Is the Book Dead or Not Dead, That is the Question.

I must say, if the future of the book relied on the participants of Scream in TYPE's bookstore basement there would be quite a problem.

Do you remember grade 12 English class? Sitting at the back of the class twiddling your thumbs hearing nothing but the mumble jumble flowing out of your teacher's mouth? I'm sure you do. That was probably during the unit of Shakespeare's play Hamlet . Well if you attended Scream Festival's "The Book in the Head" event then you were pretty much doomed.

In a small tight-nit space a dozen readers attempted to put together the famous works of Hamlet. Prompt book (actor in the role of dead text who aided participants when stuck on a line) was their only source of help in putting Hamlet together in modern day. Sadly, only a few out of the dozen actually had some knowledge of the lines, where many others knew the general story line. Though some lines were remembered, quite a few were spoken out of order or included filler words like, "something, something." Others were able to paraphrase lines with versions of what we would call modern day lingo such as hoe and dude.

Putting together Hamlet became a game of broken telephone and you know what that means. Scenes would change, or appear earlier in the text. Main characters would die slightly differently. Not to mention movies which have added and subtracted stage directions, character roles and actions while emphasizing and opting out particular scenes. Movies have already changed our recollections of the book making it easier for the book to get lost in time or changed drastically.

After a few beers and a ton of laughs we managed to put together most of Hamlet. Hamlet might have lost his life in the book, but he continues to survive into our future... or what's left of him.

However, what would happen to the future of books if they actually relied on world of mouth or the movie version? The story would be forever changing. When you are reading a book really appreciate how authentic it is. Realize that you have that ability to grasp the whole book in full and in your own way and not have to rely on someone's broken versions.