Skin: a mortal work of art

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As anyone who is remotely familiar with the goings on of the Publishing industry - or, indeed, anyone who reads - will be aware, stories are no longer confined within the pages, covers and bindings of the traditional book.  New media is taking the Publishing industry by storm: with the growing popularity of e-books and e-readers and the astonishing success of Fifty Shades of Grey two notable victories in the ongoing revolution.  Like Fifty Shades, which began life as a Twilight fan fiction published episodically on websites, many authors are now using the internet as a means of publishing their own work and Penguin's recent purchase of the self-publishing company Author Solutions suggests that publishers are taking these new media very seriously indeed.

Just as I was beginning to get my head around all of these new ways of writing, publishing and reading stories, Shelley Jackson's name appeared on my computer screen.  As a writer and artist, Jackson is known for her hybrid genre experiments and her project Skin takes the use of new media in publishing to a whole other level.

Launched in 2003, Skin is described by Jackson as 'a mortal work of art'.  It is a 2095-word story published one word at a time in tattoos on the bodies of numerous volunteers, referred to as "words".  The story in its full form will be provided only to words, on receipt of proof that they have been tattooed - and the story will die with its words, constantly morphing until the last word's demise. If 2095 volunteers fail to materialise, the incomplete story will be considered definitive.

Personally I have always been rather uneasy about the idea of getting a tattoo, but I absolutely love the idea of a story published on the human body.  Sometimes I feel such a fierce connection with the words on a page that they may as well be branded on my skin.  And perhaps the thing I love most about literature is the endless variety of interpretations that can be made of a single text - what a collection of words means to you is exclusively yours.  No one will ever feel exactly the way that you did when reading those words and your interpretation dies with you, just as Skin dies with its participants.

As much as I admire Jackson's project, I don't think I have the guts to become a participant.  Can you imagine getting a really bland word, like "a" or "the"?  Or some kind of curse word or insult?  However, if you're a great deal braver than I am, Jackson's project is currently only approximately 553 words complete - although she does have over 10,000 applications for the remaining words to sift through.  But there's no harm in trying your luck, particularly as applications are accepted in no particular order: as Jackson states "you could write to me today and get in".

For details on how to apply, or for more information about the project itself, the following links may be of use:
Call for Participants
Guidelines
Project Status
FAQ

You can visit the web page for the Skin Project here and Shirley Jackson's website here.

Cover of the week

The Kiss by A. P. Chekhov

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Publication date: November 30th 1999

Designer: Darren Hagger

Reading al fresco!

Much to my dismay, reading is a hobby that tends to be kept behind closed doors.  Us bookish types spend our whole lives shut up in rooms without windows.  We have deathly pale skin and failing eyesight and we shriek with pain when exposed to sunlight - which is why we are often mistaken for vampires.

But in spite of my love of literature (and contrary to any suspicions that may be raised by my own Casper complexion), I adore The Great Outdoors.  There is nothing I hate more than being confined between four walls for extended periods of time.  One of the main struggles I faced at University was having to contend with a lack of fresh air and the consequent lowering of my spirits.  I spent my days reading, reading, reading and reading some more in underheated computer labs and overheated libraries with windows that resembled the little slits in medieval castle walls used for firing arrows out of.  I suppose the architect thought it wise to minimise the chances of anyone leaping to their death in the throes of essay stress.

However, whilst foraging the internet this evening I made an interesting discovery in the form of Bookyard - an outdoor library in Belgium by artist Massimo Bartolini.  This sent the cogs whirring in my little literary brain: maybe reading could be considered an outdoor pursuit after all?  I've spent the past hour looking up pictures of outdoor bookshelves and I thought I should share some of my favourite finds:

Bookyard - a public library in St Peters Abbey vineyard made by Massimo Batolini for the Belgian Art Festival: TRACK: a contemporary city conversation in Ghent

Hay Castle Books in Hay-on-Wye: a town of bookshops in Wales (road trip anyone?)

More from Hay-on-Wye, where outdoor reading is evidently the norm!

Moonraker Books in Langley, WA

Trees become books of knowledge in Stacks - an outdoor bookshelf installation by David Harper

Ikea create the world's largest outdoor bookshelf on Sydney's Bondi Beach

I feel happy inside just looking at these.  I hope they brighten your day a little too.  Now to sleep, perchance to dream - of forests full of books.

"As is a tale, so is life..."

What an incredible human being.  As a recent graduate myself, this really struck a chord with me.  If someone asked me what I would consider to be my biggest flaw, I could say with complete sincerity that it is my indomitable perfectionism.  I'm an intelligent, creative, lucky person; I work hard and I frequently excel.  But I can't get rid of that little voice in the back of my mind, the one that whispers "you could have done that better, you've let yourself down!"  That voice has taken me to some very dark places.  Last year, I made myself ill with constantly pushing myself to do better, better, better: to be something more than what I am.  But I am finally learning to control my perfectionism: to reign it in and channel it into something worthwhile and productive - because perfectionism can be an asset as well as a curse.  As the wonderful J. K. Rowling says, I need to keep sight of what matters most: doing what I love, living a good life, being happy, helping other people and realising that failure is not something to fear but something to learn from. 

"Some failure in life is inevitable.  It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all.  In which case, you fail by default."

My Week in Pictures: Ireland Edition

1. Beautiful views of the Antrim Coast

2. Cranny Falls

3. Carnlough Harbour

4. The rather spooky interior of a very old house at the Ulster Folk Museum

5. The reading room above the old printing press at the Ulster Folk Museum

6. My pig-headed boyfriend

7. Queen's University Belfast

8. Digging up dinosaur bones at the Ulster Museum in Belfast

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

Last week, The Boyfriend and I decided to run away together.  We shacked up in a cold but homely bungalow that used to belong to my grandparents in a tiny seaside village called Carnlough on the Antrim Coast of Northern Ireland.  When we tired of exploring the village, we visited a dinosaur exhibition at the Ulster Museum in Belfast and trekked around an early 20th Century village.  We returned "home" each day exhausted to a house full of cassette tapes with no toaster.  It was like stepping back in time. 


I always spend weeks deliberating which books to take with me on holiday - and I tend to arrive with a small library having grossly over-estimated the time I would have to spend reading in between adventures.  This time, The Woman in Black by Susan Hill found its way into my suitcase and it turned out to be the perfect reading material for the old-fashioned atmosphere of my trip.  And being quite short, it was a breeze to read within my six day time limit - I finished the final chapter on the boat home.

Arthur Kipps, a junior solicitor, is summoned to attend the funeral Mrs Alice Drablow, the house's sole inhabitant of Eel Marsh House, unaware of the tragic secrets which lie hidden behind the shuttered windows. The house stands at the end of a causeway, wreathed in fog and mystery, but it is not until he glimpses a wasted young woman, dressed all in black, at the funeral, that a creeping sense of unease begins to take hold, a feeling deepened by the reluctance of the locals to talk of the woman in black - and her terrible purpose.
- Synopsis from Waterstones

 As a child, I was absolutely intrigued by ghost stories.  My friends and I would sit for hours in my basement with the lights off, trying to outdo one another with tales of the supernatural until they became so outlandish that they descended into humour.  But in recent years, my interest has waned.  The conventional straight-forward ghost story form is not very visible on the modern adult market and as such I have come to regard the ghost story as a rather childish genre.


My mother, however, is a huge fan of anything creepy and sinister.  The Woman in Black has long been one of her favourite books and she has been recommending it to me for years, but the notion of reading an old fashioned ghost story from a modern writer has never really appealed to me.  However, with the success of the film my interest has been steadily increasing - I tend to make a point of reading books before watching the film adaptations.


The verdict?  I could not put it down.  I carried it around in my bag all week hoping to snatch a few moments to read whilst we journeyed to and from our destinations.  I came home exhausted from the day's adventures with another planned for the crack of dawn and yet refused to sleep until I had devoured a few more chapters of The Woman in Black.


Hill masterfully creates the eery atmosphere vital to all ghost stories through the secluded setting of Eel Marsh House, with the treacherous Nine Lives Causeway frequently rendering the house completely inaccessible - and therefore inescapable.  The sense of threat evoked by the haunting Arthur Kipps experiences during his visits to the house is greatly intensified by his complete isolation and stranded state.  The sinister atmosphere lingers after the book has been put down.  I frequently found myself dashing down the hall to the bathroom with my heart racing, half expecting the woman in black to emerge from the darkness around me.

Thomas Hardy believed that places are as important as people in fiction, because people are formed by the landscapes in which they are born and bred, though that is probably less true now than it was in his day, when, especially in rural areas, they tended to remain rooted in one place. But a harsh climate and a hard landscape toughen people. A low-lying, dank place tends to be lowering to the spirits, and we all know that constant wind drives people mad. I think the pathetic fallacy is less fallacious than is often supposed.
- Susan Hill quoted by The Guardian

The atmospheric setting becomes almost a 'character' in the book, whilst the protagonist Arthur Kipp takes a back seat.  We are given only the most basic factual details regarding Arthur's lifestyle, family and employment and receive very little insight into his feelings apart from the terror and trauma he experiences in direct relation to the haunting.  As the book begins by introducing us to Arthur's older 'present' self, there is very minimal character development throughout the novel aside from the revelation of the cause of Arthur's intense emotional distress when his stepchildren press him to tell a ghost story.  Minor characters such as Samuel Daily and even the dog Spider are far more endearing than Arthur, and consequently, any risk to the dog's well being causes more of an emotional impact upon the reader than the persistent sense of threat towards Arthur's.  I would have liked to have known Arthur better, so to speak.  If the reader felt a true connection to Arthur, it would allow us to experience the emotions he feels during the ghostly visitations, rather than merely receiving a second-hand account.

However, the reader's distance from Arthur enables Hill to present the menacing figure of the woman in black as the true protagonist of the novel.  While I found the explanation of the woman's motivation for haunting Eel Marsh House adequate, I was rather perplexed by the intensity of her hatred and cruelty to those who had done her no harm. However, she is a wonderfully frightening ghostly presence whose tale evokes sympathy in spite of her malicious intent.  Rather than wasting time on excessive characterisation and unnecessary details, the focus of the novel is entirely on the eery atmosphere and the haunting itself, making it a truly gripping read.  Hill is not afraid to shock her reader and does not shy away from continuing the fear and horror evoked by her novel to its conclusion.

The Boyfriend and I watched the film adaptation of The Woman in Black last night and whilst I thoroughly enjoyed the film, it has very little in common with the narrative that inspired it.  The book holds quite a few surprises even for those who have already seen the film and I would recommend it to anyone who is in the mood for an authentically spooky tale.  Hill's novel is adult and convincing, yet retains the feel of feel of a true ghost story recounted one's basement with the lights out, leaving the reader eager to learn what happens next with the turn of every page.

8 / 10

If you enjoyed this book, you might like:

 Affinity by Sarah Waters

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Book Art: Alicia Martin

This time last week, if someone had asked me to describe book art in three words, I would have said: delicate, intricate and beautiful.


Then I discovered Alicia Martín, a Madrid based artist who has taken book art to a whole new level. The beautiful still applies but the delicate and intricate have gone right out the window. Literally.

 

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Martín's breathtaking work cannot be summed up in words, but if I had to choose one I'd go for big. Her Biografias series features three gigantic sculptures composed of thousands of books that appear to have taken on a life of their own as they explode out of the windows of buildings and cascade onto the ground beneath, with their loose pages fluttering in the breeze. These works are so powerful I can hardly believe that they are static structures. I can almost feel the force of the books bursting through the windows just by looking at these images - I can almost hear them! I am itching to see the real things.





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I am no art critic but it doesn't take a discerning eye to discover meaning within these works. To me, these explosive sculptures represent the boundary-breaking effect that literature has upon individual minds, and upon society as a whole. A good book can ignite a spark within our minds, encouraging us to break free from the restrictions which enclose our imaginations and create something big, something bold, something beautiful: a work of art. The sculptures evoke the power of literature by attributing books with a physical strength as they become a force of nature in Martín's hands. And secretly, I fear, Martín's sculptures may be a projection of my own future if I do not invest in a Kindle as soon as possible!

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You can visit Alicia Martín's gallery website here