What if a *book* had a mind of its own?

[capri0mni]

Okay... So, this isn't part of an actual story or a full-born plot bunny(yet), but just a thought-bone that my imagination has been chewing on, and I'm feeling compelled to work it out.

There's the "Secret Life of Toys" trope, where a child's toys are intelligent beings with lives of their own. Pixar's Toy Story movies are the latest version of that, but there's also The Brave Tin Soldier and The Velveteen Rabbit (and I think there was a horror movie, Chuck).

Anyway, I've latched onto the notion of an old book somehow becoming intelligent, and having a life of its own, by "absorbing" some of the thoughts and memories of each of the people who've read it over the years: One person's anger in reaction to a particular part of the story, one person's happy memories triggered by another part, someone else's boredom and daydreams, and so on. And each of those separate parts gets knitted into a whole new identity, and "mind," which becomes independant from the original intention of the book's author.

The thing is: the whole reason to have awareness and intelligence is so that you can interact with and move through the world. It's easy to imagine dolls and other toys in this way because they have bodies (of a sort).

How would a book, with an intelligence and will of its own, act on its will? It's hard to be a protagonist (or antagonist) if you can't actually do anything for yourself.

Since "Body" equals "Movement," at least on some level, I'm thinking that the book's mind might be bound up in the movement of pen on paper, when its letters were formed...

But I don't know. Any ideas?

Comments

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I did put a book-character in a story once, a grimore. It had feet, but didn't move until the very end anyhow.

Also, body =/= motion and motion =/= character. It often seems that way because almost all characters are mobile humans. But some humans are not mobile, and some characters are neither human nor mobile. In such cases, the different perspective shapes the story into something new and memorable, if handled well.

One might, for instance, imagine that a book experiences life through its readers in some fashion.

Re: Hmm...

[capri0mni]

Well, let me say where I'm coming from on this.

First off, I have CP, which is a "mobility disorder," so I totally understand that Movement =/= Character (or rather that "Quality of Movement" =/= "Quality of Character"). But even someone who lives with "Locked In Syndrome" has a beating heart, and that's movement. And even someone who has no capability of voluntary movement, can feel the sensation of movement, and can move through the world with the aid of technology.

And even trees and plants -- things that we consider "immobile" grow their roots and branches, and that's movement, too.

Second, I'm fresh from watching the Brain Series of programs on Charlie Rose, where he talked with a range of different scientists on our emerging understanding on the biology of the brain and consciousness. And in the segment on motor function and how that influences the way we perceive our own minds, one neurobiologist cited the case of an animal called the Sea Squirt, which, in its larval stage, swims through the water, and has a simple brain and central nervous system. But then, as it matures, it becomes a sedentary filter feeder, anchored on rocks. And the first thing it does is digets its own brain and nerves, for food, because it doesn't need them, anymore.

And yes, I know -- fantasy literature can create its own world, with its own rules, independent of factual science; but I like to build my metaphors around at least a seed of what I know about the actual world around me.

"Brain" =/= "Mind" or "Soul" (necessarily).

But "Intelligence" <--> "Deciding" <--> "Navigating the Outside World" <--> "Causing Change" did seem, to me, to be as good a starting point as any for understanding fictional character.