Aidan Coughlan: Just because you are touchy-feely about books doesn't mean you'll hate the Kindle
The Amazon Kindle electronic reader
PERHAPS the greatest misconception about electronic readers is that they are mutually exclusive with printed books. I’ll never get a Kindle, you’ll hear someone say, because I love the feel of a book.
Evidently, purchasing one of these devices will invalidate your library card with instant effect, and give your hands an acidic veneer that destroys any printed matter with which it comes into contact.
Of course, anyone who has used an electronic reader will tell you that’s all utter nonsense – or at least those who have spent more than five seconds holding it before concluding that it is ‘Not A Book’ and sticking rigidly to their preconceptions.
Most of us are quite comfortable in the knowledge that a book is made of words, thoughts, emotions, themes and whatever else the author has served up for us – and not out of paper or ink. The dissenting voices seem to be increasingly limited, as more come to this realisation and the technology gains increasing familiarity among lovers of literature.
Nonetheless, it’s always particularly disappointing when intelligent people say stupid things – and dear Jonathan Franzen, you should have known so much better than to proffer your half-baked opinions on this matter.
“I think, for serious readers, a sense of permanence has always been part of the experience. Everything else in your life is fluid, but here is this text that doesn’t change,” said the author of The Corrections and Freedom.
“Someone worked really hard to make the language just right, just the way they wanted it. They were so sure of it that they printed it in ink, on paper. A screen always feels like we could delete that, change that, move it around. So for a literature-crazed person like me, it’s just not permanent enough,” he added.
“The Great Gatsby was last updated in 1924. You don’t need it to be refreshed, do you?”
Now let’s leave aside the public relations disaster here: Franzen has just insulted an enormous section of his own readership by saying this, after all. But he’s an author, not a popstar who needs sales or a politician who needs votes – so if he wants to treat his followers with contempt, then that’s up to him.
The idea, though, that a “serious reader” requires paper and ink in order to extract maximum value from a book is at best baffling and at worst infuriating. Just how serious are these readers? Are they the same people who buy books because they look good on the living room shelf?
Franzen’s wider point about a society obsessed with instant gratification might be a valid one – but if it is, he doesn’t seem to understand how it relates to this issue. Instead, he’s come across as a ranting, middle-aged technophobe who believes that books will become fodder for open-source tinkering simply because they are on a screen. It’s a bit like saying that, since songs are now in digital format, listeners may opt to change the lyrics or perhaps add in a new bassline of their own creation.
Yes, he’s extending the point to its extreme for a bit of salacious impact – but in doing so, he seems to have undermined his own role as the creator.
Whenever there’s been a technological breakthrough – and the electronic reader is up right there with game-changers like the mobile phone, the VCR and the iPod – there’s always a contingent pushing back, urging caution, speaking about the extreme paths down which this new course could lead.
That has its place, of course; sudden, seismic changes aren’t good for us in most cases. If you don’t believe me, just go to any sunny tourist destination and pick out the unfortunate folks who have turned a lobsterish shade of red by the second day of their holiday.
But there’s a certain point where caution and conservatism become backward thinking – and not only has Franzen crossed it, but he’s done so in the most patronising and disconnected way imaginable. It’s astounding that a man so highly respected in the field of literature could misunderstand the process and the priorities of readers on that scale.
We’ve been told since we were children that it’s wrong to judge a book by its cover. Well, Jonathan, it’s equally wrong to judge a book by what its cover is made of.
