From "Why One Artist Transcribed All 900-Plus Pages of ‘Moby-Dick’ by Hand/For Bethany Collins, Herman Melville’s novel is rife with centuries-old political anxieties that still resonate today" (NYT).
If you were to do a similar art project, based on someone else's writing, what book would you choose?
This sort of thing has been done before. In 1974 the conceptual artist Allen Ruppersberg copied "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by hand. Collins acknowledges this inspiration.
We've also heard that Hunter S. Thompson typed out "The Great Gatsby" and "A Farewell to Arms." I don't think he presented that as conceptual art. He gave the explanation that he wanted to "to get the feeling" of writing those books. I love that.
I'm also reminded of something in the Nicholson Baker essay "The History of Punctuation" (in "The Size of Thoughts: Essays and Other Lumber" (commission earned)): "Early medieval readers like Dulcitius of Aquino would decorate a work with dots and diples and paragraph marks as they read it and then proudly sign their name on the page: 'I, Dulcitius, read this.' Punctuation, like marginal and interlinear commentary, seems at times to have been a ritual of reciprocation, a way of returning something to the text in grateful tribute after it had released its meaning in the reader’s mind."
Back to your similar art project — if you were to do it — why would you do it? As a way of reading more deeply, as a way to feel like the writer writing like that, as a meditation, as a means to the end of producing a tangible object like Collins's 3 clothbound binders. I like the idea of bound binders. So much bondage!
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22 comments:
Bonfire of the Vanities.
If I were to do such a thing, which I wouldn't, given its intrinsic pointlessness, I certainly wouldn't do it with the intention of receiving fawning publicity from the likes of the New York Times.
Interesting. Yes copying a novel or whatever would really get you deeper in touch with novelists words. Audiobooks do that too, you listen at a much slower pace than reading and every word has more impact.
I'd probably copy something like "Paradise Lost". Or maybe "Brideshead Revisited".
The Gospel According To John
Once I went through Darwin's Origin of Species and looked up every single noun including personal names. I tried to get a picture of all the plants and animals. In the end I knew what Darwin's theory was. Not many do. But I wouldn't copy it by hand. I didn't love it.
I might do Emily Dickinson.
I think all poems are improved by visualizing them as the author did, i.e., in what artistic style he or she pictured his or her scenes. For example, Tennyson liked Turner but he has been cursed by an edition of his poems in the Pre-Raphelite manner which has fixed how people visualize his Arthurian Idylls. Then they don't like them, naturally. I like them but I visualize Turneresque scenes.
Another one I might copy would be Dante who I'm struggling through right now. There's lot to think about and writing might help picturing it.
"...For another series, she used the score for the American composer Stephen Foster’s “Beautiful Dreamer” — an 1864 ballad sometimes interpreted as a serenade to a dead lover — to create target-shaped prints and then enshrouded them in cloudy drawings meant to evoke plumes of tear gas...."
She seems nice.
In the 19th century artists wrote novels; in the 21st, they copy them over.
If you were to do a similar art project, based on someone else's writing, what book would you choose?
"I would prefer not to."
I could see HST's re-typing exercise as a way to overcome writer's block. Even though you are copying someone else's book, you are still literally going through the motions of writing. Maybe it gets the creative juices flowing in some kind of biofeedback loop, the way that smiling supposedly makes you happy.
Or kind of like the old track coach technique of pulling guys behind a car, just to get their legs used to moving that fast. CC, JSM
Once I reread the novel 1984 and after reading each page, I reduced it to a single line in a notebook. So I have a notebook with a line of my own paraphrase for each page of the book. It was hard to do that much compression, but it made me think hard about each page. it wasn’t just one sentence per page. I was restricted to one line in the notebook. I did the entire novel
"Fun with Dick and Jane" I'm busy, even when the coffee is brewing.
Meh. I’m not impressed. Let me know when she finishes Remembrance of Things Past.
I'd pick a long poem, like Rape of the Lock.
Unsurprisingly, Gonzo didn't choose to copy Tolstoy's "War & Peace," word for word.
@boatbuilder - I see what you did there!
I'm partway through Luke and will continue immediately into Acts. I'm copying different English translations of each verse.
Finnegan’s Wake on the perpetual loop
Writing that much with a nib pen? Before attempting a novel I'd have to be able to complete at one full sentence without drips and smears and making a mess.
Maybe I'd try to reproduce Jackson Pollock's work or Japanese calligraphy.
"That's not a drip, that's what I meant to do! It symbolizes my angst! Angst I tell you!"
I've been doing this for about 10 years with the Bible.
I use composition books and write out 4 pages nightly while riding a stationary bicycle.
I did not twice then started ot. Went all the way through ot & nt. Started again with genesis. On 2 kings now.
I print, no cursive. I try to write legibly and it has done wonders for my handwriting
I see this as a perpetual project. When I finish Revelations again, I'll star genesis the next day.
John Henry
I read a verse then try, not very successfully, to copy it out without referring back.
I started out using king James version. After nt and part of ot I switched to American std. Much easier to hold the text in mind when writing it out.
John Henry
And we are supposed to believe that this is art? Maybe if it were an illuminated manuscript. I hope she at least has good handwriting.
Copying fiction is a legit method to learn writing craft. If I was going to copy a novel, it would be Lonesome Dove.
"Yawn".
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