The Powerpoint and the Glory: Reading great works at work
Today I came across the website Read at Work, which was created by the New Zealand Book Council in order to encourage people to, well, read at work. When you click to enter the website, it expands to fit the entire screen, and is perfectly designed to look like a PC desktop (which is a bit disorienting if — like me — you’re on a Mac). You can then explore and open various folders that contain short stories or poems which, when you click on them, are designed in Powerpoint. It’s a really ingenious idea, and is well executed.
But what’s really amazing is how effective it is. Not in the sense that you can indeed get away with reading these stories while at work (although I bet you could). Instead, what’s truly amazing is that prose and poetry — even when rendered using something as cold and lifeless as Powerpoint — manages to remain poignant and powerful.
And while the purpose and format of the Read at Work site is ostensibly just to fool bosses or co-workers, it actually proves a point that I, and many others, have been making in the future of the book debate: that words can flourish in any environment or format. Novels aren’t goldfish that will die outside of the fishbowl constraints of a book’s packaging. But rather, a writer’s words can travel anywhere and be presented in almost any format, and will remain literature.
This is fascinating, with each new page set out like varied powerpoint presentation flowcharts. Made me think about how we read in different media - and that content is key, more so than format.
You completely missed the point of that website.
The page is satire. It’s a joke. It mocks the notion that everything can be reduced to digital format. It rebukes the point you are trying to make in this post. It is a prank. It is an April Fool’s joke.
You say:
“Instead, what’s truly amazing is that prose and poetry — even when rendered using something as cold and lifeless as Powerpoint — manages to remain poignant and powerful.”
Please tell me you are responding to their satire with your own. If you truly think poetry in the form of Powerpoint is poignant and powerful, I have a book to suggest for you:
http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint
Yes, I understand that the site is satire if not an outright joke, but what I’m saying is that it will take more than Powerpoint to kill great literature. Neither myself nor that website is saying that great literature should be conveyed using Powerpoint, but what I’m saying is that even if it is, the words are powerful enough to transcend the format. And to quote the Tufte you suggested: “In particular, the popular PowerPoint templates (ready-made designs) usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning…” As he says, Powerpoint “usually” weakens the verbal, but literature is strong enough to resist.