Through numerous twists and turns in the evolution of written words and various forms of books they spawned, we now arrive at the latest avatar, e-books.[break]
The time of its origin is contested, but the e-book came into existence sometime between 1940 and 1960. In those days e-books could only be read on cumbersome gadgets built on vast electronic circuitry.
Only with the launch of the e-book readers (with fancy names like ‘Rocket e-book’ and the ‘SoftBook Reader’) in Silicon Valley in 1998 did the concept snake its way into scientific lexicon.
But it would be another decade before the concept caught on. The watershed moment was the 2007 launch of Amazon Kindle.
Basically, the Kindle and other similar products launched in its wake, offer a reading platform, ideally the size of a single paperback page.
The aim was to recreate, as far as possible, the experience of reading a real book. Much like paper absorbs most light that falls on it and makes words on it easy on the eye, the e-book reader reflects just enough light to avoid glare from the smooth white surface.
The Kindle (Kindle Touch in my case) weighs under a third of a kilogram and packs in up to 1,500 books at a time. (Just the thought of the space so many paper books would consume boggles the mind.)
Yet many distinguished authors and publishers continue to hold e-books in utter contempt. “Maybe nobody will care about printed books 50 years from now, but I do.
When I read a book, I’m handling a specific object in a specific time and place,” says Jonathan Franzen, the acclaimed American novelist of The Corrections and Freedom fame. Initially, I wasn’t exactly sold on the idea of an electronic book either.
Still I took the trouble of asking my sister in the States to get a Kindle for me. It was a gamble. I was afraid that like all those gadgets (camcorders, laptops, cameras, DVD-ROMs) I bought only to discover a few weeks into their use I wanted them no more—that the cravings were more flings than true love—my experience with the Kindle would be no different.
It’s been over a month since. So far so good, sis. As luck would have it, the first e-book I read was Christopher Hitchens’ shoot-from-the-hip autobiography Hitch 22.
Riveting from the first page (screen one?). Simultaneously, I was onto Nabokov’s Lolita, which I was reading for the second time.
To my surprise, I found that the little e-thingy in my hand in no way blunted Hitchens’ stinging criticism of ‘fanatic’ Mother Teresa or take anything away from the biting jabs at the ‘war criminal’ Henry Kissinger; nor did it, for those who fuss about the fiction-nonfiction divide, dilute Nabokov’s eerie eroticism. Not in the least bit.
In the first few days, yes, reading a book ‘on screen’ did feel a little weird. I seemed to be missing all the qualities the purists attribute to paper books: the tactile sensuality of each volume, the musty whiff of worn-out pulp, the rustling sound of turning over a leaf, the satisfaction of riffling through a certain number of pages...
I shouldered on. After a first few days, I was smitten. In no time at all I had come to view reading the e-book as natural as going through the real thing.
In due course, I have also come to savor the satisfaction that comes from pushing myself a little harder, to flip one more e-page, and another, and another and another.
Since the Kindle doesn’t display page numbers I don’t know how far into the book I am (although it does display the percentage of read material, it’s as good as university calculus for someone who’s come to dread maths, thanks to his quick-on-the-cane tutors).
Take my case of ‘e-reading’ Hitch 22. Only after I finished the book did I learn, on a quick Google search, the darn thing sprawled over all of 448 pages, which, you might agree, is as far as one can push himself on a non-fiction.
Even coming from someone of Hitchens’ intellectual heft. Once again, I found the charm of the unknown working its dirty little magic on me.
And e-books come cheap: at under half the price of the conventional book. Bar a little scruple of cutting into the authors’ razor-thin margins, you might, as an under-read citizen of a woefully underdeveloped country (in muddled transition, no less), even find it convenient to download an e-book or two from one of the flourishing pirate sites, absolutely free of cost.
That gets me to which of the two versions (the old or the new) is ‘better’. First, you tell me: What does your imagination indulge? I know. I too have this thing for the pulp.
Yet, as I have learned, a screen of black Arial squiggles at a time, an e-reader doesn’t necessarily eat into the appeal of the more conventional reading. If my case is any indicator, the Kindle can even spur one to read more.
In other words, the more I read on my Kindle, the more paper books I want to read too; the nostalgia of the hidebound is still too strong to brush aside.
Likewise, I find the bickering on ‘aesthetics’ a tad puzzling. Yes, there is a kind of glamour to hunkering down with a 600-page monster. But the novella-sized Kindle, I find, can be no less tempting.
The caress of its smooth, ash-color frame; the consummate ease with which I can flick a new page into existence; the conceit of indulging in the unconventional... The sex appeal is unmatched.
But a word of caution: Although Amazon’s sales pitch makes it sound safe as a house I am far from convinced the e-book reader does not put extra load on my already over-worked eyes.
Quibbles aside, the whole point behind the development of e-book reader was to add to the convenience of ardent readers.
I have not had to make the hard choice thus far. For just in case my eyes tire of the ‘devil in disguise’, I can always toss it aside for a healthy helping from my bedside bookshelf.
The writer is the op-ed editor at Republica.
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