Ask any manual aficionado for a list of the most important user guides and instruction booklets in the last twenty years, and a few titles will invariably crop up more than others. 1988’s Xerox BSIV Photocopier; 1990’s Commodore Junket v.1.01; 1992’s Sony XLS Discman; 1998’s Nokia 22-22; 2001’s Ikea Munta Cabinet Kit; 2005’s Trapped Butterfly metal puzzle solution. The connection between these influential instruction manuals? They were all written by Gordian, the most sought-after and innovative user guide-writer in the business.
A new Gordian-penned instruction manual always creates waves of excitement amongst instruction book fans, and the new Canon 8300 Combined Printer/Scanner has been hotly anticipated since it was announced that this would be Gordian’s first project in nearly three years. But would it be worth the wait? Well, I have a much-prized pre-release copy, and I can say, without fear of hyperbole, that it is not just better than any other recent instruction manuals, it is the highlight of Gordian’s career.
From the first chapter onwards, the 8300’s instruction booklet is an absolute joy to read. The highlight for me is Chapter 8: Troubleshooting. On first view, it appears to be a normal series of questions and answers, much as one would find in any regular instruction booklet. But closer inspection reaps many rewards. The entire chapter is an acrostic, with the first letter of every word forming a very long sentence advising the reader what to do if they have no problems with the hardware, and reminding them how lucky they are. If the layering of messages ended there, it would be just another Gordian trick, but the great man has outdone himself, forming yet another acrostic using the first letters of each word in this acrostic! A meta-acrostic! Incredible! I will leave it for the reader to find out what it says, but suffice to say, I have followed the advice contained within and my salary has doubled as a result.
This manual sees a new stage in Gordian’s career and a new string to his bow with the hitherto-unseen appearance of poetry. The second chapter (Easy Set-up) is written alternately in iambic hexameter and haiku. Sometimes it is even written in a combination of the two, which is technically impossible, but somehow Gordian manages it. I showed a sample of his work to a famous literary professor in London and he wept. That’s how good it is.
Chapter 3 is yet another triumph, where Gordian outdoes his past victories. The subject of this section is the installation of the software that accompanies the printer, but instructions on how to uninstall it are nowhere to be seen. It was only after flicking through the book several times, convinced that maybe the great Gordian had made a terrible omission, that I realised that uninstalling instructions are found by reading the installation chapter backwards! Of course! How simple, and yet so effective! Gordian fans will be interested to note that this chapter replaces his customary palindromic chapter, in a wonderful evolution of his style.
The rest of Gordian’s touches are evident throughout the manual. If one takes a single piece of paper and traces every single full stop mark throughout the book, one will once again find a pointillist reproduction of a Renaissance masterpiece (though I won’t spoil the surprise by saying which one!). The ratio of nouns to verbs is, as ever, 1.618, the Golden Ratio. And so on.
And lest I be accused of concentrating this review on the tricks and touches that make Gordian’s booklets so special, I should say a word on the quality of writing. As always, Gordian’s prose remains easy to understand and not overly technical, while still stopping short of insulting the reader’s intelligence. Indeed, after reading through the manual the first time I began to re-read Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and was moved to throw it down in disgust and stamp on it with my feet; it just didn’t match up to what I had just been reading. Also, the diagrams are superb; Gordian has once again captured the very essence of the USB cable. The guide to the buttons on the printer is so beautiful, it really does create an infinite regression between the spirit of the ideal and the concrete in a way that would make Hegel piss his pants with aesthetic pleasure. I know I did.
I could write superlatives about the Canon 8300’s manual all day, but I will stop so that the reader can go out and get their own copy. But hurry, for they are sure to fly off the shelves faster than free bagels, such is the genius of this work.
The Imaginary Reviewer would like to thank the editorial staff of Instruction Manual Lover Monthly and many of the regulars on www.manualsmanualsmanuals.com for their assistance with this review.
Showing posts with label Literary Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Literary Review. Show all posts
Sunday, 1 June 2008
Sunday, 25 May 2008
A Review of the Viral Story
Splotchy’s second viral story, started several weeks ago on the blog I, Splotchy, shows no sign of abating. The sheer length of column inches dedicated to the general phenomenon is growing, and the number of articles on the subject are too numerous to count, let alone discuss here. A few do stand out, however, and interested parties would be well advised to seek out Christopher Hitchens’ Splotchy’s Viral Story: A Game of Consequences for the Blogosphere (The Atlantic, May 2008, p 28-34). Also worth a look are John Searle’s article for the journal Mind, entitled Splotchy’s Viral Story as Evidence of Jungian Collective Unconscious (May 2008, p 3-7, with an opposing article by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett in the same issue, p 8-10), and Julie Birchill’s article for the May 18 Observer, No Vaccine Required: A Virus Worth Having. Given the multitude of writers commenting on the viral story as a whole, I thought I’d turn my attention to a particular offshoot, which I have entitled The Russian Story.
As with all versions of the story, we begin with the receipt of a mysterious package, as told by Splotchy himself. The address is smudged, and it appears to have been hand delivered. This is good; there is much scope for advancement of the story. As Christopher Wise writes in Diacritics, the basis for a well-realised viral story is open-endedness. Here, Splotchy has left a variety of readings available for the situation at hand (proof of this is to be found in the myriad of ways in which the story has been taken from these beginnings).
From here on in the story takes a variety of intriguing turns, involving a note from within the package, Russians and a trip to the airport that ends with our loner waking up, drugged, in the back of a cab. The caretakers of each avenue of the viral story – Bubs, Splotchy again, SamuraiFrog and Captain Incredible – have done a marvellous job in following on from where the previous author left off. There is cohesion, yet each voice remains intact, individual. Here lies another benefit of the viral story as an art form: The ability to write in numerous voices is much prized in today’s literary market, and what better way to achieve this than to have numerous writers? Sometimes, the best answer is the most obvious.
But all good things must come to an end, and, while the previous custodians of the story are to be applauded for their additions, they are sadly let down by the next bearer of the viral story torch. The Imaginary Reviewer, a blogger whose sole ability seems to be writing reviews of things that don’t exist, takes the baton from Captain Incredible, and, I regret to say, undoes all the good work done by his predecessors.
The Imaginary Reviewer’s section doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the story’s aesthetic. Problems begin when the unnamed main character finds himself transported to an abandoned warehouse. For someone who seems to pride himself on their imagination, The IR has picked the most obvious and trite location possible! A train station, a suburban house, even a small café specialising in brunches would be more interesting than an abandoned warehouse! But no, The Imaginary Reviewer presumably has used up his imagination reviewing hats.
Next, The Imaginary Reviewer has his character tied to a chair – how original – and after a short wait introduces a new character, presumably the instigator of the whole affair. Things do start to improve here; it appears that the bad guy of the piece is a well-known children’s character called Desmond the Dinosaur (in actual fact a guy called Gerald in a large, fuzzy, green suit). Our hero knows nothing about Desmond, and has no idea why the TV ‘star’ has captured him. He asks about the package and the money, and it seems Desmond has no idea what our hero is talking about. Our character’s receipt of the package and his kidnapping would appear to be coincidental.
And so, with that, The Imaginary Reviewer allows the story to be carried on by someone else. I pity the poor soul who has been left with this detritus after such promising beginnings. (For his sins, Splotchy has been tagged again, but how he’ll manage to salvage anything from the Imaginary Reviewer’s mess is beyond me). I mean, the whole story has been ruined by the IR. The dinosaur character, while presumably added for levity, just looks like the writer is trying to claw back some interest from a story that he has spoiled beyond recognition. The coincidental element of the package arriving the same day a stranger plans a kidnapping is harder to swallow than a razorblade sandwich. All in all, I think the Imaginary Reviewer should be ashamed of himself for the injustice he has done to Splotchy’s story, and viral stories in general.
I would add a concluding comment here, but I’m just too damn upset.
As with all versions of the story, we begin with the receipt of a mysterious package, as told by Splotchy himself. The address is smudged, and it appears to have been hand delivered. This is good; there is much scope for advancement of the story. As Christopher Wise writes in Diacritics, the basis for a well-realised viral story is open-endedness. Here, Splotchy has left a variety of readings available for the situation at hand (proof of this is to be found in the myriad of ways in which the story has been taken from these beginnings).
From here on in the story takes a variety of intriguing turns, involving a note from within the package, Russians and a trip to the airport that ends with our loner waking up, drugged, in the back of a cab. The caretakers of each avenue of the viral story – Bubs, Splotchy again, SamuraiFrog and Captain Incredible – have done a marvellous job in following on from where the previous author left off. There is cohesion, yet each voice remains intact, individual. Here lies another benefit of the viral story as an art form: The ability to write in numerous voices is much prized in today’s literary market, and what better way to achieve this than to have numerous writers? Sometimes, the best answer is the most obvious.
But all good things must come to an end, and, while the previous custodians of the story are to be applauded for their additions, they are sadly let down by the next bearer of the viral story torch. The Imaginary Reviewer, a blogger whose sole ability seems to be writing reviews of things that don’t exist, takes the baton from Captain Incredible, and, I regret to say, undoes all the good work done by his predecessors.
The Imaginary Reviewer’s section doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the story’s aesthetic. Problems begin when the unnamed main character finds himself transported to an abandoned warehouse. For someone who seems to pride himself on their imagination, The IR has picked the most obvious and trite location possible! A train station, a suburban house, even a small café specialising in brunches would be more interesting than an abandoned warehouse! But no, The Imaginary Reviewer presumably has used up his imagination reviewing hats.
Next, The Imaginary Reviewer has his character tied to a chair – how original – and after a short wait introduces a new character, presumably the instigator of the whole affair. Things do start to improve here; it appears that the bad guy of the piece is a well-known children’s character called Desmond the Dinosaur (in actual fact a guy called Gerald in a large, fuzzy, green suit). Our hero knows nothing about Desmond, and has no idea why the TV ‘star’ has captured him. He asks about the package and the money, and it seems Desmond has no idea what our hero is talking about. Our character’s receipt of the package and his kidnapping would appear to be coincidental.
And so, with that, The Imaginary Reviewer allows the story to be carried on by someone else. I pity the poor soul who has been left with this detritus after such promising beginnings. (For his sins, Splotchy has been tagged again, but how he’ll manage to salvage anything from the Imaginary Reviewer’s mess is beyond me). I mean, the whole story has been ruined by the IR. The dinosaur character, while presumably added for levity, just looks like the writer is trying to claw back some interest from a story that he has spoiled beyond recognition. The coincidental element of the package arriving the same day a stranger plans a kidnapping is harder to swallow than a razorblade sandwich. All in all, I think the Imaginary Reviewer should be ashamed of himself for the injustice he has done to Splotchy’s story, and viral stories in general.
I would add a concluding comment here, but I’m just too damn upset.
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