“Continuous Narratives” and “Fragmented Records” in the World of Scrolls, Books, and the Digital…

Humans have created various forms of records to pass on their experiences, thoughts, and the collective memory of their communities to future generations. These forms are not merely "containers." How we record information is deeply connected to what we choose to preserve as memory, how we interpret it, and how we understand the world. The difference between scrolls and codices — that is, between scrolls and books — goes beyond a mere formal distinction of whether paper is rolled up or bound. It can be said that these are two intellectual forms that direct time, narrative, knowledge, culture, and the nature of human attention in different directions.

A scroll is a format in which text and images are arranged horizontally, allowing the reader to progress by unrolling it bit by bit. In Chinese hand-scrolls and Japanese picture scrolls, the viewer can move through the narrative by unrolling the scroll from right to left. Scenes already viewed disappear from view, while only those yet to be seen gradually come into view. With this mechanism, the content is not presented in its entirety at once. The viewer reads and observes as if walking through the recorded world. The passage of time there is not an abstract sequence of numbers, but is experienced as a physical sensation.

It can be said that the characteristics of this format are particularly well illustrated in works such as Japan's The Tale of Genji Emaki and Legend of Mount Shigi, as well as China's Along the River During the Qingming Festival. People, buildings, mountains and rivers, seasons, actions, and events unfold within a continuous spatial framework, and the viewer advances the narrative simply by unfolding the scroll. In this medium, images and text, space and time, and the acts of seeing and reading are inextricably and deeply intertwined. Each scene carries the resonance of the previous one and hints at what is to come. Rather than simply arranging content as independent fragments, the scroll is a medium that readily preserves the relationships between events.

In this sense, scrolls can be seen as a physical embodiment of the continuity of records. For example, when the actions of an individual, changes in a particular region, the rituals of a community, or the history of a family lineage are recorded on a scroll, they are preserved not as isolated points but as a continuous flow. What came first, what followed, and what circumstances led to the current state are understood within the context of the overall flow and progression. The narrative quality of a scroll does not simply mean that it contains a story with a clear beginning, development, turning point, and conclusion. Rather, it refers to the very structure in which individual events exist without being severed from the events that preceded and followed them.

In contrast, the codex — the book form that evolved into modern books — consists of sheets of paper of the same size stacked on top of one another and bound together. It can be said that this format has brought immense benefits to the advancement of human knowledge. By utilizing features such as page numbers, tables of contents, indexes, headings, chapter divisions, bookmarks, quotations, and annotations, readers can quickly return to the sections they need. They can focus on specific concepts, people, dates, or topics without having to read from beginning to end in sequence. Books are, therefore, an excellent format for organizing knowledge into easily referenceable units.

The strength of the codex lies not only in preserving knowledge, but also in the ability to compare, classify, reorganize, and verify it. In a medical text, one can look up treatments based on symptoms; in a legal text, one can reference provisions by their numbers; and in an academic text, other researchers can refer to and cite specific arguments. It can be said that the development of academia, public administration, education, science, and legal systems since the modern era has been underpinned by the book format, which divides knowledge into detailed segments and renders it reusable. The codex is well-suited for managing vast and complex systems of knowledge.

However, this advantage is also its limitation. While pages serve as convenient dividers, precisely because they are dividers, they disrupt the flow of the text. The relationships between preceding and following sections, the circumstances surrounding the text's creation, the narrator's perspective, the context specific to a particular place, and the meanings accumulated over time often become diluted in the process of being extracted as a single page, a single heading, a single quotation, or a single summary. Books are, by their very nature, a medium that allows for reading the whole. However, the more convenient they become for reference, the greater the likelihood that readers will read only the necessary passages rather than the entire text. Knowledge conveyed through the codex (book form) tends to be treated more as "searchable components" than as a narrative.

It could be said that the modern Internet has further reinforced this codex-like nature. Search engines, links, headlines, tags, databases, social media posts, short video clips, and summaries are mechanisms designed to instantly extract necessary information from a vast sea of data. These are indispensable to modern society and should not be dismissed. In many fields — such as medical information, disaster information, research materials, administrative procedures, maps, transportation, and education — the ability to access the necessary information when needed holds significant public value.

However, we must not forget that this convenience also carries the risk of causing us to lose sight of the context surrounding information. A single statement is taken out of context and evaluated without any knowledge of its historical background. A single photograph or video clip is widely shared, while the circumstances under which it was taken — and what happened before and after — are forgotten. A single statistic is presented, while what that number measures and the conditions under which it was obtained are omitted. The shorter, faster, and easier it becomes to share information, the harder it is to see the context. The problem facing our modern age is not a lack of records. Rather, it lies in the fact that there is an excess of records, and because only a portion of them is selected, extracted, and circulated, the overall meaning is lost.

Here, the issues of globalization and systematization reveal yet another aspect. Globalization serves as a force that connects people, goods, information, and cultures across different regions. As a result, the ability to experience food, alcohol, music, crafts, films, and ideas from distant regions clearly holds the potential to enrich our lives. At the same time, however, there is always the risk that the complex context underpinning a regional culture will be oversimplified in the process of adapting it into a form suitable for circulation in the global market.

Taking drinking culture as an example, certain distilled and brewed alcoholic beverages are not merely "liquid commodities." In essence, their taste and aroma should embody a complex interplay of local water, climate, ingredients, barrels, production techniques, the artisan's judgment, regional labor, family history, connections to festivals and meals, and the accumulated lessons from years of trial and error. The true value of sake cannot be measured by the name on the label alone. However, as large corporations acquire companies and global sales expand, sake tends to be designed as a product suited for mass distribution. There is always the risk that bottles will be redesigned to stand out in the international market, flavors will be homogenized to appeal to a broad consumer base, and the unique stories of each region will be compressed into brief advertising slogans.

In this context, the term "Scotch whiskey," for example, is a word that conveys the cultural significance built up by the land and history of Scotland, yet at the same time, it has become a generic label used in global markets. Consumers associate that label with images of the Scottish landscape, distilleries, artisans, traditions, and aging. However, it is impossible to judge from the label alone how closely the actual product is connected to the specific context of that region or the lives of its people. While a name is meant to be a gateway to a long story, within the flow of commerce, it can become a symbol that conveys value while omitting the story as a whole.

The same structure can be found in food culture, crafts, tourism, and regional brands. Terms such as "washoku," "matcha," "Zen," "artisanal craftsmanship," "Nordic design," and "Mediterranean cuisine" can be said to condense diverse and complex lifestyles into brief symbols. In the sense that this symbolic nature attracts people's interest and creates a gateway to experiencing the culture, it is certainly effective and beneficial. However, if the "symbolic nature" of these terms takes on a life of its own, there is a risk that the internal differences within a region — such as historical contradictions, the realities of labor, the difficulties of传承, and the voices of minorities — will become invisible. In other words, there is a latent risk that culture will be treated not as a "living practice" but as a consumable "atmosphere."

Phenomena such as "McDonaldization" and "theme parkification" may also provide clues for considering this issue. It goes without saying that offering the same quality, the same procedures, the same appearance, and the same experience no matter where in the world one is offers significant advantages in terms of hygiene, safety, price, and convenience. However, the more everything converges toward a predictable and uniform format, the more local differences, serendipity, the gradual formation of relationships, and the unique, uneven charms of each region are diminished. When historic streetscapes and folk culture are transformed into "experiential products" that are easy for tourists to understand, the complex history that a place has carried with it risks being reduced to a simplistic image. This can be seen as both an act of introducing culture and an act of obscuring part of that culture.

Systematization takes this issue to a deeper level. Operating systems like iOS and Android, search engines, social media, e-commerce, maps, translation tools, recommendation algorithms, and generative AI have become the foundation of modern life. These are not merely tools. They determine, on a daily basis, what is easy to find, what language is easy to use, what is presented as popular, and what is considered safe and standard expression. Rather than being neutral spaces, it is more accurate to describe these systems as environments with a designed perspective.

In this sense, globalization and systematization can be thought of as akin to "post-it notes stuck to a codex." Sticky notes are an excellent tool for quickly locating important passages within a massive book. However, if you read only the passages marked with sticky notes, you won't grasp the book's overall picture. Furthermore, if it's unclear who placed the sticky notes or by what criteria, readers tend to unconsciously perceive the marked passages as important and regard the unmarked sections as unimportant (or may not even notice them). Top search results, posts widely shared on social media, recommended videos, explanations provided by AI as representative examples, and brands that have become famous in the international market are all like modern-day versions of the codex's sticky notes. While they provide gateways to information, they simultaneously determine what is left outside those gateways.

Artificial intelligence, in particular, has a powerful ability to create "sticky notes." AI learns patterns from vast amounts of text and images, enabling it to generate plausible answers to questions in a short amount of time. However, the material AI uses to learn tends to be biased toward the language and expressions that already abound in the digital space. Regional dialects that are difficult to document, oral traditions, the wisdom preserved by small communities, unwritten techniques, and nuances that are hard to translate into mainstream language are all prone to becoming invisible within the system. While AI may appear to be generating information, in many cases it is merely making information that is already visible even more accessible. In this context, there is a risk that knowledge marked with "post-it notes" will be referenced even more frequently, while knowledge without such markers will be pushed further to the margins — and may even cease to be recognized at all.

What we need today is not to abandon the codex-style organization of knowledge and the convenience of digital systems in order to return to the world of scrolls. What we need is to consciously combine the speed of reference with the continuity of narrative, rather than pitting them against each other. While the ability to quickly retrieve necessary information is important, we must not forget that the ability to trace the history, places, human relationships, and values upon which that information is based is equally important.

When choosing sake, rather than basing your decision solely on brand names or rating scores, making an effort to learn about the distillery's location, ingredients, production methods, artisans, changes in distribution, and its relationship with the local community is an act that transforms a "product" back into a "story." The same applies when purchasing crafts: rather than simply looking at the "tradition" label, we should seek to understand who has inherited the techniques, how they were passed down, and the challenges faced during the creative process. In education as well, rather than treating knowledge as mere short summaries or search results, placing importance on the experience of taking the time to thoroughly engage with a single book, a single historical period, a single author, or a single region is a crucial "attitude toward understanding."

Placing importance on the narrative quality of scroll-like texts does not mean romanticizing the past or resisting change. Rather, it signifies an attitude of striving not to lose sight of the passage of time that led to the present form of a given thing. It can be said that culture is not a static relic but a living, ever-changing endeavor. However, for change to have meaning, it is desirable to understand what has changed, what has been passed down, and who determined that change. Change that preserves its narrative has the potential to become "creation" that involves a dialogue with the past. Conversely, change that has lost its context may end up being nothing more than a disjointed substitution — one that, having lost its context, is highly likely to be a degraded version of the original.

Modern record-keeping has become more abundant, faster, and more convenient than ever before. At the same time, however, the fragmentation of records and our reliance on systems that select specific fragments are also increasing. That is precisely why, even as we use sticky notes as convenient tools, we need to cultivate a perspective that reads the pages where no sticky notes are attached. We must return to the main text beyond the search results, to the land and people behind the brand names, and to the long history behind the brief descriptions. It could be said that the scroll has suggested a cultural understanding: that knowledge and culture are not inherently isolated pieces of information, but rather gain meaning through their connections. For those living in an era of digital and internet systems built on the "codex" model, the effort to restore that continuity has become a critical challenge for safeguarding cultural diversity and historical imagination.

English translation by DeepL, unreviewed by the author. The Japanese original is authoritative.