Downton appy: Julian Fellowes tries new format for novel

[hunter]

The Downton Abbey creator, Julian Fellowes, is to release his new novel, a historical drama set in London during the 1840s, in instalments via an app.

In a tradition that dates back to Charles Dickens, each of Belgravia’s 11 chapters will be delivered on a weekly basis, and will come with multimedia extras including music, character portraits, family trees and an audio book version.

"To marry the traditions of the Victorian novel to modern technology, allowing the reader, or listener, an involvement with the characters and the background of the story and the world in which it takes place, that would not have been possible until now, and yet to preserve within that the strongest traditions of storytelling, seems to me a marvellous goal and a real adventure," Fellowes said in a statement.

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http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/jan/05/downton-appy-julian-fellowes-tries-new-format-for-novel

This sort of thing has been possible on web pages for many years now, will it catch on packaged as an "app?"

I have an older eReader with a monochrome "electronic ink" display. I'm rather fond of it because it's got about the same contrast as a cheap paperback, but I can change the size of the text. I like well-composed epub format books too, books that don't behave oddly when they are not read in the author's or publisher's chosen format, or chosen typeface. No "bells and whistles," no distractions, just like a book, but also just the way i like it?.

Is there any advantage to telling a story in a more complicated fashion, one requiring an "app" or the complications of HTML5 and Javascript?

I'm not sure. To me, a novel is something that could be printed as a paper book, even if I'm reading it as an epub on a simple eReader.

[Brainstormy]

1. frankly I hate the idea

I loathe getting video when I'd rather read. Not a graphic novel or comic book fan. But you never know.

[hunter]

2. Yep. I go so far as to block unwanted video and other moving images in my web browser.

Nothing moves until I give it explicit permission to move. Nothing makes a sound until I give it explicit permission to make a sound.

I'll occasionally link to YouTube videos here on DU, but if I'm not in the mood for video, I don't have to see video.

I've always been one of those people troubled when novels are turned into movies. Other people's visual interpretations of a novel are never close to what was going on in my own head when I was reading the novel.

For example, as much as I appreciated Emma Watson in the Harry Potter movies as I read the novels it was my impression of Hermione that she was more like some of the young women in my own family. A little more aggressive, if that's the right word.

I've got a few nieces who are crazy about horses. If you've ever seen twelve year old girls bossing around the sorts of horses that make many grown men nervous, then you know what I mean.