Tag Archives: Borsuk Chapter four

Physical Bodies

Posted on by
4

Borsuk’s 4th chapter had a quote that was an impetus for a revelation I had in regards to the way I think about books and us as humans. On top of that, it also makes me appreciate the book as a physical object so much more than before taking this class, and reading this specific chapter. The quote I read that prompted this revelation was in relation to the popularity of the codex, “…it has proven useful as a portable, source-efficient physical support suited to the average human body” (Borsuk 197-198). This idea that the book is suited to the physical human body—not necessarily the mind but our hands, arms, etc.—therefore the book, then, is a reflection of our own physical body. There is an inherent, often unrealized, point of connection when holding a book or even a smartphone.

It brings me back to the practice of mindfullness, where you consciously bring yourself into the present and actively bring yourself back into your own body. This usually leads to a clearer mind and can help you focus. It’s a concept I learned about when I attended a behavioral program to help with my anxiety/OCD and depression. I used to heavily disassociate, but in learning mindfullness techniques I could bring myself back from that 2D-like game-scape into the real world. The mindfullness exercise I came up with was putting my hands on some part of my skin, closing my eyes, and just focusing of the feeling of my own skin (I also focused on my breathing too). Now I think of touching/holding the physical book as a mindfullness exercise, and when I think back to my visits to special collections for the midterm project, I realize I was already doing this; I would be in the present with the physical book, feeling the pages and the ink which connected me to the moment, my body, and the book itself. I think from now on, every time I touch a book, and physically feel it in my hands the same process will occur. In this way the book is a physical extension of my physical body and a mirror of it.

For a moment my body and that book (or laptop or phone or etc.) are interacting and participating in an exchange. For a moment there is an undeniable physical connection only broken when I am no longer holding or touching the book.

The Hidden Power of the Interface

Posted on by
2

After reading the final chapter in Borsuk’s “The Book”, I was captivated by the idea that Borsuk talks about in how we need to start viewing the interface of the page and how we as a society interact with it. Never in my life would I have imagined the interface of a page as a “crystal goblet” in which the desired information can be shown to you easily due to the accessibility and utility that the interface has. “A good interface, according to human-centered design principles, is like Warde’s crystal goblet: a transparent vessel which we access information we want”(198). Borsuk highlights the importance of how we can use the tool and view it because it is something that we never really had interest, nor have we ever thought about it on that level. We are always concerned with the content, but never with the interface and how that may alter how we the readers view the text.

Physical book’s interface not only allows us to interact with the text and content itself, but with the concept of the interface itself in which we can also add information. Essentially, we are learning how to read the system of the interface at a closer level than usual. Considering how we interact with physical books, I found it intriguing on how we use e-books and try to replicate that same interface interaction from the physical books.

Another quote that stuck out to about how we interact with physical books and e-books is, ”To change the physical form of the artifact is not merely to change the act of reading . . . but to profoundly transform the metaphorical relation of word to world”(203). Going from physical to digital changes everything about how we as the reader interact with the artifact itself. Yes, it may be showing the same letters, words and content, but it is no longer using paper and that in itself already alters how the text should be viewed. See as how Borsuk mentions how it changes the metaphorical relation, this sentence reminded me of last week’s class discussion on how digital text is essentially code which is HTML and it is just a bunch of flashing lights. At its core, that’s what the artifact is and how do we the reader interact with that?

Non-linear Reading of Digital Texts

Posted on by
3

After reading Chapter 4 of The Book by Amaranth Borsuk, I began to find a new understanding for digital texts. Amaranth explains how technological advances such as the Kindle or Nook “aim to pour texts written for print into digital vessels” while other authors and artists are utilizing the technological layout to add an immersive, animated, or game-like experience for the reader (220). With this, we are able to create an infinite canvas where the reader is “non-linear reading” requiring the reader to interact with the text. This shift highlights how digital texts are not just replications of physical books, but rather remediations. They are new forms that borrow from the tactile and navigational qualities of print while expanding the possibilities of texts. 

While reading about hypertexts and the way hyperlinks create a networked style of reading, I immediately thought back to “Marginalia in the Library of Babel” by Mark Marino. The feeling of being able to explore and interact with the text was a completely new experience that I hadn’t felt from a traditional physical book. I was so confused before we discussed the reading in class as I have always read for definitive answers. But while reading “Marginalia in the Library of Babel” I found myself navigating my own reading journey through a web of interconnected ideas, rather than following a structured, linear path. While clicking through the hyperlinks, I found myself digging deeper, bouncing from one hyperlink to the next with minimal to no structure or path. This sense of agency and mobility through the text demonstrates what Amaranth Borsuk writes as an “infinite canvas,” where the boundaries of a text are no longer fixed by the page but are dependent on the reader’s choices (221).

I remember discussing this experience with my peers and realizing that each of us had followed a completely different pattern of clicking and traversing through the intricate network of hyperlinks. Some clicked on certain links because they were interested in a phrase or idea, while others went down entirely different pathways. This truly resulted in unique interpretations from the same work. This variation revealed how hypertexts allow readers to engage with a text on an individual level, emphasizing the role of reader interaction in meaning-making.

Books and Interface

Posted on by
Reply

This chapter of The Book speaks to and proves just how much readers may want to interact with the book, not merely be able to see its words, but hold, write on, and interface with it, Many of the “e-reader” inventions described by Borsuk are made to “emulate the physical book,” with features that “evoke the curved spine of a paperback.” (Borsuk, 232). Typically today the book, both physical and digital as we know are made for interaction that goes beyond just skimming eyes over letters, with the digital even having tools for bookmarking and annotation, while the physical keeps appropriate margins for the same purposes. Books with these features are made for what Borsuk describes as “handedness.” (234).

The book as an interface is something that permits and invites full immersion into it, not just immersion in the text provided, but in its shape, page, and utility. As a device it is a body that wants to and is meant to be used, have its pages turned until they are torn or have it’s screen pressed until it is cracked. The book will only continue to grow and evolve so long as it prioritizes the reader’s experience, improving and adapting to how a reader can read the book.