As a parallel to my documented conversation, I went to the library and randomly pulled books off the shelf. Without reading the synopsis, I photographed the book, then opened randomly to a page and found an excerpt that seemed to resonate with me. From that one excerpt I tried to deduce what the book was about. I found that in most cases, I did get a general idea of the overall story and/or tone of the book, as I discovered from subsequently reading the synopsis. I then wrote down an excerpt from the synopsis on the reverse side of the card. I pulled out story excerpts and synopses randomly from different books and matched them up. For every random excerpt, I was able to find a plausible match to a synopsis from a completely different book. Similarities also exist in the cover designs, particularly in use of brilliant color, especially yellows. Does brilliant yellow capture the essence of both of these stories? This experiment further exemplifies the importance of context for both visual and verbal meaning. We accept what we see or are told in the context in which it is presented.
Excerpt from The Good Works of Ayela Linde, by Charlotte Forbes:
“She was a night clerk at the Lemon Tree Inn before she met me, and used to bring him coffee from Cafe du Monde. That gave father something to go on about, thinking that it was some common ground they shared, the coffee, the beignets, the French Quarter.”
finds a connection with Gabriel’s Gift, by Hanif Kureishi, both stories center around making personal connections with other people as well as the father figure:
“Gabriel’s father, a washed-up rock musician, has been chucked out of the house. . .Gabriel dreams of being an artist. He finds solace and guidance through a mysterious connection to his deceased twin brother Archie, and his own knack for producing real objects simply by drawing them.”
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