March 22, 2012
When I think of a book, I think of a paper or cardboard bound stack of papers with a story printed on neat black inked letters inside. But in these times that's not necessarily what a book is. Book are online, able to be downloaded (legally and illegally) and read on an electronic reading device. To me, a book will always be the cardboard bound papers with the neat black inked letters that fills the shelves in my den. I don't have any problem with "E-Books", but I think they shouldn't be called that. Something, instead, like "E-Stories". Because when you buy an "E-Book" you aren't getting a book, you are getting a story. The story is still the same story it would be inside the cardboard, typed in the fresh black ink...in the most technical sense. However, the BOOK itself no longer exsists. A book needs pages. It needs to give readers the satisfaction of getting further and further as you read more and more. The struggle of trying to pry open a stiff spined book and grasp the first 3 or so pages when you start and the last 3 or so when you end. Books need to smells. They need to smell like the basement it's been living in, or the old man's house you bought it from for $.25 at a garage sale. Even if it just smells like fresh paper straight from the Barnes & Noble press, a book needs a smell. I dare everyone with a kindle to right now sniff the front screen and I can almost guarantee it's not going to be anything special. I agree with Tom Piazza when he says that everything becomes 2-dimensional and flat. The screen traps the stories behind it, opposed to unleashing them in your room and allowing you to get lost.
I made up like 95% of what I just wrote because it sounded good. It doesn't make a huge difference to me. Although I loved the thing about grasping at pages in a stiff spined book, and like everyone, I do appreciate a good book-smell, I don't think the kindle kills the story. A book and a kindle are the same dimensions, if you want to get lost in the book, you can, no matter the medium. I do agree with Victor LaValle when he says it's very Old Testament way of thinking but there is a line. Obviously my 2004 copy of Magic Tree House isn't my most prized possession, but a copy of Jane Eyre, however dull it may be, that was one of the first ever copied and printed with the pretty gold edges and the fancy leather cover is going to be more treasurable. I liked the part LaValle wrote about "Other melodramatic nonsense". That's all this issue is. I'm sure that Charlie Sheen, Steve Carrell, and Hilary Swank would be just fine posing for their tasteful library posters clutching a kindle in their hands. Publishers and authors just don't appreciate the pay cuts.
