You Can't Read In Isolation

In the digital age, you cannot read a book in isolation.
What does that mean?


Think to that last time you read a book without any prior knowledge of it, thinking you had stumbled across something extraordinary that only you knew about.  Now remember that Google search you did of said book and realized that there were already a million and a half people talking about it.  In fact there were several movies adaptations (which then led you to a Youtube search), blogs, and reviews on it.

Or you saw a movie, or watched a play, or listened to a soundtrack and later realized it was a book, so you picked it up in order to see how the [insert digital medium] compared with the "real" story.

There seem to be two options nowadays:  either you picked up that book you thought no one knew about and realized your ignorance as you climb on the bandwagon, or you picked up that book because of some other medium through which you had experienced the novel.

The digital world is changing the way we go about experiencing literature.  There is hardly a classic work out there that has not been made into a movie, a play, inspired music, written about in some form or another, the list goes on.  Every work of literature we experience has been influenced by this changing digital culture.  You don't have to rely on only the text anymore.

In my own research of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, I realized I hadn't even experienced the work of literature in its primary text.  I read an English translation.  The work was already a secondary source when I picked it up.  Now I have seen secondary and tertiary sources regarding this work of literature to an extent that I could not have predicted.  I have listened to the audiobook, toyed with blogs, seen it performed on stage in dance, drama, and musical adaptations.  All these versions have influenced the way I see and read the novel.  I am not relying on the words, but am drawing conclusions about the words through imagery and audio.

All these mediums have added to the way one experiences The Hunchback.  The digital world is expanding and enhancing the literary world.  Should we resist it because it is not the book or should we embrace it because it is a different way of experiencing the book?