by Amy Letter
paths forking project ongoing media mixed structure branching often recursive boundaries untimed limits unspaced rules optional rules followed Only 3
04. Archive for paralinear Access
05. Random to jump from branch to branch
This is my theory about the effect of movies on novels: 1) bad because books are replaced by the movies made from them (eg: Midnight Cowboy. Who remembers it was a book?); 2) good because the books that resist replacement (no matter how hard the movies try) are the fit who survive the Darwinian trial, and reveal the most true and essential nature of fiction. Based on this theory, Alice in Wonderland is the purest fiction ever devised.
Alice in Wonderland has been made into a film no fewer than 23 times. Only the Disney version comes close to being “definitive,” largely because of that corporation’s significant reach and weight. Even it cannot replace the book, because the book is not a drama told, it is a fiction, the purest fiction. It’s not really about a girl named Alice and a rabbit hole and a potion; it’s about ideas. Alice is an idea. The rabbit hole is an idea. Perspective is an idea. Urgency, idleness, anger: ideas. The films can’t replace the book because they tell the story of Alice, not the ideas.
2. Wonderland
3. Ideas
