Against Information: Reading (in) the Electronic Waste Land

Andrew Klobucar argues that a new iPad app for The Waste Land demonstrates, despite the developer's intentions and Eliot's fears, that the symbolic form of the database is irrepressible. According to Klobucar, Eliot bemoans the cultural impact of new media and technological innovation, though his poem--particularly through Pound's editorial notes and Eliot's added annotations--employs the structure of a database. The app for The Waste Land attempts to mitigate this tension by promoting a single legitimate version of the poem, though the app's structure ultimately works against that model, as it frees readers from the imposed authority of singular narrative.