Re: first brief remarks on Carol Lee's article

From: Luiz Carlos Baptista (lucabaptista@sapo.pt)
Date: Fri Nov 14 2003 - 07:34:32 PST


Hi Steve,

Lots of interesting points in your message. I'll follow some threads.

«the absolute similarity of copies does not negate the obvious fact that
even a digital copy is not the same thing as the original performance,
image, or whatever it is a recording of.»

I agree. But then there is a qualitative difference between digital and
analogic representation, and it's the fact that whenever we create/produce
something in digital mode (say, a software, a video game, a piece of
"techno" music) the "copies" of this work are undistinguishable from the
"original". There is no loss of quality or information, and the very notions
of "original" and "copy" become problematic, to say the least.

«Just where do we locate a literary "original"? Is it the author's original
manuscript? Perhaps the serialization of their writing in a newspaper (as
many of Charles Dickens' books were)? The first edition of the first book
the text appeared in? The highest quality edition ever published? The
current edition in print? The best e-book version available?»

Tricky questions indeed. But I think that as regards literature, there is
already a well-established tradition of scholarship and interpretation which
employs procedures to identify "authoritative" versions of literary works
(not that this identification is always without argument; the contrary seems
to be the case, but at least there is a common basis for discussion).

«And then, just to reverse the order of events, how about literary writing
that originates on the internet? Suppose the next great Portuguese novel is
originally published on the web - and subsequently printed in book form.
Wouldn't the production of this work in book form then be a "layer of
mediation"?»

Of course it would. For instance, a book published on the Web has a
different structure than in print. Think about hypertext links, the absence
of page numbers, the different division of sections, etc. Besides that, if a
text is too long we'd rather print it, because the screen is not as good as
paper to read. All this is to say that a printed book can "have" more layers
of mediation than a computer, no problem with that.

«Why can't literature be just as real on screens as it is in beautifully
bound books? Does the screen format really add another layer of mediation
that is fundamentally different from the layer of editing that is involved
in creating a new edition of a book? Perhaps rather than another layer, we
just have the possibility of many versions.»

I disagree. The production of a new edition of a printed book is very
different from the adaptation of this same book to the Web. The media are
different. This is not to say that the notion of "literature" doesn't apply
to texts on the screen. Rather, what we have here is a change in our notion
of what counts as "literature" - a change brought about by our uses of a new
technology.

Rgrds,

Luiz Carlos Baptista
lucabaptista@sapo.pt
lucabaptista@hotmail.com



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