By Rose Benjamin
Illustrations in books, especially novels, can either be useful visual aid or unnecessary. Sometimes, the charm of the story is how the reader can envision the characters and setting themselves. When a character's physical appearance has little do with the story or the mood of the book, vague verbal descriptions (or none at all) are enough. Other times, however, visuals can help set the mood of the story and give characters personality.
When the text already provides extensive description or properties of the environment are written to be vague, illustrations break the intent of the text, providing detail that should have been imagined by the reader. Unnecessarily showing how characters look can also ruin the reader's unique experience and make it more similar to everyone else's. People may have in their heads a certain design for a character, and be set on it. An illustration of said character would ruin their perception of the character, especially if the character's appearance was unimportant to the story.
However, sometimes illustrations server good purposes. For example, if a character had a certain facial expression that is difficult to describe, illustration could aid the description. This type of aid could also apply to other visual features, such as hairstyle or clothing. The shading of the illustration can also provide lighting to set the mood of the scene or story, or just portray the lighting of the scene. Many illustrations I have seen depict the structure of landscapes or buildings in more detail than the text goes into, which helps to give the reader a better understanding of the environment the story takes place in.
I always thought illustrating a book would be just like drawing whatever but this post made me realize that people have to be more methodical about that kind of thing. I remember times I imagined a character in my own way in a book or something and watching a adaptation and being a bit put off. I dunno if the same thing can be said about book illustrations since there isn't much time for me to imagine my own version of the character before seeing a picture but I definitely can see someone feeling weird about it.
ReplyDeleteI think your final point about illustrations on the environment is a really good one. Much of the time, I'll be reading a book and I'll be really confused as to how the scene is laid out; it's difficult to convey distance and whatnot in an elegant manner, so illustrations help a lot.
ReplyDeleteLove your post! I can remember quite a few books where I create a version of the character in my head and when I saw an illustration of them being quite shocked. Even with the most descriptive character profiles I always seem to have a different picture of a character vs. what it actually is. Also love your point about illustrations ruining one perceptions. I remember one time I created an elaborate setting in my head, but when I saw a picture of the setting it's simple and a bit boring.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post! I think that visual aids are necessary for books because sometimes the character's appearance doesn't quite match up with the ideas we have in our heads, and they can help us to understand more about the character and their role in the story. However, sometimes being left to our imaginations is nice because then we can put ourselves into the characters shoes and "become" them.
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