Thursday 17 April 2014

Quick Hits: Project Bookmark

Project Bookmark Canada is a fascinating initiative to place poems and stories in the exact physical location where they take place. A passage from Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion was placed at the Bloor Street Viaduct here in Toronto, for example. The exercise raises a number of interesting questions regarding fiction and reality, and how fiction can shape our sense of place. It reminds me a bit of how avid filmgoers will sometimes make pilgrimages to places where a scene was filmed. Although New Zealand is not actually Tolkien's Middle Earth, there is something that makes that fantastical realm seem more real upon discovering these somewhat other-worldly landscapes here in our own world.

Bookmark and Share

2 comments:

Angeliki said...

I love this idea! When I visit a new city/ town/ country, I always try to find books that took place there to bring with me.

Raymond A. Mar said...

How wonderful! I know that Keith Oatley is currently working on ideas related to pilgrimage, when readers make trek to locations where books take place for example. Keep an eye out for something from him at some point in the future.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...