Pub Buzz: The Revolution Will Be Digitized

"I'm concerned with image as well as text," explains Danielewski, who's quite aware of the cognitive minefield through which he's tip-toeing. "There's something that language does—it tickles certain parts of our mind. It registers in a way that image doesn't. … There's also something about image that's tremendously powerful and highly mnemonic. … My vocation has always encountered this bifurcation between image and text. And maybe there's a third part with music. What my books do, I'm coming around to, is explore that world between them. It's not one or the other. It's actually that liminal place on the threshold of image, on the threshold of language, that maybe conjures, tickles, enacts something that's a little new."

When you put it that way, it's almost a comfort to know that Danielewski's the one on that front line where ebooks and multimedia meet—testing the limits, fully aware of the implications. BB