimedia thriller" and a "digitally augmented novel" – and it offers a hint as to what the digital future of the book may hold. Ford is making his way from Iraq to Turkey in a ragged, fraught manner, never sure who is looking for him and moving between multiple false identities. In a rare still moment he observes a young boy waiting for a bus and wonders how this ordinary-looking boy ended up on the edge of a war zone – and directly below this passage is a link to a short video. The video is a view of Morocco from a bus window overlaid with a male voice documenting the breakdown of his relationship. It is extraordinarily beautiful and perfectly juxtaposed against the text. The information in the video, such as it is, doesn't follow on from the preceding passage and it doesn't directly relate to any of the story thus far – but it provides an insight into Ford. It is a part of his history I didn't necessarily need to know. Once I did, though, it added poignancy to his current situation. I can't now imagine experiencing this scene other than how House presented it. "The Kills" presents one of the futures of the book. Digital technology has changed the nature of reading: what, when, where and how we read. Consequently, our understanding of the book has had to shift also. The book as a physical object with paper pages is now only one version of what a book might be. Innovations in writing go far beyond the e-book, which continues to represent a change in mode of delivery rather than an innovation of form. The e-book has been considered a transitional form for some time. In fact, in the trajectory of change for books and writing it is the compact disc of writing. It is important to consider the multimedia, transmedia or digital novel as a wholly different form to the traditional novel – in the same way graphic novels are a different form to the prose novel. Embedding short video or audio clips into text, as House does in "The Kills", can reveal character in unexpected ways, or create atmosphere beyond language. This technology is now available to all writers working on digital platforms. But viewing other content is not always a seamless process for the reader – in "The Kills" you still need to leave the book to a web browser. Nonetheless, the multimedia aspects genuinely enrich the experience. As well as video, House also offers his readers digital works of pictures with text superimposed, reminiscent of the art of American feminist artist Barbara Kruger, and phone messages from characters. Those features provide a back story that creates an emotional landscape around the words. As a story, "The Kills" is deeply unsettling: full of menace, confusion, violence and treachery. The digital aspects are as spare and taut as the writing – but they also bring a welcome trace of humanity. Does the book need fixing? Aren't words enough for writers? This kind of question is often raised in discussions around digital technology and the futures of the book. The prose novel has produced profound insights into humans as a species, and already has the capacity to move and entertain us. The possibilities inherent in the digital book – or whatever name is finally settled on – won't appeal to a great many writers or readers, but fortunately, innovation is not an an either/or proposition. The prose novel will always be the best possible way to tell certain stories, and certain writers will always work in this form – what digital technology offers is choices beyond that. Kate Pullinger's "Flight Paths" is another example of the ways in which multimedia additions to text can be thoughtful and sophisticated. Pullinger describes "Flight Paths" as a networked novel: it incorporates a series of digital works that include images, text and sound that were created by the author and collaborator Chris Joseph. The short digital pieces are powerful and restrained, and are used to layer the narrative. Pullinger's first foray into digital writing, "Inanimate Alice", is internationally regarded as a benchmark in this space. Both Pullinger and House have an affinity for conceptualising stories in ways that transcend the written word – and they revel in the collaborative nature of digital writing. For every successful example of digital writing there are numerous failures – but every new form has teething problems and questions that hang over its legitimacy. The function of any kind of emerging practice is not to perpetuate the status quo. Watching a new form emerge is thrilling, and witnessing practitioners such as House and Pullinger grapple with it is breathtaking. It is a time for unruly writers and disorderly readers. - The Conversation, December 13, 2013. * Donna Hancox is a writer and senior lecturer in Creative Writing and Literary Studies at Queensland University of Technology. Her research interests include digital writing and publishing, transmedia writing and transmedia activism. |
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