Penguin books recently launched a six-week innovative literature project. Several well-known authors present digital fiction based on classics. Charles Cumming, for example, utilizes googlemaps to re-interpret John Buchan's "39 steps". In a modern version of M.R. James' "The haunted dolls' house" the characters blog and twitter their way through the story. Fairy tales can finally become true, as readers can choose characters and endings in their versions of Grimm's stories and 1001 Nights.
My favorite though, is Matt Mason and Nicholas Felton's take on "Hard Times". Charles Dicken's classic novel is about a man's effort to cope with the social and economic pressures in 19th century England. The story is set in an industrial town, in an age of materialism and machines. The main character initially values rationality and facts above everything else. As a school principal he completely bans imagination from his curriculum. And as a father he uses statistics to convince his daughter to marry an old, heartless business man. After a series of twists and turns, however, he is forced to recognize the importance of creativity and emotions for society and his personal well-being.
Take a look at Mason and Felton's graphical interpretation of today's value of statistics, facts and fancy. Maybe "Hard Times" can become good times in a globalized world and social and economic pressures can become possibilities in an age of communication and connections. Imagination and rationality are no longer mutually exclusive, but reinforce each other.
I would think some of those trends are rather harmful for a publishing house of old-fashioned novels. However, if Penguin continues its innovative online ventures, I am sure they will continue to do just fine in the future. True classics never go out of style, after all.
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