The Forest for the Trees

Mark O’Connell, contributor to The Millions and fellow Borges enthusiast, published an article last August titled “The eReader of Sand,” an article I have only now had the good fortune to read. To summarize for all of my Teal Deers out there: he does not believe it is possible to become attached to an ereader the way one can become attached to print books, and he comes to the conclusion that ebooks will never measure up to the quality of print books. To summarize my reaction: I disagree with about half of his points. Point by point, however, his article makes a great conversation piece for the “book object” arguments. In that vein I would like to break down my rebuttal in the style of a DVD commentary:

To begin with, O’Connell is a self-professed bibliophile with “shelves… all two rows deep, stuffed with a Tetris-like emphasis on space-optimization , and pretty much every horizontal surface holds some or other type of reading material.” First, HA about the Tetris description, and second, I have experienced the same phenomenon myself, so I totally get where he’s coming from.

He has also loved books “almost as much for their physical properties as for their intellectual ones.”

"I like the way a well-made paperback flops open in the hand, the briskly authoritative slap of its pages as it closes. I enjoy the feel of a hardback, its solidity and self-enclosure, its sober weight, the whispering creak of its stretching spine. I like the way they smell, too: the slightly chemical tang of new books and the soft, woody scent of old ones. (If you’re picturing me crouched in a corner of your local bookstore like some sort of mental case, a Library of America edition of [italicize]Pale Fire pressed to my face, you can stop right there: it’s an incidental pleasure, not something I pursue with any kind of monomaniacal intensity)."

My whole point here is the point I have been making all week: the book object has no intrinsic value (assuming it’s not made of gold). What if the only books that existed were Calculus books? I don’t think people would have the affection for this fragrant paper object that they do. Therefore, the object holds extremely little value—it is the book content that means so much. For reading and publishing to survive and thrive, the print technology will give way largely to the digital technology. It was Bill Gates who once said, “Content is king,” and that was never more applicable than in the publishing industry of today.

O’Connell then recaps for us the Jorge Luis Borges story “The Book of Sand” (El libro de arena), which you can read in English in its entirety for free here. He says that the Kindle (or Nook or other ereader) is like a real life “book of sand”; a (for all intents and purposes) neverending collection of literature can be contained inside a single volume. He also, paraphrasing the Borges description, calls the book of sand “monstrous” and “obscene.” The (e)Book of Sand corrupts “the natural, Godly order.” For one thing, I am thinking at this point, “Yes, this is like when they say the title of the movie in the movie,” and for another, I am non-plussed by the dramatic style. O’Connell is quick to point out that he is certainly not “frightened” of the ereader, but he is sad because he knows it “can’t even hope to compete” with the historically enormous invention of the book.

The problem with statements like these is that they are not properly defining what a “book” is. Is a book the content or the paper? Does a book only exist if it is content printed on paper? If the latter, then yes, I guess books are going away. Funny, I could have sworn I just really enjoyed reading The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides on my Kindle, but I guess I must be mistaken—real books are only on paper, after all.

Next, O’Connell concedes to a number of benefits from ereaders, such as size and ability to download something instantly. On the second part, he does delve into the “we don’t know how to wait for things anymore” criticism that places ebooks on the “instant gratification cult” shelf, but he does note it as a convenience. And, to circle back around to the beginning of his article, he does note the convenient simplicity of containing many books on one small device. He ends the article reluctantly conceding that ebooks are the way of the future, saying, “Ultimately, you’re never going to win an argument against convenience, no matter how much you love the anachronistic, heavy, unwieldy, and beautiful thing you want to save.” Ultimately, I agree with his concession that the ebook technology has proved to be a success.

The argument that O’Connell has overcome, but one that is extremely common (and especially on the Internet) is that “ebooks are ruining publishing, and everything else, and I don’t want them.” There are many people who not only do not ever want to read ebooks, but who also hold out hope that the print book technology will eventually win out. Unfortunately for many people, the print publishing model has already been shown to have many flaws. Ebooks will become more common than print books. So why is there still an outcry against them, if we know there is no stopping them? Why the rejection of what has been shown to be a more convenient technology? Why the demand that the publishing industry keep printing books that are losing them millions of dollars?

While the transformation of the publishing industry requires a complex analysis that I hope to break into as my blog progresses, from the “book as object” standpoint of this week, I think it’s the all-too-human, all-too-simple resistance to change. Print books are easy to use, and hey, they served us just fine when we were in school, didn’t they? The rejection of ebooks is part and parcel of the cult of nostalgia that has become very popular of late. In photography there are people who miss lomo cameras and will do everything to avoid using a DSLR. Many music fans still collect vinyl records, attesting to better sound and quality than cassette tapes, CDs, and MP3s (check out that dedication!).


In the end, who is to say what is truly the" better" technology? Does not the survival of the written word, whatever package it comes in, ultimately prevail over all?


I hope you've enjoyed these last couple of entries on the "book" as an object. I will absolutely revisit this in the future, although I plan to begin next week by delving into another of the wide range of topics in publishing.