August 10, 2013
Books to Have and to Hold
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
I finish reading a book on my iPad — one by Ed McBain, for instance
— and I shelve it in the cloud. It vanishes from my “device” and
from my consciousness too. It’s very odd.
When I read a physical book, I remember the text and the book — its
shape, jacket, heft and typography. When I read an e-book, I
remember the text alone. The bookness of the book simply
disappears, or rather it never really existed. Amazon reminds me
that I’ve already bought the e-book I’m about to order. In
bookstores, I find myself discovering, as if for the first time,
books I’ve already read on my iPad.
All of this makes me think differently about the books in my
physical library. They used to be simply there, arranged on the
shelves, a gathering of books I’d already read. But now, when I
look up from my e-reading, I realize that the physical books are
serving a new purpose — as constant reminders of what I’ve read.
They say, “We’re still here,” or “Remember us?” These are the very
things that e-books cannot say, hidden under layers of software,
tucked away in the cloud, utterly absent when the iPad goes dark.
This may seem like a trivial difference, but that’s not how it
feels. Reading is inherently ephemeral, but it feels less so when
you’re making your way through a physical book, which persists when
you’ve finished it. It is a monument to the activity of reading.
It makes this imaginary activity entirely substantial. But the
quiddity of e-reading is that it effaces itself.
In the past several years, I’ve read nearly 800 books on my iPad.
They’ve changed me and changed my understanding of the world,
distracted me and entertained me. Yet I’m still pondering the
nature of e-reading, which somehow refuses to become completely
familiar. But then, readers are always thinking about the nature
of reading, and have done so since Gutenberg and long before.
There is a disproportionate magic in the way black marks on white
paper — or their pixilated facsimiles — stir us into reverie and
revise our consciousness. Still, we require proof that it has
happened. And that proof is what the books on my shelves continue
to offer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/opinion/sunday/books-to-have-and-to-hold.html
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