5750 Methods of Historical Research

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker

Hoban's novel Riddley Walker is an incredibly complex text, but I think it can certainly be asserted that Hoban is concerned with the two major issues that motivated Drucker's first work that she discusses: "the way in which visual structures actually produce meaning, and the relation between language and experience". The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic society thousands of years after nuclear war has destroyed the planet. Hoban imagines society reverting back to a Dark Ages system of intellectual inquiry, scientific discovery, artistic production, and most importantly for this discussion language. Hoban actually creates a linguistic system for these characters that uses all of the characters of type that we are familiar with, but arranged in an order that at times can be incredibly difficult to interpret. This language changes the way we view the characters' experiences of their reality, but also the way the reader experiences their reality. At times in the story there is also typescript that is set apart in a stanza-like presentation, type that is in italics, and type that is bold and in all capital letters. All of these different typescripts signify different meanings about the subject matter of the text being discussed. Hoban also encourages a radial reading of the text (such as McGann discusses). There is a glossary of some of the words he has created in the back of the book, as well as a history of the St. Eustace portrait upon which many of the characters base their religious and cultural philosophies. There are also other images scattered throughout the text that one can refer to as they read. Hoban has created a world in which language signifies experience differently and in which visuals produce meaning differently and asks the reader to explore this as well through his use of typography and spatial elements of his text.

Maus

I’m applying this week’s reading to the first hardback edition (1986) of Art Spiegelman’s Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale, the only graphic novel/memoir to win a Pulitzer Prize. The volume relies largely on phanopoeia, logopoei, and radial readings. The comics themselves are hand-lettered, while the chapter headings use bold machined fonts (akin to Arial or Franklin Gothic) paired with hand-drawn illustrations that harken back to war-era advertisements, propaganda posters, and even to period films. This is where the radial reading is most apt. The use of cats and mice is also apt in a radial reading; the anthropomorphic figures seem to reference Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney, and Tom & Jerry. This renders the inhumanity of man into both literal and figurative cartoon and does so by relying on the reader’s knowledge of early twentieth-century history and pop culture.

The visual reading additionally relies on the reader’s knowledge of classic comic books and their layout, occasionally breaking the classic text box/text bubble configuration for larger maps and illustrations. In fact, the back cover of this edition features a color map of occupied Poland with mouse skull and crossbones used to indicate the location of concentration camps. Two mice in black and white (ostensibly father and son) are superimposed in the lower left, posed in the comfort of an armchair (father) or stretched out on imagined carpet below (son). To their right, an inset map shows the characters’ home in Rego, Park, NY, signaling the threat of the larger/looming map somewhat moot (into a distant place if not a distant time).

What renders these images even more interesting is the text box below, a section filled with review blurbs. The book, as it is described on its own back cover, is (according to the Washington Post) “impossible to describe accurately, and impossible to achieve in any medium but comics.” According to Newsweek, “the very artificiality of its surface makes it possible to imagine the reality beneath.” (!)

The hardback covers and the pages within are glossy, foregoing the flat and cheap paper usually used for comic books and signaling the difference between comic memoir and comic strip, even while using the visual language of the latter. The copyright page is headed by a quote from Adolf Hitler, followed by a two-page title page—the front papers are designed to look like a billboard or wall that’s been spray painted with graffiti (a clean and rather thick banner listing Pantheon as the publisher runs across the bottom). The endpapers feature a full-page graphic illustration (possibly a linocut) depicting a crowd of grim mice with stars affixed to their clothing. A text box advertising the book’s sequel appears slightly below center to disrupt this image. In many ways, this book calls attention to itself as a commercial object.

Cavendish on Whist, 14th Edition

I chose a book from my home library for this week’s homework. The title page has a unique frame which is very colorful, illustrating the suits in a deck of cards (i.e. hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs). The text within the frame consists of red and black lettering all in uppercase with various types of fonts in various sizes. I would need to take up several pages to analyze all the varieties ones. The actual words themselves are as follows.

THE

LAWS AND PRINCIPLES

WHIST

STATED AND EXPLAINED

AND ITS

PRACTICE ILLUSTRATED

ON AN ORIGINAL SYSTEM

BY MEANS OF HANDS PLATED COMPLETELY THROUGH

“CAVENDISH.”

FOURTEENTH EDITION

LONDON:

THOS. DE LA RUE & CO.

1884

This ‘how to’ book provides the reader with practical information on the card game whist. The book is printed throughout in two colors red and black with red text used for section headings within the chapters. The chapter “The Laws of Whist” is a numerical list with footnotes added by the author. Subsequent chapters provide information on how to play the first through fourth hands, followed by a chapter on “Trumps” and concluding with fully illustrated hands demonstrating how to take the best advantage of your hand of cards that you were dealt.

The typography in the book continues with the different sizes and types. The main text is a ‘Serif’ typescript (in black) with a ‘Sans Serif’ type for the section headings (in red). While you could read this book in a linear fashion, I suspect that it is a dip in and out of type reading it radially. With the fully illustrated card hands, the book is constructivist in style as you will visualize the hands in the written text at the beginning of the book and will consider your previous experiences of playing games of whist.

The end of the book provides five pages advertising the many other books offered by the publisher.

Diane Culpin

6 October 2016

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Making the Text

While I was reading D.C Greetham article or chapters, I appreciated the knowledge that he provides for non-specialists that allowed me as a regular reader to understand some of the techniques that are used by bibliographers to analysis the text or the “book” and get the most important information that would help the critic to reveal some of the secrets that manipulated the general readers understanding of the piece from different perspectives. The daunting task that took much of my time was to fold a piece of paper to make it look like folio or octave with the watermark showing as instructed. Therefore, my question would be how to fold the paper in a way that allows me to locate every single detail Greetham mentioned?

My Second question is how do they print the engravings from a cooper plate or from a woodcut?