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 In some quarters technology is seen as the death-knell of
literature, but the Joyce app developed by University College
Dublin (UCD) is a runaway hit. It was downloaded 5,000 times in
48 hours — five times the sales of Ireland's best-selling work
of fiction that week, Donal Ryan's "The Spinning Heart".
"He's our boy, he went to UCD, so we've always had this special
relationship with the Joyce tradition," said Gerardine Meaney,
leader of the project and director of the humanities institute
at UCD.
"It was great to think of them all sitting down and enjoying
it," she said of the thousands of downloaders.
"The Dead", often rated one of the best short stories of the
20th century, joins other works including Shakespeare's sonnets,
T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" and children's classic "The Wind in
the Willows" as early adaptations to an app format for Apple's
iPad that may change the way people read and appreciate
literature.
Released on the 100th anniversary of the first publication of
"Dubliners", the acclaimed collection which includes "The Dead"
as its final story, the app includes the full text as well as
McGovern's reading — plus a whole lot more.
Joyce's words are set alongside commentary looking at music and
history in the narrative, where music plays a crucial role, as
well as images of Dublin during Joyce's time and the background
of the house on Usher's Island where a lavish dinner party is
hosted by the Morkan sisters.
Readers can delve deeper into the early 20th century setting,
from the opening Epiphany party at the house on the banks of the
Liffey to the snow-bound horse-carriage journey to the plush
Gresham hotel where the main character, Gabriel Conroy, realizes
his marriage is an empty shell.
Some consider the tale not only as a marker of its times, with
its debate of Irishness as the question of independence became
ever more important, but also a ghost story, along the lines of
Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw", about how the dead can
haunt the happiness of the living.
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 The app cost more than 70,000 euros ($96,000) to develop over
more than four years but is available for free, in part thanks
to funding by Ireland's Higher Education Authority.
"The concept is quite simple — to use technology to try and
generate an audience beyond the stereotypical," said Marc Caball,
a senior lecturer at UCD's School of History and Archives.
POETRY
Other apps have tended to focus on poetry, because it lends itself
to being read out loud, but the release of "The Dead", where Joyce's
use of prose verges on the poetic, indicates that other works are
also suitable.
"User experience is incredibly important — you don't want people
getting lost or bored," said Anne Brady of technology firm
Vermillion Design, which worked on the app with UCD.
In Dublin, Vermillion has already worked on an app to showcase
rare manuscripts and printed books from the historic Marsh's
Library, giving the general public access to material people would
not otherwise be able to read at their leisure.
Travel books could also adapt well to apps, allowing more
interaction between readers and the place they are visiting,
provided that wireless Internet is available, said John O'Connor,
head of art and tourism at Dublin Institute of Technology.
"There's a challenge and there's an opportunity, and I think more
and more people are looking at it," O'Connor said.
UCD's Meaney meanwhile has something immensely more ambitious — and
Irish — in mind.
"My dream project is to do 'Ulysses'," she said, referring to
Joyce's epic novel about one day and night in Dublin that in some
editions is 1,000 pages long.
($1 = 0.7307 euros)
(Editing by Michael Roddy and Catherine
Evans)
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