"I have dreams of maniac computers miscalculating serious items pertinent to our lives."
Since entering a graduate program for creative writing, the subject of e-publishing has been more and more on my mind. Before the spring semester, one of the fiction professors used some of his research funds to buy the fiction MFA students kindles. It was a supremely generous gift, but one which I was not remotely envious of. There are many good arguments for kindles and other e-readers. Tons of books can fit in one tiny machine, which is about the size of a regular book. Many books you love can be at hand at any time. Because there are no printing costs, the author profits more when people buy his or her words. And of course, the environmental side: fewer printed pages means fewer felled trees and less paper-mill and dioxin pollution.
And yet, I just have no desire to give the printed page up. When I was in high school, my friend Lauren and I fell in love with "Fear of Dreaming" by Jim Carroll, an accidental discovery at a bookstore. I was probably 16. We would sit on the floor at Barnes & Noble and read it to each other. Neither of us had a lot of money, so we eventually pitched in and bought the book together. One of us would keep it for a week or two and then would hand it off to the other. This was the first book of poetry I ever bought, and it is still sitting on my shelf.
If this book had not been at the bookstore, we probably never would have found it. It certainly wasn't mainstream, no Billy Collins or Emily Dickinson. But more than that, it was seeing the design of the book, that faded yellow with the dark brown font, that made us pick it up. And it was something that we could do together. The possibility of shared experience and accidental discovery decreases with the kindle. At that time, no software would have predicted my love of this book. There was little poetry in my head, outside of a disintegrating copy of The Golden Treasury, which consisted of much older poems and poets. I had never done drugs and didn't make it a point to read about drug culture. Maybe a prediction could have been made based on my love of the teenage-angsty show "My So-Called Life," but otherwise, I had no relevant context for this book. But I loved it anyway.
I was talking with a friend the other day who mentioned bookshelves or personal libraries as a place to show off what you've read to other people--basically books as vanity symbols. I know that many people use it for that, and I can't say that there isn't a certain amount of "showing off" that happens with displays of books. But for me, that showing off is more about sharing what you're interested in than trying to show how smart you are or how well read. My friend Susanna has helped me out several times when I've been out of town by coming by and keeping my cat company for a bit. She mentioned to me yesterday that while I was in California last week she sat in my gray chair and read from some of my books. This couldn't make me happier. I love being able to share books with friends and talk with them about what they thought. But if all my books were on a kindle, it'd be much more difficult to share the words rather than just what I thought about them with friends.
Books are more than their content. They are experience and memory and community. They are opportunities for serendipity. To me, they are irreplaceable.
Lately I've been trying to imagine what will happen when society has switched almost completely to e-books. Will libraries and bookstores sit empty like abandoned Wal-Marts, slowly crumbling into disrepair? Will there be a room in universities where you can walk in, press a button to load a book, and then put on a mask that will allow you to read a book virtually as the scent of old pages is slowly released through atomizers in the walls? What happens when the experience has become all screens and no pages, all box and no spine? How can we still be surprised in the future?
There is a wind that seeks the crevice
(Quote in title from "A Fragment," page 40 of Fear of Dreaming)
If this book had not been at the bookstore, we probably never would have found it. It certainly wasn't mainstream, no Billy Collins or Emily Dickinson. But more than that, it was seeing the design of the book, that faded yellow with the dark brown font, that made us pick it up. And it was something that we could do together. The possibility of shared experience and accidental discovery decreases with the kindle. At that time, no software would have predicted my love of this book. There was little poetry in my head, outside of a disintegrating copy of The Golden Treasury, which consisted of much older poems and poets. I had never done drugs and didn't make it a point to read about drug culture. Maybe a prediction could have been made based on my love of the teenage-angsty show "My So-Called Life," but otherwise, I had no relevant context for this book. But I loved it anyway.
I was talking with a friend the other day who mentioned bookshelves or personal libraries as a place to show off what you've read to other people--basically books as vanity symbols. I know that many people use it for that, and I can't say that there isn't a certain amount of "showing off" that happens with displays of books. But for me, that showing off is more about sharing what you're interested in than trying to show how smart you are or how well read. My friend Susanna has helped me out several times when I've been out of town by coming by and keeping my cat company for a bit. She mentioned to me yesterday that while I was in California last week she sat in my gray chair and read from some of my books. This couldn't make me happier. I love being able to share books with friends and talk with them about what they thought. But if all my books were on a kindle, it'd be much more difficult to share the words rather than just what I thought about them with friends.
Books are more than their content. They are experience and memory and community. They are opportunities for serendipity. To me, they are irreplaceable.
Lately I've been trying to imagine what will happen when society has switched almost completely to e-books. Will libraries and bookstores sit empty like abandoned Wal-Marts, slowly crumbling into disrepair? Will there be a room in universities where you can walk in, press a button to load a book, and then put on a mask that will allow you to read a book virtually as the scent of old pages is slowly released through atomizers in the walls? What happens when the experience has become all screens and no pages, all box and no spine? How can we still be surprised in the future?
"Our Desires" by Jim Carroll
There is a wind that seeks the crevice
under my heart
the way insects file at night
beneath the doorway
It's edges are rough, it slits
the cords. It trips my steady breathing.
When it comes there is no one
I can trust
It seems, at times, I have designed
too well this vision of you.
I cannot survive your eyes
when they are scarred with a need
for some lesser form of love.
I admit to this conceit.
And though you will not accept it
You love it nonetheless
It is just like you. Our desires
will always be kept sharp
by a kind of perversity. A need
to be each forever alone. . . .
Its color is violet, like lips
that have been smashed by night
or robbed of blood by lack of breath.
The wind I was speaking of does this.
I can feel it now.
(Quote in title from "A Fragment," page 40 of Fear of Dreaming)
It's edges are rough, it slits
the cords. It trips my steady breathing.
When it comes there is no one
I can trust
It seems, at times, I have designed
too well this vision of you.
I cannot survive your eyes
when they are scarred with a need
for some lesser form of love.
I admit to this conceit.
And though you will not accept it
You love it nonetheless
It is just like you. Our desires
will always be kept sharp
by a kind of perversity. A need
to be each forever alone. . . .
Its color is violet, like lips
that have been smashed by night
or robbed of blood by lack of breath.
The wind I was speaking of does this.
I can feel it now.