The Journals
I have recently gained access to an interesting part of my family’s history: my great-grandfather’s journals. Rather than detailed accounts of how he felt and what was going on around him, like most journals, his simply consisted of straightforward statements about his day. He included things like the weather, people he talked to, where he went, and money gained and lost on each day. These journals are numerous, spanning from the 1940s to the 1990s, with a journal for every year, and an entry for most days.
My goal for this project is to create a book detailing the contents of these journals, the format and content of which will evolve as I read through them and assess what is there for me to work with. I would like to highlight the lack of emotion in these pages and the impersonal nature in which he recorded facts about his daily life, compared to who he was as a person and what the world was like around him.
Over the summer, I will work on researching these journals, and historical and meaningful events that may have impacted my great-grandfather’s life, in order to get greater context for the life he lived. I will interview my grandfather, who knew him best, and other members of my family that had memories with him. I will also search for and look at works that approach the cataloging of information, how they display this information, and the degree to which emotion is incorporated into their work. For example, the Feltron Report depicts dedicated daily recording of information, which is then displayed in graphs, charts, and lists, with very little emotion. In contrast, the book Adrift: The Curious Tale of the Lego Lost at Sea, displays a similar logging of information based on the exact number of Legos found on Cornish beaches. It consists of more than just facts and figures, adding written accounts and even poetry to create an emotional account that is a comment on ocean pollution, consumerism, and the joy of beachcombing.
It is interesting to me how much power a compiler of information has in terms of the degree of emotion displayed in their work, and what effect that has on the viewer. I hope to explore this when reading these unemotional journals, and when creating a book that utilizes that same information found in them.
I have recently gained access to an interesting part of my family’s history: my great-grandfather’s journals. Rather than detailed accounts of how he felt and what was going on around him, like most journals, his simply consisted of straightforward statements about his day. He included things like the weather, people he talked to, where he went, and money gained and lost on each day. These journals are numerous, spanning from the 1940s to the 1990s, with a journal for every year, and an entry for most days.
My goal for this project is to create a book detailing the contents of these journals, the format and content of which will evolve as I read through them and assess what is there for me to work with. I would like to highlight the lack of emotion in these pages and the impersonal nature in which he recorded facts about his daily life, compared to who he was as a person and what the world was like around him.
Over the summer, I will work on researching these journals, and historical and meaningful events that may have impacted my great-grandfather’s life, in order to get greater context for the life he lived. I will interview my grandfather, who knew him best, and other members of my family that had memories with him. I will also search for and look at works that approach the cataloging of information, how they display this information, and the degree to which emotion is incorporated into their work. For example, the Feltron Report depicts dedicated daily recording of information, which is then displayed in graphs, charts, and lists, with very little emotion. In contrast, the book Adrift: The Curious Tale of the Lego Lost at Sea, displays a similar logging of information based on the exact number of Legos found on Cornish beaches. It consists of more than just facts and figures, adding written accounts and even poetry to create an emotional account that is a comment on ocean pollution, consumerism, and the joy of beachcombing.
It is interesting to me how much power a compiler of information has in terms of the degree of emotion displayed in their work, and what effect that has on the viewer. I hope to explore this when reading these unemotional journals, and when creating a book that utilizes that same information found in them.
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