The Case for Books

I should start by saying this debate has lost its freshness, that this post is overdue and that it will be long, but I believe that both sides should argue their points ferociously until a consensus is reached. Once this is finally achieved, we can all go back to living our lives.

Here's my position: Books are books. I don't want them to go away, and I don't think they should.

Here's why I bring it up: On Monday, Torie Bosch posted on Slate's Future Tense blog a criticism of comments made by author Jonathan Franzen about e-readers. In case you don't know, e-readers are electronic substitutes for books. Franzen's point was that e-readers are lame because they reduce literature (words in ink on paper) to a few bits of information on a plastic screen. In his opinion, words on paper feel "permanent," unlike words on a screen that could imply the potential for third-party tampering.

Seeming a little burned, Bosch responds that some serious readers prefer a device like the Kindle because of it's convenience when traveling. Franzen: 1, Bosch: 1.

Here's what I think: When I'm on a plane, carrying three books with me if I'm engrossed in three simultaneous plots doesn't seem like such a hassle. What seems like a hassle? Staring at a frozen, E-ink rendering of Joseph Conrad's face when my library of 100 e-books refuses to open for some inexplicable reason.

Franzen's isn't the most radical opinion I've heard. Tom Chivers of the Telegraph scoffs when he posits that Franzen fears "surreptitious" editing by e-publishers, and a few people scoffed a decade ago at the thought of reading a book on a computer.

Does Chivers forget that today burning books is still a common practice among certain people? In the near future they might find it more effective and covert to just gradually "edit" such troublesome texts over an inconspicuous length of time. Perhaps after the author dies and his copyright expires? If the current decline of the publishing industry is any indication, it's that anything is possible if there's a market.

Listen, I don't hate new technology. One top of doing for my book collection (a "library") what my iPod did for my music collection, I think e-readers are cool because they enable me to adjust their text to both my size and font preferences (something I also enjoy with a blog), and a good font totally has the power to improve my day, let alone my reading experience.

I don't hate new technology because I love my MacBook. If it didn't provide me reliable access to the internet, I wouldn't be able to watch shows that aren't provided by my television, get maps and up-to-date pictures of places I've never been to, or purchase four manual typewriters on eBay at below-market prices, laughing in the short-sighted faces of all those owners of mega-chain, brick-and-mortar typewriter retailers. Your days of riding the gravy train are over, assholes! Ha ha ha!

I don't hate new technology because my touchscreen Samsung phone is fucking awesome. I don't have to be near a computer to Tweet anymore, and that's fucking awesome. It has completely revolutionized the way I read news, and that's fucking awesome. It even has a "Books" application that allows me to read Alice in Wonderland and The Picture of Dorian Grey for free. Without it, I would have never known that reading books on my phone totally gives me a migraine.

Although I agree with Franzen's opinion about e-readers, I will admit that I don't agree that people who think differently should be disparaged with pompous lecturing. That being said, I have no patience for anyone of the opinion that books were a primitive shelf decoration from an unenlightened time when peoples' phones didn't cause car accidents or allow eighth-graders to send pictures of their genitals to each other.

Besides, both products have their own niches. E-readers are great for guilty-pleasure trash that no respectable person would ever want on their shelves or be seen enjoying in public: diet books, Letters to Penthouse, anything by Chelsea Handler or Bill O'Reilly. On the flip side, I can't think of anything more ridiculous than reading a book like Atlas Shrugged or Joyce's Ulysses on an electronic device. It's not like a 21st-Century gadget like the e-reader was invented because consumer attention spans have gotten longer.

But our economy doesn't really welcome the idealistic, "share-the-wealth" attitude that I do, so a company like Amazon will do everything in their power to destroy anyone who would even think of taking eyes (and business) away from them, no matter how negligible a fraction. It sucks and it's not fair. Blog about it.

This debate has probably been raging for an entire decade, but what's really frustrating is that it seems like we have the same number of answers & solutions to the myriad of questions & problems we had at the start, which is still "none." With the exception of now having to watch commercials on the Internet, the intersection of media and commerce still has a broken traffic light and everyone's movin' & shakin' when it seems the safest and most appropriate.

If I could make a prediction of what the future would look like based on the looks of the present it would be this: the book will never die. Ink & paper bound tightly inside a virtually indestructible cover is a commodity that is as elegant as it is undecorated; also, a book smells better than anything with a battery. 

For readers to cast aside books, and the love of their contents, for the disposable, inconsequential convenience of another God-forsaken machine seems to me both absurd and disloyal, but these times we're living in are pretty absurd and the cost of loyalty is only getting higher.

For me, this is how it works: when I read a book that I love, I want it on my shelf. I want enough of them on enough shelves to fill an entire room (called a "library"). In that place, whenever I want, I can reach up and pull one down. Feel it, see it, hold it, keep it forever. This copy. These words. I own them. They're mine.

That's my position. Happy Groundhog Day.