After the Book, the Book? The Digital Writing Experiments of François Bon

Abstract

While most commentators believe that the traditional print book will not be replaced by digital media, there has been considerable conjecture as to the possible effects on the forms of the book of so pervasive a revolution as has been ushered in by the digital revolution. One of the most sustained and searching investigation of these effects has been conducted by the French writer, François Bon. In his theoretical writings on the subject gathered in the book, Après le livre, Bon makes a strong case for the dependency of literary forms on the “material conditions of their enunciation.” Extrapolating from historical examples, he suggests that the book will accordingly undergo major, if yet unforeseen, transformations, while also arguing that it is urgent for writers to experiment with the possibilities generated by the material conditions brought about by the digital revolution, lest the field of possibilities be constrained by the commercial interests of the large technology companies. True to his sense of urgency, Bon himself has engaged in a number of experiments with the form of the book in the digital environment, most notably in his “novel” Tumulte, which consists of daily blog posts mixing fiction, memoir, criticism and other genres, and in a series of digital remediations of his early novel, Limite. While Bon’s experiments raise profound questions about the concept of the book, it is less certain whether they represent viable avenues for the book’s development, since their main appeal would arguably seem to be for scholars and theoreticians. With his concern with forms of organization and delivery, and ontological complexities arising from the multiple versions of the same or nearly the same text in a digital environment, Bon’s experiments seem necessarily to scant the power of concentrated prose that has been the principle means whereby books have conveyed thought and sustained intellectual culture.