Jose Oliva
Barcelona, Apr 28 (EFE).- The American writer Doug Dorst, co-author with the filmmaker JJ Abrams of the novel ‘S. The Ship of Theseus’, thinks that “the book as an object will not disappear because it is the best way to read.”
In an interview with EFE, Dorst explains that “JJ Abrams feels a deep reverence for the printed word and even in the offices of his production company in Santa Monica he has an old printing press and all kinds of analog printing technology,” and adds: “The “The book as a physical object takes up less and less space in the world as time goes by and I think that’s quite sad, not just because of a romantic idea of books.”
The American author is “certain that stories and information are better absorbed through a physical book with ink on paper than not by looking at a screen, and also the physical book has something very comforting that should not be lost.”
The original idea of ’S. The Ship of Theseus’ was by JJ Abrams, Dorst recalls, after discovering an old book abandoned on a bench outside the Los Angeles airport, which had a note for the next reader who found it, and “he got the idea that it would be fun to work on a project that showed people communicating through the margins of a book and sharing their reactions to the book itself.
Ten years later, that original idea took shape when Dorst himself joined the project and the book reached bookstores in the United States a decade ago, but due to its editorial complexity it had not been published until a few months ago in Spain.
‘S. The Ship of Theseus’ (Duomo) is a volume in which a young woman accidentally finds in a library a book with notes written in the margin, which she answers with new notes, and both readers are involved in a deadly struggle between forces that do not they understand.
The work within the work is a book by the enigmatic author VM Straka, in which a man with no past is kidnapped and taken to a strange ship with a sinister crew, beginning a disconcerting journey full of danger.
In this celebration of the book-object, Dorst explains, in addition to Straka’s book, the volume includes “postcards, photocopies, pages from notepads, pages from the school newspaper or a map on a napkin.”
To assemble all that documentation that appears, Dorst says, it was necessary to patiently work, working layer by layer and starting from precise planning, knowing what was going to happen to the characters and the key points of the story, but the details of the world. of Straka were advancing with the writing.
“There is a lot of documentation on topics that are historically correct, and there are also many elements that are presented as historically true, but are not,” he warns.
The volume requires an active attitude from the reader and that, for Dorst, was a risky bet in these times, but “you should never underestimate the readers, and to facilitate their work, different colors have been put in the comments of the readers. margins and, as JJ said, the book will find people capable of appreciating it.
Dorst attributes the fortune that the book has had around the world, first of all to “the reputation and quality of the work of Abrams”, responsible and director of series such as ‘Lost’ and films such as ‘Star Wars’, ‘Star Trek’, ‘Super 8’ or ‘Mission Impossible’.
But he also attributes the continued success he has had to word-of-mouth transmission among readers, which “means that the story lives up to those expectations because if it were just the novelty of a book in which JJ participated it would have gone to the top.” I forget very quickly.” EFE
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