(WARNING: This post contains material of a pretentious and self-indulgent nature.)
The following is a delayed response to a post by Chloe in which she ponders the question: To Kindle or not to Kindle...?
In her post, Chloe, committed bibliophile that she is, questions whether forsaking the emotional and physical relationship between reader and book is too heavy a price to pay for the clear practical benefits of using an e-reader. Here's my two-penneth.
As a brazen technophile I find myself automatically in favour of the Kindle and its progeny. In fact, I have just started using a different brand of e-reader (it is called a Nook - I can only imagine it was named by the 3 year old daughter of the Creative Director of Barnes & Noble). It is great for browsing online news publications and I enjoy the immediacy and flexibility that it offers for that type of content.
Yet on my bedside table, sitting next to my Nook (jeez, what were they thinking) is a somewhat incongruous pile of books. I can't actually bring myself to use the tablet for reading anything that will take longer to get through than a visit to the bathroom. As usual I'm torn by conflicted ideals and by way of explanation I need to digress a little into another form of art/entertainment - music.
In some ways, how Chloe feels about books parallels my own connection with music. Just as she enjoys admiring her paperback-jammed shelves I get satisfaction from displaying and examining my accumulated CDs and records. I think the feeling is borne out of recalling the person you were when you first experienced a particular volume or record and realising how you have changed with each subsequent encounter, sometimes as a direct result. I long for the day when I have a collection vast enough and personal enough to emulate the record store owner from High Fidelity and sort my music autobiographically. I imagine that Chloe would get a kick out of doing the same with her books.
Recently, however, I have had to put my hoarding on hold. One of the drawbacks of living in Ramallah is the lack of record stores stocking anything other than the sentimental and/or pious wailing that passes for popular music here. (If someone can correct this perhaps-insulting assertion I would be more than happy to take recommendations). This limits the opportunity to buy the seemingly magic discs of inscribed plastic or vinyl (the technology is still utterly baffling to me) that give me so much joy.
As such, I have been forced to digitise my collection but, as much as I treasure the convenience that this provides - offering 10 years of accumulated tunage in neat, alphabetised and most importantly portable electronic racks - I miss the process of selection, extraction and play that the physical objects provide.
I also miss the specific experience that vinyl, in particular, affords. I'm not talking about the superior sound but the physical engagement with the music that is forced on the listener by the limitations of the technology. With vinyl you feel obliged to listen to a record from beginning to end - as you would watch a play; the sides and tracks corresponding to the acts and scenes. There is no shuffle function with record players - if you want to mess around with the order selected by the artist than you have to get off your ass, out of your chair and shift the needle. All these restrictions mean that the listening is no longer the background accompaniment to another activity but itself becomes the primary pursuit.
The objects themselves are special. I cannot quite equate the physicality of records with books but the smell of freshly printed liner notes does almost as much for me as sniffing an old copy of Catch-22. For me both evoke stronger memories and emotions than pictures will ever do.
(Here is where I need to make a quick confession. I download music...and I do not pay for the privilege. Forgive my twisted logic but my attachment to CDs and records makes me unable to stomach the thought of paying for e-music. I try to justify this to myself with the amount of money I spend on going to gigs (around £500 a year when I'm living at home). If I like the tracks that I have downloaded then I make the effort to go see them performed live. If I don't see them live then I buy something else from the artists back catalogue. I can't claim to have stuck to this rule absolutely nor can I deny that the sheer ease and impunity of illegal downloading is a strong motivation. Maybe I'm just a hypocrite.)
The reason for of all this pretentious music-related guff is to demonstrate that I can relate to Chloe's reluctance to accept e-books as a valid alternative to paper tomes. My original assumption that e-readers are the way forward is completely undermined by the feeling that the experience of reading, as with listening, is somehow depleted by the absence of the tangible, redolent and physical medium. Clearly this is not a novel thought (pun absolutely intended) which is why many record companies and publishers now include a special code with every record or book sold for downloading an electronic version. Hopefully one day this will be universal so that it is always possible to have both the portable convenience of the digital and the emotional affiliation of the physical for no extra cost.
A side note of books:
In one important respect, that of ownership, I do differ in my attitudes towards books and records. I struggle to explain why, but books for me are transitory possessions - to be read, enjoyed and then passed on. This is why I am very fond of the philosophy: 'Never lend a book'. As opposed to collecting and displaying books, as I do with my music, I like to give them away.
I know that a big reason for this is that I rarely re-read books, whereas I listen to the same records over and over. But it is also because that I find even the best experiences I have with a good book - those of enlightenment and escape - are also fleeting. I am utterly depressed by the fact that almost everything I read, no matter how brilliantly written or inciteful, rarely stays in my head longer than a few days - a few weeks at most. To retain and show-off books - books that I feel I simply do not have the time to reread, is an ever present reminder of the fact that I have actually not taken in 99% of what is contained within them.
Another factor is the pressure (mostly self-imposed) to be 'well-read' and to consume as fast as humanly possible every book ever recommended to me or that has ever caught my eye in a bookstore. This pressure will, of course, never go away because good books will forever proliferate. Maybe the way around this problem is to to pick the hundred best books ever written and simply read and reread them for the rest my life. At least then some of the wisdom and beauty endowed within those particular volumes might actually stick to the inside of my skull.
This would, unfortunately, eliminate much of the pleasure derived from starting a book for the first time and exploring the world of fact, opinion and fantasy presented on its pages. Perhaps my urge to give books away is, in reality, a subconscious desire to allay the frustrations I feel towards the act of reading and my own inability to absorb and grow as a result. I wonder whether, in fact, I garner as much pleasure from reading and passing on a good book as I do from listening to and saving a good record.
Oh dear, I really should stop. I seemed to have digressed so far from the original topic that I'm in danger of disappeared up my own backside. Apologies to all. Comfort yourselves that while it took me two months to write this, it only took 2 minutes for you to read, and in about 2 seconds you will have forgotten every word.
The following is a delayed response to a post by Chloe in which she ponders the question: To Kindle or not to Kindle...?
In her post, Chloe, committed bibliophile that she is, questions whether forsaking the emotional and physical relationship between reader and book is too heavy a price to pay for the clear practical benefits of using an e-reader. Here's my two-penneth.
As a brazen technophile I find myself automatically in favour of the Kindle and its progeny. In fact, I have just started using a different brand of e-reader (it is called a Nook - I can only imagine it was named by the 3 year old daughter of the Creative Director of Barnes & Noble). It is great for browsing online news publications and I enjoy the immediacy and flexibility that it offers for that type of content.
Yet on my bedside table, sitting next to my Nook (jeez, what were they thinking) is a somewhat incongruous pile of books. I can't actually bring myself to use the tablet for reading anything that will take longer to get through than a visit to the bathroom. As usual I'm torn by conflicted ideals and by way of explanation I need to digress a little into another form of art/entertainment - music.
In some ways, how Chloe feels about books parallels my own connection with music. Just as she enjoys admiring her paperback-jammed shelves I get satisfaction from displaying and examining my accumulated CDs and records. I think the feeling is borne out of recalling the person you were when you first experienced a particular volume or record and realising how you have changed with each subsequent encounter, sometimes as a direct result. I long for the day when I have a collection vast enough and personal enough to emulate the record store owner from High Fidelity and sort my music autobiographically. I imagine that Chloe would get a kick out of doing the same with her books.
Recently, however, I have had to put my hoarding on hold. One of the drawbacks of living in Ramallah is the lack of record stores stocking anything other than the sentimental and/or pious wailing that passes for popular music here. (If someone can correct this perhaps-insulting assertion I would be more than happy to take recommendations). This limits the opportunity to buy the seemingly magic discs of inscribed plastic or vinyl (the technology is still utterly baffling to me) that give me so much joy.
As such, I have been forced to digitise my collection but, as much as I treasure the convenience that this provides - offering 10 years of accumulated tunage in neat, alphabetised and most importantly portable electronic racks - I miss the process of selection, extraction and play that the physical objects provide.
I also miss the specific experience that vinyl, in particular, affords. I'm not talking about the superior sound but the physical engagement with the music that is forced on the listener by the limitations of the technology. With vinyl you feel obliged to listen to a record from beginning to end - as you would watch a play; the sides and tracks corresponding to the acts and scenes. There is no shuffle function with record players - if you want to mess around with the order selected by the artist than you have to get off your ass, out of your chair and shift the needle. All these restrictions mean that the listening is no longer the background accompaniment to another activity but itself becomes the primary pursuit.
The objects themselves are special. I cannot quite equate the physicality of records with books but the smell of freshly printed liner notes does almost as much for me as sniffing an old copy of Catch-22. For me both evoke stronger memories and emotions than pictures will ever do.
(Here is where I need to make a quick confession. I download music...and I do not pay for the privilege. Forgive my twisted logic but my attachment to CDs and records makes me unable to stomach the thought of paying for e-music. I try to justify this to myself with the amount of money I spend on going to gigs (around £500 a year when I'm living at home). If I like the tracks that I have downloaded then I make the effort to go see them performed live. If I don't see them live then I buy something else from the artists back catalogue. I can't claim to have stuck to this rule absolutely nor can I deny that the sheer ease and impunity of illegal downloading is a strong motivation. Maybe I'm just a hypocrite.)
The reason for of all this pretentious music-related guff is to demonstrate that I can relate to Chloe's reluctance to accept e-books as a valid alternative to paper tomes. My original assumption that e-readers are the way forward is completely undermined by the feeling that the experience of reading, as with listening, is somehow depleted by the absence of the tangible, redolent and physical medium. Clearly this is not a novel thought (pun absolutely intended) which is why many record companies and publishers now include a special code with every record or book sold for downloading an electronic version. Hopefully one day this will be universal so that it is always possible to have both the portable convenience of the digital and the emotional affiliation of the physical for no extra cost.
A side note of books:
In one important respect, that of ownership, I do differ in my attitudes towards books and records. I struggle to explain why, but books for me are transitory possessions - to be read, enjoyed and then passed on. This is why I am very fond of the philosophy: 'Never lend a book'. As opposed to collecting and displaying books, as I do with my music, I like to give them away.
I know that a big reason for this is that I rarely re-read books, whereas I listen to the same records over and over. But it is also because that I find even the best experiences I have with a good book - those of enlightenment and escape - are also fleeting. I am utterly depressed by the fact that almost everything I read, no matter how brilliantly written or inciteful, rarely stays in my head longer than a few days - a few weeks at most. To retain and show-off books - books that I feel I simply do not have the time to reread, is an ever present reminder of the fact that I have actually not taken in 99% of what is contained within them.
Another factor is the pressure (mostly self-imposed) to be 'well-read' and to consume as fast as humanly possible every book ever recommended to me or that has ever caught my eye in a bookstore. This pressure will, of course, never go away because good books will forever proliferate. Maybe the way around this problem is to to pick the hundred best books ever written and simply read and reread them for the rest my life. At least then some of the wisdom and beauty endowed within those particular volumes might actually stick to the inside of my skull.
This would, unfortunately, eliminate much of the pleasure derived from starting a book for the first time and exploring the world of fact, opinion and fantasy presented on its pages. Perhaps my urge to give books away is, in reality, a subconscious desire to allay the frustrations I feel towards the act of reading and my own inability to absorb and grow as a result. I wonder whether, in fact, I garner as much pleasure from reading and passing on a good book as I do from listening to and saving a good record.
Oh dear, I really should stop. I seemed to have digressed so far from the original topic that I'm in danger of disappeared up my own backside. Apologies to all. Comfort yourselves that while it took me two months to write this, it only took 2 minutes for you to read, and in about 2 seconds you will have forgotten every word.
No comments:
Post a Comment