Zak Smith Writes...

[Dave Monroe]

Actually, one of the interesting things that Smith
occasionally attempted to do WAS to try to illustrate
damn near everything on a given page (e.g., the 2nd to
last one, as I recall--in fact, and maybe Doug can
verify this for me, I think maybe there was some bleed
between the last and the second to last pages).  Sort
of in a comic-booky panelled way, but ... but other
illustrations were of a particular character, or
incident, or ... well, sometimes, I wasn't quite sure
just how a given illustration related to a given page.
 But that's where I figure the interest of Smith's
piece lies, in his choices of what to illustrate
(which is not necessarily to depict or represent or
... esp. given the number of illustrations and
approaches thereto involved), of what was significant
(or, perhaps, simply illustratable).  It's not a
representation of GR per se, though perhaps in that
sense what's interesting is how it not only embodies
the scale, physically, verbally and conceptually of
the book, but how it serves to register the length of
certain episodes and the recurrence of certain
characters/images/what have you.  The Floudering Four,
for example, visibly endure for several pages, whereas
what are traditionally considered key passages might
not even register, depending on said
"illustratability" (and even there, there ARE often
illustrations, right down to the epigraphs).  One can
spot iterations of, say, Blicero, or The Rocket, or,
at any rate, rockets.  Or mandalas, as I recall.  A
sort of map of the book, perhaps, but ... but mapping
still involves tackling the question, what's
significant here?  What's interesting, even?  Maybe
even simply those textual recurrnces and disprities. 
Political boundaries/entities?  Topography?  And so
forth ...

I do have the CD ROM, but haven't gotten 'round to
using it yet (though friends have done so), so ...

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> 
> I can see one problem immediately in the fact that
> more than one scene/event/thing is happening on most
> pages of _GR_, and that consequently a *page by
> page* transcription from one medium to another
> wouldn't be a particularly efficient or effective
> way of representing what the text is "about ...


	
		
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