The other day, I went to get my hair trimmed, and while I was waiting, noticed the newest issue of "O" magazine sitting on the table. This was the summer book issue, so it caught my eye in a way this magazine normally wouldn’t. Over the years, Oprah Winfrey has been known to rave about some really awful books, but occasionally, something truly terrific catches her eye, and though I used to hate her for all the undeserved attention she gets (not to mention the money, personal cook, personal trainer, etc.), I have to admire someone who has galvanized large numbers of the American public into doing something that takes a little more thought than just sitting around watching Fox News all day. Also, I recently saw an interview with her, and she’s an extremely smart woman who’s used the system to do an awful lot of good. I can be bitterly jealous, but I really can’t hate a person like that.
Anyway, I was most intrigued by the letter from Harper Lee I knew was in the issue and quickly flipped through to find it. I loved what Lee had to say about ebooks v. print books:
Can you imagine curling up in bed to read a computer? Weeping for Anna Karenin and
being terrified by Hannibal Lecter, entering the heart of darkness with Mistah Kurtz,
having Holden Caulfield ring you up -- some things should only happen on soft pages not
cold metal.
Actually, I didn’t love that. My right brain (you know the synthetic, concrete, nontemporal, nonrational side of the brain) loved it, because it could gather it up in its arsenal of things (being nonverbal, it doesn’t really know they’re words) to throw at my left brain (you know, the analytic, rational, digital, linear side). Meanwhile, my left brain was seething with impatience, wondering when I was going to stop feeding all this sentimental crap to my right brain, which certainly doesn’t need encouragement.
These days, especially since I work in the publishing industry, I’m beginning to feel like one of those poor souls whose corpus callosum has been severed to prevent seizures. I grew up with books (was basically afraid of computers until forced to use them for work when I was in my twenties), and I love them with a passion that borders on insanity. I love the look of them; I love the feel of them; I love the smell of them (both that brand new smell, fresh off the press, as well as that wonderful musty smell I associate with my grandmother’s collection and used book stores); if books were to become a food group, I’d love the taste of them. I find bookless homes to be cold and impersonal. I’ve chosen careers, sacrificing some of the magic books have always held, in order to be surrounded by them all day. I want and need Harper Lee’s "soft pages." After all, computers don’t absorb tears the way book pages do.
But that’s my right brain speaking. My left brain will tell you a book is merely a medium. My left brain will salivate over digital possibilities. It wants to sleep with Steven Jobs and the entire staff of Wired magazine. It believes humans have progressed from telling stories to drawing pictures on cave walls to papyrus to the printing press for a reason, and that the designer ebook reader is the next step (it wants a green one, although it’s not quite sure why, since aesthetics aren’t one of its main interests). It envisions something the size and shape of a paperback book onto which it can load twenty different books to take on vacation and easily slip into a handbag. It loves blogging and the ability to interact with what other writers write as well as to hear what others have to say about what it’s writing. And it will constantly remind my right brain how awfully, awfully fond it (rightie) is of the look, feel, smell, and sound (something a book can’t give it) of the IMac.
Right now we’re at a stand off. My right brain is threatening to keep my left leg from functioning, so I can’t walk across the room. My left brain is threatening to make my right hand pick up a hammer, not a fork, when I sit down for my next meal. Maybe I should go back to hating Oprah, along with her warmongering magazine, after all.
1 comment:
My problem seems to be that I have two left brains: I really love books, but only for their soul. I treat their bodies badly, take them to the bath (with the occasional fall), dog-ear them, carry them in pockets (in French, a paperback edition is a Livre de Poche) leave them open face-down.
E-books are in my opinion one of the best ways for a book to achieve true ubiquity (have you read Three Men In a Boat yet? -- just teasing) without bodily injury.
However, I believe there is a terrible weakness in digital storage: if we have a power shortage that lasts longer than my laptop battery, I am like a blind man in a public library. Ruggedness is what reconciles my two left brains with paper books.
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