On paper, tale stands tall without the digital gizmos
Physical book of a series of apps for iPad proves it, too, can punch as it probes the role of language in a society, writes James Kidd
The Silent History
by Eli Horowitz, Matthew Derby and Kevin Moffett
FSG Originals
4 stars
The enhanced e-book - a digital text with multimedia extras - is one of the great unrealised dreams of publishing. DVDs with bonus footage - interviews, commentaries, deleted scenes, webisodes, bloopers - are not only de rigueur, but have enabled shows with relatively small but fanatical followings ( Seinfeld outside America, The Wire and almost any show on HBO) to become international treasures.
The book world has largely struggled to follow television's lead although there are notable exceptions. Faber & Faber's digital version of poet T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land is a high point. Various incarnations of the text, in manuscript form and easy-to-read print, are accompanied by commentaries, essays and readings by leading poets and actors.
Does language imprison or set us free? If something - a person, an object, an emotion, a mind - cannot be named, does it still exist (and if so, how)? Can there be community without communication?
A more recent and self-consciously integrated example is Richard House's The Kills, an anthology of four interlinked novels that blends conspiracies within conspiracies. House's narrative hybrid is matched by the material form of the story which embeds videos, maps and extraneous sections into the main story. These don't provide answers to House's many questions, but supplement the mind-bending universe that he has created.
Children's authors, of course, have been in the vanguard of those mixing word, image, music and something like gameplay. The masterpiece to date is arguably The Clock Without a Face, which updates the puzzle book for an interactive, internet generation.
Written by the distinctly pseudonymous Gus Twintig, the story is a whodunit. Someone has stolen the numbers from a priceless clock, the Emerald Khroniker. According to legend the clock was built by a pirate named Friendly Jerome, who stole a number each from 12 civilisations' finest clocks. The clock was then stolen from the pirate and in a long line of robberies it is now owned by billionaire Bevel Ternky. The numbers have been stashed on each of the floors of his apartment building.
