It started back in February. One line of Ulysses every 15 minutes. It took 257 days. On November 13 the last of the 24765 lines was published.
For those unfamiliar with Twitter, it is a social networking service that only allows 140 characters per message. Some call it micro-blogging, on one hand it seems like blogging ADD style while on the other it presents a fresh, new template for expression.
The folks at Booktwo.org deserve a ton credit for this project. This is Literature 2.0 as much as it is Book 2.0. Booktwo.org says the core of their mission is “to explore the intersections of literature and technology.”
They have succeeded admirably. The Twitter edition deserves entry into the Joyce canon and any significant collection of Joyceiana would seem to require it.
And yet, amazingly, it also begs to be printed. All 20 something thousand pages. A printed back-up.
It also cries out conceptually; the gallery room filled with the printed version of the twitter edition with a copy of the first printing of the book right by its side.
Not all technologies replace something; some simply enhance the existing. Printed books are still a dominant technology. A book can be altered, it can be filmed, it’s content can be delivered in new ways but a book is still a book. It is still where all this begins.