Justina Robson, Silver Screen

Author: Justina Robson Title: Silver Screen Place: London Publisher: Pan Books Date: 2000 Description: 471p, 18cm, paperback ISBN: 0330375660

Why did I read this book?

A while ago I read a pamphlet containing a few sample chapters, because the story-so-far summary sounded interesting. The sample wasn't quite enticing enough to make me go and look for the book, but when I happened to see it in the Oxfam bookshop I thought I'd quite like to find out what happened after chapter 5.

Where's the bookmark at?

'...so many different kinds of message evolved in the twentieth century,' he was saying. [...] 'And together with that came the legacy of a fully written language system, so that as time went on words and objects became more and more symbolically real, more and more semantically loaded, frozen in place with the weight of the meaning and the hyperconnectivity they assumed within our minds.' [...] 'Thus we are now in a position where every choice of action in the process of making records has become a significant factor in the transmission of meaning from one individual to another.'

'So, should we speak, write, make images that are still, or in motion? Should we choose plain paper or fancy? Do we make an old-style film on celluloid that has a limited lifespan, a flammable nature, the romance of the past? Or do I choose a crystal and get it all digitized into perfect full sensorama that never fades or loses its true colours, in image or in tone? Shall I leave cryptic clues, omit the important part? Shall I tell it all, like a cheap tart on an afternoon chatfest who can't get enough of the camera, or say it in a poem of metaphors, every verbal image betrayed by a visual contradiction? Do I want to be fully understood or only to hint at what I might mean?'

(p 421)

Back to list | Back home