Eternal Sunshine of an Ignorant Mind
Sunday, September 4, 2011
An analysis of Jean-Luc Godard's issue with the ebook
Godard has the following issue with ebooks:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2011/01/godard-e-books.html
which I think, implies:
When it comes to digital (digital reading, digital editing etc.), you can either aim for depth or for breadth.
Say you are on page 400 of a novel. You come across a character (say X) in a situation (say A). Now if you want to go back and examine X's previous reaction to A, and if you have an ebook, you can type 'X & A' (or some trivial variation of that) in the search bar and go back to the exact page that you want. Now we can safely assume that breadth is indicated by dates. For example, if X encounters A in 1978 and you want to compare X's encounter with A at an earlier date (as compared to 1978) and if you search for X's previous encounter with A in 1850, you are looking for more breadth of understanding as compared to say if you search for X's encounter with A in 1970. Further, we can also safely assume that depth is indicated by the 'pastness' or 'history' of the previous encounter, which itself is indicated by the number of pages elapsed between the previous encounter (1850 or 1970) and the current encounter (1978). According to Godard, if you search for X's encounter with A in 1850 and land up back on the exact same page that describes this situation (say page number 50) then the 'amount' of 'pastness' or 'history' that is lost is worth 350 pages (since you are currently on page 400), which means a larger loss of depth than if you say, decide to search for the encounter in 1970 (say page number 350) which would lead to a comparatively lesser loss of the past or depth (worth 50 pages). So the perverse dichotomy is clear: If you are using the digital medium (for books/movies/music) and if, during analysis, you aim for more breadth, you have to be content with lower depth and vice versa.
Which again makes a whole lot of sense if you think about it.
Let me try and explain what Godard actually meant in the interview given at the above mentioned link:
Let us consider the same subject X and two different situations A and B. The three dates in question remain the same i.e. 1978, 1970 and 1850. Let us also introduce the notation X:A:1978 to mean Subject X in Situation A in 1978. Similarly X:B:1850 etc. Now say your current status is X:A:1978 and you want to look at X:A:1850, if you are using an analog medium (physical book/analog editing of movies/music) then you need to work your way back to X:A:1850 from X:A:1978 in a linear manner. While doing so, you may encounter X:B:1978 (assuming of course that B:1978 occurs chronologically before A:1978) which may excite you and make you forget all about X:A:1978/X:A:1850. Once you are engrossed in X:B:1978, you may then want to go back to X:B:1850. Once again, you need to do that in a linear manner. Now without loss of generality, say we assume that B:1850 occurs before A:1850 so while going from X:B:1978 to X:B:1850, we will come across X:A:1850. Now our understanding of X:A:1850 once we have gone through X:B:1978 will be finer than what our understanding would have been had we gone directly from X:A:1978 to X:A:1850 without ever encountering X:B:1978, and with similar logic, our encounter of X:B:1850 will be much more refined (when we eventually reach it) now that we have encountered X:A:1850 while moving towards it. This essentially means that this serendipitous refinement that is possible via analog research and understanding is much more rigorous that would have been possible via a digital medium, where we can 'jump' from X:A:1978 to X:A:1850 without re-reading X:B:1978 or (consequently) X:B:1850. This, I believe was Godard's original point.
However, there is one large part that Godard misses out. Non linear narratives. The logic given above works perfectly fine for linear, chronological narratives. What about non linear narratives? Well, if you arrange the events that are part of a non linear narrative in a chronological way (the way some people re-arrange the scenes of the movie 'Memento') the logic above works fine. However, I doubt anyone reads a non linear novel by first re arranging the events chronologically. So in that case, the rigor, consistency and thus effectiveness of the logic stated above itself depends on serendipity, on you encountering chronologically logical X:As and X:Bs. Consequently, that is useless since logic in itself cannot depend on inherent randomness.
There is a way out. If we stop caring about dates and look at the understanding of the story itself, the logic still works. The only reason I mentioned dates was for us to have pins and post-it notes on the entire story board, but that can be achieved by looking at key points of understanding as well. If we allow chronology to be decided on the basis of points that help us understand the story as opposed to points that occur at specific dates, the problem of non linear narratives can be removed and we can apply the above logic to all forms of digital versus analog debates.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2011/01/godard-e-books.html
which I think, implies:
When it comes to digital (digital reading, digital editing etc.), you can either aim for depth or for breadth.
Say you are on page 400 of a novel. You come across a character (say X) in a situation (say A). Now if you want to go back and examine X's previous reaction to A, and if you have an ebook, you can type 'X & A' (or some trivial variation of that) in the search bar and go back to the exact page that you want. Now we can safely assume that breadth is indicated by dates. For example, if X encounters A in 1978 and you want to compare X's encounter with A at an earlier date (as compared to 1978) and if you search for X's previous encounter with A in 1850, you are looking for more breadth of understanding as compared to say if you search for X's encounter with A in 1970. Further, we can also safely assume that depth is indicated by the 'pastness' or 'history' of the previous encounter, which itself is indicated by the number of pages elapsed between the previous encounter (1850 or 1970) and the current encounter (1978). According to Godard, if you search for X's encounter with A in 1850 and land up back on the exact same page that describes this situation (say page number 50) then the 'amount' of 'pastness' or 'history' that is lost is worth 350 pages (since you are currently on page 400), which means a larger loss of depth than if you say, decide to search for the encounter in 1970 (say page number 350) which would lead to a comparatively lesser loss of the past or depth (worth 50 pages). So the perverse dichotomy is clear: If you are using the digital medium (for books/movies/music) and if, during analysis, you aim for more breadth, you have to be content with lower depth and vice versa.
Which again makes a whole lot of sense if you think about it.
Let me try and explain what Godard actually meant in the interview given at the above mentioned link:
Let us consider the same subject X and two different situations A and B. The three dates in question remain the same i.e. 1978, 1970 and 1850. Let us also introduce the notation X:A:1978 to mean Subject X in Situation A in 1978. Similarly X:B:1850 etc. Now say your current status is X:A:1978 and you want to look at X:A:1850, if you are using an analog medium (physical book/analog editing of movies/music) then you need to work your way back to X:A:1850 from X:A:1978 in a linear manner. While doing so, you may encounter X:B:1978 (assuming of course that B:1978 occurs chronologically before A:1978) which may excite you and make you forget all about X:A:1978/X:A:1850. Once you are engrossed in X:B:1978, you may then want to go back to X:B:1850. Once again, you need to do that in a linear manner. Now without loss of generality, say we assume that B:1850 occurs before A:1850 so while going from X:B:1978 to X:B:1850, we will come across X:A:1850. Now our understanding of X:A:1850 once we have gone through X:B:1978 will be finer than what our understanding would have been had we gone directly from X:A:1978 to X:A:1850 without ever encountering X:B:1978, and with similar logic, our encounter of X:B:1850 will be much more refined (when we eventually reach it) now that we have encountered X:A:1850 while moving towards it. This essentially means that this serendipitous refinement that is possible via analog research and understanding is much more rigorous that would have been possible via a digital medium, where we can 'jump' from X:A:1978 to X:A:1850 without re-reading X:B:1978 or (consequently) X:B:1850. This, I believe was Godard's original point.
However, there is one large part that Godard misses out. Non linear narratives. The logic given above works perfectly fine for linear, chronological narratives. What about non linear narratives? Well, if you arrange the events that are part of a non linear narrative in a chronological way (the way some people re-arrange the scenes of the movie 'Memento') the logic above works fine. However, I doubt anyone reads a non linear novel by first re arranging the events chronologically. So in that case, the rigor, consistency and thus effectiveness of the logic stated above itself depends on serendipity, on you encountering chronologically logical X:As and X:Bs. Consequently, that is useless since logic in itself cannot depend on inherent randomness.
There is a way out. If we stop caring about dates and look at the understanding of the story itself, the logic still works. The only reason I mentioned dates was for us to have pins and post-it notes on the entire story board, but that can be achieved by looking at key points of understanding as well. If we allow chronology to be decided on the basis of points that help us understand the story as opposed to points that occur at specific dates, the problem of non linear narratives can be removed and we can apply the above logic to all forms of digital versus analog debates.
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