If you live by the book…

A year ago, I shared a meal with the web developer for the Charlie Rose Show, who gave me the dirt on this new-fangled Kindle device, then still in testing with Amazon. The big innovation, he explained,
was that Kindle would use actual ink particulates which would be rearranged with every “turning” of the “page,” obviating the need for backlighting, an eye irritant and a waste of energy. It sounded like a good idea—sort of an Etch-a-Sketch with a mind of its own—and said so. But then my dinner companion came out with, “Of course, books as such are a dying medium.”

Are they? I couldn’t shoot back an “Of course they are not a dying medium” or even “They are only a waning medium.” I’ve only been involved in the book industry a bit over two years, but the question of our imminent demise seems to pop up every day. I wasn’t wonderfully tech-savvy in college, and as an undergraduate who made regular visits, whether for work or fun, to one of the most comprehensive research libraries in the world, it hardly seemed possible that books might disappear. Now, I learn, Google execs are projecting a future in which all books (*all books*) are digitized.

Robert Darnton disagrees, in a bracing article, “The Library in the New Age,” published in the June 12, 2008 issue of The New York Review of Books. (Read it here: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21514.) Darnton’s broader argument is that, while the long historical view of most topics will provides a sense of continuity (plus ça change..), where the sharing of information is concerned the main continuity is “the inherent instability of texts.” First he outlines the major technological breakthroughs: written word, scroll, codex, printed book.–. The codex (along with the paragraph break and chapter divisions) was an improvement over the scroll because it allowed readers to engage with large ideas by segmenting them. I would add that with web reading we now seem to be regressing to the scroll-sensibility. Web sites and Kindles may delineate “pages,” but there’s much less of that firm sense that you’re holding in your hands the entirety of a story or argument, which you can navigate through spatially. That spatial sensibility provides useful reinforcement when working with ideas. Web reading doesn’t quite have it, and that lack must play at least some role in the tendency of online writers, particularly commentators, to fudge.

That physical interaction can be helpful in grappling with big ideas. It’s a sensory reinforcement, a comfort blanket of sorts. That reassurance may have something to do with why, as Darnton notes, marketers of the French version of Kindle attached a book-smell sticker to the devices. Charming! But that rather misses the point. Yes, there are those of us whose love of ideas is all tangled up, for better or worse, with a lust for the book-as-object (the right type-set, paper, cover design). Darnton is in that number, I am (see my galley-glorification, below), and so are many others. But we’re the minority, I know, and by laying too much stress on that aspect of the debate, we do our cause a disservice.

In trying to reach an opinion, a person must be able, at some point, to stop researching and say “here is the information—now what do I think of it?” There must be a moment and means of reckoning—otherwise intelligent discussion becomes scattershot. We need limits, because limits provide a space for independent thought, and enacting limits seems nearly impossible when you have web-link upon web-link and reader-comment upon reader-comment which may, just may, lead to that critical bit that will shake up your whole way of thinking.

This has implications for both the presentation and the volume of information available on the web. More for the presentation, though. The ability to filter information is crucial, and one of the basic skills required write research papers. Darnton talks about his own experience as a newspaper reporter and recounts the mistrustful attitude toward newspapers of British citizens who’d placed bets on the outcome of the American Revolutionary War. This is the part I found bracing. It was as if Darnton were clucking “tut, tut! Assessing information sources has always been hard work!” There is, as almost any serious person who uses the internet will tell you, a lot of fluff out there. So also in the publishing world. (See Twelve founder Jonathan Karp’s recent Washington Post op-ed, here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/27/AR2008062702868.html.”)

The question is not so much whether it’s possible, at the moment, to sift through information and arrive at a carefully thought out conclusion about, say, whether it’s possible to staunch the effects of global warming. The question is whether we are disincentivizing writers and readers to do that kind of thinking, and whether the end result of that may be an erosion of our ability, as a culture, to think critically and analytically. I’m talking not only about the book in its current format, but also about the public accountability, the acclaim, the money, and the industry resources (like a good editor), that now go hand in hand with book-writing. These things aid in the development of the ideas. If all books go online, if book publishers go out of business, if e-books take over—our best writers may retreat to the realm of professional or academic (or bad!) writing, leaving non-specialist self-propagandists to duke it out online without moderation.

Darnton doesn’t think that books will disappear, but his parries are based mainly on historical, not commercial observations. Mediums degrade, he points out. By the numbers, Google cannot possibly upload every single book. (And isn’t the proposition of entrusting *all* our books to a single corporation, er, terrifying?) Another aspect of serious research and evaluation, Darnton notes, is comparing different versions of texts to pick out incongruities—another point against e-texts.

This piece has become a sort of manifesto without a conclusion but, since this is supposed to be a blog post and not, after all, a chapter in a book or even a discreet essay or article, I’m going to rein myself in and hit the “Publish” button.

If any brave soul has made it this far, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

2666

I’m about 50 pages into 2666, a heavy 900+ page galley that I’ve been toting back and forth from home to office because I can’t bear the thought of being without it. Galley separation anxiety? The galley itself is beautiful, printed on that thin cream-colored paper that feels expensive under your fingertips, while the cover is made of coarse brown material similar to that of a grocery bag, with “2666” in bloody red lettering. The epigraph: “An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom.” Baudelaire.

It’s not a purely sensual, of course—if that were my thing, I’d work for, er, a paper factory or something like that. From the first time I read Bolaño I had that spine-thrill (also where Nabokov situated it) that is our visceral reflex-response to writing that is not just good, but magical. The recognition is highly subjective, but many readers will feel it. Bolaño is incredibly erudite–he spent his thirties wandering, working odd jobs and reading—and though he wears his knowledge lightly, he uses it to situate his characters (in Part 1, minor German literature academics) in relation to, say, William James, or the Odyssey. It’s delightful, for example, both epic and accessible, when an aging professor is, as an aside, likened to Eurylochus. Bolaño is a generous guide, retelling the stories in his own fashion, implying that we all have the right to draw from this common store of lore and literature. And Bolaño is a master storyteller, nestling stories within stories, revealing some characters motivations but tantalizingly withholding others (“it would be best not to say what Norton was thinking” –approximate quote only), pausing to describe the night sky in a way that is completely original and that reminds one that, yes, he is also a poet. And he writes passionately. There’s a conviction that language and stories are all-important. It’s contagious. Thus I’ve been keeping the galley close by me, as if it were some kind of religious relic whose power might save me from –.

I’ll have more to say later, but nothing negative for now—I’m too much in thrall.

How they loathe one another

Journalist Philip Nobile kicks off his book Intellectual Skywriting—an investigation of the politicking behind the scenes at the New York Review of Books—with a visit to Bob Silvers’ office.  Silvers doesn’t want to talk about it, but then Norman Podhoretz comes up: “Silvers…thinks lowly of Podhoretz, who once offered him a post at Commentary in the early Sixties…He says he hardly knew the man and dismisses him with a continuum of choice pejoratives. These must be New York intellectuals.  See how they loathe one another.”          

 

In a certain little corner of the literary world, the battle of the Internet vs. n+1 (and the battle of a couple of bloggers vs. Keith Gessen) has been raging away. It isn’t even confined to a corner any more, I suppose.   A post from this past week on The New Yorker’s Book Bench blog (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/?xrail) recaps the recent back-and-forth between former Gawker Choire Sicha, Emily Gould, Keith Gessen, and Nick Denton. 

 

I’ve been watching all this unfold from the sidelines and trying to sort out whether there’s any substance to the disagreement between the lit-maggers and their blogging nemesis’s.  Here is a recap of the events from my vantage point: Keith and some of his friends started a magazine called n+1.  They published an article about why the Internet is bad (this is a gloss, I know, but so far as many people are concerned, that’s what the article said).  Uproar commenced online.  Keith and his friends hired interns, who were uppity.  Keith stole girlfriend of one of the interns, then a reporter on the publishing beat at the New York Observer. Girlfriend was a Gawker, girlfriend stopped working for Gawker, Gawker posted piece on breakup.  [You can tell I’m getting bored because I’m omitting articles.]  Keith and Gawker girl Gould broke up.  Gould published self-indulgent amalgam of journal and blog entries in the New York Times Magazine.  Keith organized a panel on the Internet.  Former interns attended and gathered afterwards to discuss the pertinent issues, though all that really got discussed (at least in the presence of yours truly) was how the interns’ writing careers were progressing.  Meanwhile Keith’s blog is “discovered,” I read recent posts on the subway ride home (yes, I printed them out), and spend the evening wondering if this is all an elaborate pissing contest.

 

At last week’s panel, Keith and the other n+1 editors did say interesting things about the Internet and how it affects the ways we think and interact with each other and with information.  But the most vitriolic responses have been premised on personal attacks, most along the lines of: “How dare you criticize my medium, the Internet, you out-dated self-involved elitist snob?  You’re just mad that the bloggers aren’t saying nice things about your book.”  Which, maybe, but so?  That’s a cheap-trick way to invalidate his argument.  As some of the commenters on Keith’s blog pointed out, there are more important things going on in the world: America’s occupation of Iraq, global warming, genocide, and the list goes on.  But that makes it all the more important for us to take a close look at how the way we disseminate and discuss information affects our thinking.  We’re a nation that can’t get our act together, in large part because we’d rather bicker than reach a consensus.  The Internet–with its tendency to reward writers who rely on emotional gut reactions and to discourage structured arguments that take time / space to unfold–is a symptom and a cause of what’s gone wrong.  It’s a new medium and it’s powerful.  Let’s talk about it.  And maybe next time Keith could organize a panel including speakers who actually make an effort to discuss what’s good about the Internet.

 

Readers take note: Intellectual Skywriting is out of print. 

Talking about books you haven’t read

One of my Type-A personality characteristics is an inclination to make lists.  Like books to read, books I haven’t read, books I should read, books I’m able to pretend I’ve read.  Yes, I did read Pierre Bayard’s How to Talk about Books You Haven’t Read.  Though he certainly proves there’s a tradition and a practice of talking about books one hasn’t read, the idea still makes me uncomfortable.  The Glass Bead Game (full disclosure: have only partially read it) is premised on a super-cerebral community of intellectuals who play at making elaborate patterns with the whole span of human knowledge.  One establishes ownership of an intellectual work by demonstrating familiarity with a few common points of reference.  Like constellations—here are three shining points all in a line, and now we must say we see Orion standing there in the sky.  We lose our sense of vastness because we’re meant to be familiar with everything.  Each piece of the sky is taken up with a certain shape that we all must pretend to see.  My lists are a crutch for these interactions—this territory is safe, that isn’t, this can be approached by must be circumvented. 

Against Noise

My roommate and I are embroiled in a disagreement over noise pollution with our down stairs neighbors.  These bright-eyed and marginally tone-deaf youngsters are students at the New School and are, as they succinctly and matter-of-factly put it to me, “in a band.”  Because that settles it, yes?  You’re strumming multiple string instruments amped up to maximum volume and shouting off-key nonsensical lyrics in patterns that you seem to think are harmonic, and this would, your tone implies, be totally unacceptable if not for the fact that you are…IN A BAND.  My room mate and I form part of that ambitious minority of city-dwellers who aim to do some intellectual work after business hours, and we form part of that larger minority (in Brooklyn) that goes to bed at midnight and rises early.  We’re not senior citizens or fogies, I swear, and we do understand that it’s New York, but, but….we can’t sleep, and we have to attend early morning meetings!

 

Pardon me for spewing vitriol across the screen, but we’re at a dead end here.  The leader of the band has agreed to look into the potential solution of installing insulation on the ceilings of his apartment, but he warns that they are students and not particularly well off.  Meanwhile, our admirably conscientious landlord has let him know that it is perfectly fine, by New York law, to play music at any volume until 10 p.m.  We’re f’d. 

 

Can anyone think of some crafty (legal) tactics for making a downstairs neighbor’s life unpleasant?

 

 

What it means

“Fly melon” is a Southernism I only learned about yesterday.  As explained to me by my mother, experienced picnic-ers will cut open a cantaloupe or some such, fill the flesh with poison, and set it out a little ways away from the fesitivities.  Flies settle in, eat, and pop off (as the freshly-Nobeled Doris Lessing would say) so that the picnic-ers can enjoy their outdoor spread in peace. 

So the question on any given day might be, who do you identify with–the picnic-ers? the flies? the melon?  Are you even the sort of person to go on picnics and, if so, would you be comfortable glancing over, between bites of potato salad and angel food cake, at this open mellon teeming with doomed flies and maybe a malicious yellow jacket or two?

Speaking of Doris Lessing, last night I picked up The Golden Notebook again.  I’d spotted it in many a library, but I only bought the book when she won the prize. (Sales must have shot up that week.)  I put it down almost immediately–there’s a heavy-handedness and an earnestness that I couldn’t stomach–and shelved it.  It stuck in my mind though, and last night I was trying to read Mating by Norman Rush (another enormous novel that I have no business getting into when I have report on a 500-page ms due tomorrow).  So I was settling in with the Norman Rush when I realized I had this yen or craving for something else–something, something, what could it be–and it was The Golden Notebook.  Those slightly off-putting qualities were still there, but it was exactly what I wanted to read, and I have just had a minor personal literary epiphany, dawdling here over my first blog post…The first scenes of The Golden Notebook resonate with those of another bulky, uncomfortably sincere book of ideas for which I have an overwhelming and perhaps irrational love and which, further more, I credit with changing my life in ways both major and minor, get ready for it, Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence.  Thoughts?  I’ll let you know after I finish the Lessing, but twenty dollars says she isn’t Lawrence’s equal for sheer emotive power and, I’ll just say it, genius, however rough-hewn.