April 16, 2009
Taipei, Taiwan
While I was in NYC last month I saw quiet a few people with a Kindle reading device on the subway. As I constantly struggle with the weight of my bag and all the stuff, necessary or not, that is in it, a Kindle seems like just the right thing. It would be light, compact and it would ensure that I would always have a book on me, as the book is always the first to go when I try to make my bag a bit lighter.
Yet, I just can’t seem to quiet get with it. I LOVE books! I love the weight, the smell, the sound of pages turning, the different sizes and the feeling of holding one in your hand in anticipation of discovering all the wonderful knowledge it contains. I love writing in my books and making notes or underlining passages that resonates with me or that I have an argument with. I love how the pages yellow and it grows old with you. I love the cracked spine and when you re-read that book, there is a secret history that unravels that you and the book have created together. I love the memory the physical presence the book can evoke.”Oh, yes, we bought this at that used book store on the corner next to the Hungarian bakery, then that night, as I was in the tube reading, you came in and…” which is why the book looks like its been soaked and re-dried.
All of these ideas and feelings that the physicality the book invokes cannot be replaced by a digital reading device, irrespective of how convenient and sensible it maybe. Yet the invention of the Kindle is just another step in our cultural evolution.
Gutenberg and the printing press has reigned supreme and changed the course of human cultural evolution like none-other. Will Kindle give Gutenberg a run for its money as it effects publishing and writing and acts as another brick in the wall of our changing notion of possession and ownership?
On the other hand, a new digital reading device being developed by a company called Plastic Logic that is the size of 8×10 which is meant to be a digital reading device specifically for magazines and news papers is something that I can get behind. We some how do not have the same feelings of attachment towards periodicals or newspapers. We read them and we toss them. There is no love lost when you throw out yesterday’s New York Times. What is it about a book, a physical book, a collection of ink, paper and glue that can quicken and pulse and make you giddy like a school girl? Its pure magic somehow. Maybe our DNA has been embedded with centuries and centuries of relationship, knowledge and intimacy with the printed word that makes me have such unease with Kindle.
Call me a romantic, but I would much rather live in a room stacked floor to ceiling with books than a immaculate white space where at the push of a button I can read the book of my choice.
Trinity College Library, Image Courtesy of http://skippyshamrock.tripod.com/longroom.jpg
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April 27, 2009
I just read this article on the NYTimes about Kindle and various reactions and opinions about it, is an interesting companion to this blog.
“I would much rather live in a room stacked floor to ceiling with books”
I agree with my whole heart.