Video: Nick Cave Discusses Novel Written For - and Partially on - the iPhone
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The legendary Nick Cave, performer, recording artist, novelist, actor, screenwriter, and scorer of films, has pulled another rabbit out of his hat with The Death of Bunny Munro, a novel for three formats: paper, audiobook, and iPhone app. In a live video interview in New York, Cave sat down with us to discuss the unique challenges of publishing in these three formats — especially the mobile app, which offers new opportunities for the tasteful integration of multimedia elements into the reading experience. (If that sounds like a bunch of hocum, go with the paper version.)
The novel, which revolves around a hand cream salesman who is struggling — and not struggling — to control his appetites while caring — and not caring — for his son after his wife’s suicide, manages to be at various turns funny, tragic, and uplifting — sometimes all at the same time. Cave’s vivid imagery springs from the written page ($25 retail), but the audiobook ($35 retail, about half that as a download) offers more structure for the reader’s imagination: Nick Cave reading each chapter aloud over a score he composed with Warren Ellis to jibe with the story, which was “spatialized” by Arup Acoustics to add three-dimensional elements. Not only does the music go with the text, but it’s tied to key events and placed in various points in space around the reader — similar to the way films are scored.
That makes the audiobook quite an immersive experience when heard through headphones. But the iPhone app ($21, iTunes link) goes even farther. It lets you toggle between the text and audiobook versions as you go. If you get tired of reading on the iPhone’s small screen, toggle over to the audio version to hear Nick Cave read from right where you left off. You can scroll by tilting or with your finger, and the app includes videos of Cave reading of ten of the book’s chapters (some of which you can find on YouTube).
We caught up with Nick Cave at his publisher’s New York office to find out what it was like writing the first chapter of the book on an iPhone and whether multi-pronged approaches like this represent the future of the novel:
See Also:
- Exclusive Clip: Hear Nick Cave Read The Death of Bunny Munro
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Source: Eliot Van Buskirk
