Comments on: Colorful prose

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 17:08:58 +0000

When Joyce was living in Paris, he persuaded the American author Robert McAlmon to type out ‘Ulysses’ for him. Unfortunately it was still very much a work in progress and Joyce kept coming up with new material to be inserted into the ms. There were so many of these that he ended up colour-coding them – there were revisions of revisions of ….inserts. Later he accused McAlmon of being sloppy. I know who I felt sorry for!

By: D.C. DaCosta

D.C. DaCosta — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 03:27:54 +0000

IMHO, “The Sound and the Fury” was nothing more than a tour de force, an opportunity for the author to show off. The first time I read it, I thought, “How long can he keep this up?” Well, he did, but is there anything to it?

I believe a piece of writing requires an underlying framework, but, like the frame of a house, it should not be visible (or even evident).
What’s that phrase from the musical “Gypsy”? You’ve gotta have a gimmick.

Color coding is another gimmick: Look what we can do. If the work requires that much effort and interpretation…maybe the writer has failed in his primary mission: to communicate.

By: Kristin Laughtin

Kristin Laughtin — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:29:31 +0000

14 colors sounds like a lot for most people to track, based on my own experience. I have a Bible that is sort of like this. Every verse is highlighted to show whether it is prophecy, history, law, or related to a specific theme like sin, salvation, judgment, etc. I don’t remember what any of the colors mean, and though I could flip to the guide in the front, I find that takes me out of processing the text, which is the most important feature.

I imagine color-coding could be useful to keep track of a few things in certain books. For example, a book with lots of flashbacks or references to past events could have those color-coded. Unreliable narrators could have their lies or half-truths indicated (although that would take out all the fun for the reader!). I think no matter what, though, you’d have to stick to a few colors only for most readers. Casual readers won’t want to deal with more than that.

Scholars, on the other hand, would probably love things like this Faulkner edition.

By: Chet

Chet — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 19:57:02 +0000

Conceptually it intrigues me.

In actuality, it’d probably be mental harassment to me. I have synaesthesia as it is, so trying to read whole pages of a novel which is color-blocked like that would not facilitate my reading at all.

Though for others, it sounds like a bright idea.
Innovation and progress never cease to amaze me.