Roza Abdulridha
Professor Yerks
Comp 106
14 December 2008
Microserfs: A Visual Art
Many people have used visual images in their writings to reinforce their messages. In what ways does Coupland use text-based visual art to good effect in Microserfs? At what point does his book become a visual art rather than a literary art experience?
In his novel, “Microserfs,” author Douglas Coupland uses text-based visual art to allow the reader to feel the realm, attitude, and perspective of the novel itself and not just as a literary content. He does so by assigning a different font style for emails, Dan’s diary entries, as well as random entries into the “subconscious file.” Coupland uses these fonts to create a moving and real script, where the reader can place him or herself in the novel, and at the same time take the reader back to the time period of the 1990s.
There is a standard font that is used for the general content of the novel; including conversations. However, to distinguish a conversation about Shiatsu between Karla and Dan and an email between Dan and Abe, Coupland uses a bold typewriter style font. When the reader comes across an email between Abe and Dan, he or she can visualize the appearance of this email on Dan’s PowerBook. The reader can also easily track the progress of these emails as if he or she is receiving these emails with Dan. At one point through the emails, Dan realizes that “Abe’s email is getting more frequent and more personal” (Coupland 186). The reader can skim through the pages and spot any bolded typewriter style font and recognize that it corresponds to an email from Abe, just as Dan can view these messages on his computer. In addition to the emails, the copy and paste of the words “money” and “machine” on an entire page to the reader is seen as a screen shot of the document while Dan typed the words in.
Another font style used is the bigger font bolded words that Dan inserts into his subconscious file. As Dan stares at his PowerBook, he wonders, “ ‘what’s going through their heads?’” (Coupland 44). Thus whenever a reader comes across a page filled with random big font bolded words; he or she can just envision this subconscious file with these words typed into it as if the screen is in front of him or her. The novel becomes a visual art beginning at the point where Dan creates his subconscious file.
These font styles that Coupland uses create a moving and real novel, where the reader experiences the events as Dan does; whether receiving an email from Abe or inserting words into the subconscious file. As a result, the reader can sense how technology operated during the 1990s because the text that used is similar to that used when computers were first created.
Works Cited
Coupland, Douglas. Microserfs. New York: ReganBooks, 1996.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
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