Traveling through Reading

What does the presence of books in travel books reveal about both reading as well as traveling? From the evidence of Larry McMurtry 's recent short account of South Sea travel, Paradise, books do not so much accompany travel as threaten to supplant it. We can read a book anytime. We can presumably see the Marquises Islands only one time in our lives. And yet the real paradise may be the utter freedom to read that the trip releases rather than the trip itself.

Walter Benjamin on the Video Screen: Storytelling and Game Narratives

Walter Benjamin’s 1936 essay, “The Storyteller” (2006) defines storytelling as a mode of communication that is defined in part by its ability to offer listeners “counsel”, or meaningful wisdom or advice. This article considers the earmarks of storytelling as defined by Benjamin and by contemporary writer Larry McMurtry and argues this type of narrative experience can be offered via interactive media and, in particular, video games. After identifying the key characteristics of storytelling as set forth by Benjamin, the article proposes and advocates for a set of key characteristics of video game storytelling. In doing so, the article argues that effective narrative immersion can offer what Benjamin calls counsel, or wisdom, by refusing to provide pat answers or neat conclusions and suggests these as strategies for game writers and developers who want to provide educational or transformative experiences. Throughout, the article invokes historic and contemporary video games, asking for careful consideration of the ways in which games focused on sometimes highly personal narratives rely on storytelling techniques that instruct and transform and that can provide a rich framework for the design and writing of narrative games.