Guest post by Joel H.
Famous epic poet and blind man John Milton wrote in 1664 that books “are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them.” After witnessing last month’s introduction of the Amazon Kindle device, and the fascinating discussion on the future of reading that took place here at Tropophilia, one might be persuaded to imagine Milton as a Jules Verne-like literary prophet…for the Kindle does indeed seem to be alive at times, what with the electronic hum it undoubtedly emits and its ability to download new books and online publications anywhere, at anytime.
The Tropophilian discussion about how objects like the Kindle, and the widespread use of online newspapers, RSS readers, and the like might affect the future of reading was an intelligent and fascinating one. “I don’t avoid books on purpose, I just find my reading fulfillment online and in magazines,” Jarred wrote; a commentator later responded in kind, “People aren’t necessarily reading less, they’re just reading books less.” Both of these statements I find insightful and true, but what is too easily glossed over is the recognition that almost nobody agrees on what we mean by the verb “to read.”
What counts as reading? Are some forms or types of reading “better” or “more important” than others? Those are big questions, too big and theoretical for this humble blog. But as it relates to the Kindle, I’ll hazard the suggestion that no matter what we take “reading” to be, the texts we read are by their nature inextricable from their format.
Take music as an example.
Whereas we will always upgrade our stereophonic equipment to the latest platform and player model (will there even always need to be music “players”?), this does not really change the way in which the bones of the inner ear receive the sound and translate it to the brain — the final threshold of audible “format.” Whether in ancient Greece, a 16th century English theatre while listening to the whimsical Elizabethan band play before the show, or in a subway car, eyes closed, listening to Gwar on our iPods in 2008, our brain is processing music in pretty much the same way.
The same does not apply to written text. For the vast majority of human history, almost nobody could read, and anything written was of course chiseled, inked, or carved out by hand. The printing press changed that, and not only in the sense that it spread literacy across the land — the fundamental and metaphysical difference between reading, say, a letter, on the exact piece of paper upon which the writer’s sweaty hand wrote the words, and reading the same letter reprinted in a newspaper, cannot be overstated. The former is a text literally “by someone’s hand” while the latter is a vastly more anonymous, disembodied letter - regardless of whether the author was credited or not. Immediately after texts began to be printed, it became quite the mental feat for readers to comprehend that what they were looking at was not actually “written” by a person!
How, then, will the proliferation of electronic textual consumption (whether on a Kindle-like device, or on your desktop PC), change the nature of reading?
It changes how the meaning and substance of the text being read reaches your brain. It is not that one cannot read War and Peace as well or as intelligently on a computer screen as in a book — there are several works by Milton that I’ve only ever read online — but that the current state of technology and our use of it does not provide for the sort of focused, un-distracted mental space that we traditionally associate with reading. As Ursula K. Le Guin writes in this month’s issue of Harper’s Magazine, “Reading is not ‘interactive’ with a set of rules or options, as games are; reading is actual collaboration with the writer’s mind.” The Kindle, by virtue of its always-on wireless connection, prevents this sort of communion of minds — for there will always be the option (the technological rule?) to check CNN.com after every chapter or so, or keep tabs on your favorite blog (ahem).
Which is not to say that the intrepid few, the enlightened postmodern intelligentsia such as our dear resident bloggers Jarred and Taylor, would not use the Kindle as it is meant to be ideally used, or that they’d never manage to finish a novel on it. I believe they would! But the Kindle, by its very construction, pushes the focus away from the actual written word, towards the sheer fact of its electronically mediated presentation, and its hyperconnectivity — thus changing the practice of reading perhaps as much as the advent of the printing press.
Funny, this guy writes about the Kindle as if it came out today and not many weeks ago. But still, a relevant read: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/business/27digi.html.
Cool post, Joel.
…the current state of technology and our use of it does not provide for the sort of focused, un-distracted mental space that we traditionally associate with reading.
I think this is exciting. Think about the differences between the way you read and the way you think. Reading has always been a linear process–something that Modernists and Post-Modernists and Feminists and any number of other -ists have been railing against since the 19th Century. Thinking is anything but a linear process, to the point where a single thread of thought can take you not only through webs of tangents, but also fluidly through past, present, and future?
What if this popularization and availability of what you called “distracted mental space” merely signals a movement toward a more accurate reflection of the way the brain works? Already we see how comprehensive digital communication can be–after all, while drafting this post, you thought to include those hyperlinks and they’re an essential part to what you’re communicating here.
While I don’t think I’ll say Kindle = printing press necessarily, I do suspect that this device, at the very least, suggests a more organic movement in the way reading happens.
Whoo, this is fun. There are all kinds of points that we can get into here, but I’ll keep it down to two or three.
1) Rachel, while thinking is anything but linear, most oral storytelling is amazingly linear. In my limited recollection, oral traditions are limited in what story branches can be pursued. Written text, however, can tell concurrent stories, aided by the reader’s ability to flip back a few pages and review what’s happening somewhere else. And if you want to look at nonlinear print storytelling, look on your bookshelf for some sweet manga.
Joel, you get two points:
2) the Kindle uses an e-ink display. This is significantly different technology from your computer screen. It’s not backlit, it has much higher resolution than most computers, and those factors make it much easier on your eyes while you’re reading it. From what I’ve seen, it may be equivalent to a single print page. Incidentally, reading white text on a black computer screen is less stressful, and you lucky Macintosh users can get this effect instantly by pressing Ctrl-Opt-Apple-8 (all four keys at the same time) which will invert your monitor’s display. It’s fun to play with at least. Use the same key command to reverse it.
3) This is one enormous problem with the Kindle. You may be able to almost instantly define words you don’t recognize (thank you Susan Sontag for making me feel illiterate), but you can’t feel your progress through a book. That may not be that big of a deal when you’re reading an inherently skinny work such as Harper’s or the Economist, but reading a piece like War and Peace without the shape of the book changing is rather disorienting.
I’d expect for the Kindle to sell rather well for purveyors of the New York Times’ Bestseller list. I’d also expect for subscribers to print magazines (i.e. Harper’s) and newspapers (NYTimes) would enjoy tidy access to their literary smack. My literary tastes are a bit more eclectic, though, and I know that I’d miss the pedantry promulgated by wielding an unwieldy or esoteric tome in public.