Michael Blowhard: Books are not Sacred!

By Robert Nagle

Blogging friend and ebook skeptic Michael Blowhard talks about the reverence people have for the book:

…the interesting question isn’t, “Which e-book reader is going to work for the masses?” but instead, “When are we going to shift over to electronic reading and writing?”

And, as we all know, the answer to that question is “We already have.” A fun fact to point out: Many of the people arguing over the value of the Kindle — nearly all of the people fascinated by the idea of an e-book reading device — first read about it online. They’re doing their debating about the device online too. Do they not notice the irony?

He continues:

But I never had the deep, quasi-religious attachment to “the book” that many people seem to have. Chuck ‘em into the trash when you’re done with ‘em — why not? Rip a buncha pages out — it’s your book. Stack your books up and prop your computer on it — makes sense to me. And there are always DVDs to watch.

Look: The fact is that books aren’t what they are — the length they are, and published the way they’re published — because God wanted it to be so. Books are what they are — the size they are, the number of pages they are — in large part because such a product suits the requirements of printers, warehousers, shippers, and retailers…

…

Book publishers publish books not because they’re devoted to the perpetuation of a sacred form but because books are what book publishers are in the business of creating and selling. Which means — and professors, literary critics, and book editors don’t want you to know this — that if you prefer to read short pieces of writing, or if you prefer to skim around bits of this and that, or if the reading and writing you find rewarding consists of surfing the blogworld and leaving behind comments, it’s all OK. There’s nothing automatically better about reading through books.

Alas. Pity the poor book lovers. So naive, so gullible. Why don’t they get with the program?

Here are my reactions.

Even if Mr. Blowhard’s skepticism about the value of the book is justified, we can’t ignore the fact that the novel was the dominant literary form for the last 100-200 years. People learned about  strange lands through books and novels; they chunked knowledge and experience in terms of books. Sure, let’s abandon the contemporary novel (we can always find stories on the web or in  movies or games). But in the 19th century books were practically the only way to convey important thoughts about society or the individual.

Book writing is generally an unsustainable enterprise, but  people continue to do it. Isn’t that strange?  The reason is that writers are stuck with whatever storytelling  structure they learned early in life.  If I grew up reading and loving heroic epics, chances are, I’d be aching to write one. Just as sitcom writers formulate ideas in terms of bathroom breaks, many writers today still structure their imagination in that same 300 page format.

Jane Smiley wrote an excellent (though belated) defense of the novel in her book 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel. I can’t do justice with a summary, but she felt that the 300 page book is a convenient form; it’s still within the capability of one person to create one, and yet it allows a panoramic view of the world as seen through a single person. Ironically, by staying with a single viewpoint for 300 pages,  that allows the reader to  perceive the world in a unified, consistent and personal way.  (Contrast that with the web,  where you flit from partisan reporting to press releases masquerading as news  to incomprehensible rants DUGG by thousands of people  to human freaks doing crazy things on Youtube to Sprite Sips cartoons).

Tied to the book concept is the concept of author (and ultimately the question of individual compensation). With magazine writing, the paid writer usually receives a flat fee, but with book writing, the writer (er, I mean author) usually has a shot at receiving royalties on a per sale basis. That slim possibility of hitting the jackpot is the reason why many people still are trying it.  In other areas (such as academia), the book is a sign of significant  research and cogitation. But an article or web page…heck, anyone can do that. (Look, I’m banging one out now!)

Finally,  reading on the web is incredibly distracting.  Can you take this survey? The New Kindle is Out! Try Netflix for free for 2 weeks!  Perhaps the  main benefit of portable readers is that they to prevent you from web surfing. (This raises the question of whether immersive activities are even possible in this age; wait, sorry, I had to take a call–what was I saying again?)

Instead of asking,  what’s good about   reading on the Kindle/Sony/Cybook, we should be asking, what’s wrong with reading web pages?  Sure, the net is a good way to hear what 500 random people think about global warming, but would that necessarily make you better informed than if you read (for example) an entire  book on the subject?