a million grains of sand · psychology, existentialism, nihilism, morals, ethics echoes the clash...
TRANSCRIPT
A Million Grains of SandIndexing !e Shelte"ng Sky by Paul Bowles
The novelOriginally published in 1949
Underground success at the time, now a 20th century classic
An American couple wander the desert of Post-World War French West Africa
Incomprehensible alien culture
complex, interweaving plot
psychology, existentialism, nihilism, morals, ethics
Echoes the clash of cultures today
Indexing FictionRarely done commercially
Hazel Bell, Ambrose Ransley, Tom Murphy, O. Carm.
A.S. Byatt and Pynchon novels, Proust, The Scarlet Letter, The English Patient, 1984
Controversial
‘Taking apart the cathedral’
Enable the reader to cheat
Expensive
Readers don’t ask for them
Candy’s influence
Some fiction indexes are available on the Web
Lisa Mirabile, a 419 grad from 1997, inspired several!
Thomas Pynchon novels
Grendel, The Great Gatsby
Catcher in the Rye
The ProjectObjectives
For general readers
Depth suitable for academics to locate themes
Enable a richer reading experience
The plan
Read, re-read, re-read again
Make notes in the text
Design a database and enter the terms
‘You’re going to write in the book?
DetailsSelecting terms and subheading phrases
look to the text
look to the time period
Ordering the subheadings logically
alphabetically?
chronologically?
Drawing the line on detail
removing repetitive subheadings
combining like concepts
The RealityHow many variations on wind do you need?
How do you succinctly describe:
Existential angst?
Hallucinatory experiences?
Expressions of love?
Is that what Bowles meant?
Does anyone care about burnouses?
The Reality
Term consistency
Evocative phrases
Following the journey
Don’t give it away! Obfuscating plot points
Seems sort of arbitrary
TechnicalitiesThe database:
Technicalities
No way to format the export?!?
XHTML and Indexing standards
Evaluation4 users, varying familiarity with indexes
Limited capabilities because they were unfamiliar with the text
Read 4 passages
Find two terms that referred to the passage
Write up to three concepts they would assign
Positive results
Added back two terms removed
Added three new cross-references
And next...The Russians!
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