BTT: Electronic vs. Paper

Something a little different today–

First. Go read this great article from Time Magazine: Books Gone Wild: The Digital Age Reshapes Literature. (Well worth reading.)

Second. Stop and think about it for moment. Computers and digital media are changing everything we do these days, whether we realize it or not, and that includes our beloved books.

Third. DISCUSS!

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An interesting article indeed. I have mixed reactions to the rise of e-books and non-refereed books. But the proclamation at the end of the article that “none of this is good or bad; it just is” is a good example of information-age thinking. No value judgment can be made, huh? What about the confusion of information with wisdom, of availability with worth, of technological giddiness with critical analysis?

Of course some of it is “good or bad.” I think the article rightly compares today’s evolution of the novel with its rise in the 18th century. It’s always been an evolving species. But you can still talk about pros and cons of different aspects of its evolution. Sure, there were sectors that thought novels were deceptive and immoral in the 18th century, so writers shaped their books in response. What did that do to the books’ quality? Some of it makes me shake my head in awe — for instance, the way writers could use double-entendre and other clever means to write things that adults would “get” without “corrupting” the innocent younger minds listening. Other aspects bore me, like their continual interruptions to moralize.

I recognize that books have always been shaped by culture. In the 18th and 19th centuries, novels were commonly published in installments, and these “monthly numbers” were read courtesy of circulating libraries. They had to appeal to a broad audience agewise. Novel-reading was also a more social event than our age of “going off in a corner with a good book” can ever really grasp. There was no television, and families read books aloud together for entertainment. Dickens characters were like our pop-culture heroes; everyone knew them. Even in the 18th century, they rang the churchbells in England in the installment of Clarissa when the beloved heroine died. Is it “good” that mass publication made it possible for reading to become the solitary activity it is for us? To the extent that it’s democratized reading, I’d say yes. But to the extent that it’s isolated it, it has also disempowered it, so I’d say no.

What made reading become an isolated activity was its affordability. Now it’s become “too expensive,” so “anyone can publish a book” thanks to the internet. Good or bad? In my opinion I’d say, primarily bad. I like the idea of publishers as quality-control gatekeepers — even though non-literary factors also come into play. I like the idea of our cultural life being moderated by educated people — in this case, publishing houses. Who could argue that “dumbing down” doesn’t happen when you take away the literacy gatekeepers? (I’m not automatically an apologist for institutions, by the way — I’m a homeschooler!) The article notes that the two successful e-authors’ books “got filtered out, initially, which suggests that there are cultural sectors that conventional publishing isn’t serving.” Should the mere number of people who will read — or show electronic curiosity about — a text be a criterion of its value? That puts pornography on the same level as Shakespeare, and I’m sorry, they’re simply not “equal.”

I think each “democratization” of reading has been accompanied by a decline in quality. Frankenstein was written by Mary Shelley when she was only 17 years old. The literary mastery of its prose — even its vocabulary — weren’t raved about as the work of a prodigy; they were seen as nothing unusual, at least among the educated. We live in an age in which public education is faulted for declining literacy rates, and it’s in this context that the rise of self-published, electronic literature takes place.

It’s hard to think of this subject without being reminded of an article I recently read about mainstream journalism. Newspapers are another print media struggling and dying. Part of me thinks they deserve it for losing the public trust with biased reporting and failure to ask the hard questions. Part of me is indifferent, because so much news is available online. But if journalism truly falls — the “journalism” that pays lots of money to send reporters across the world — and all we’re left with is bloggers — then we’re in trouble. (Read the article’s second-to-last paragraph of description of “the new fiction” for an eye-opener on what we’d be left with in literature if Old Publishing falls.)

And now lots of other institutions under assault by the information age and its values of convenience, privacy, and immediacy come to mind. Church. Higher education. Neighborhood. Local economy.

Sigh… It really bothers me that I sound like such a curmudgeonly snob, but I think it all boils down to the belief that good things should be difficult. Recently I read children’s book author Jama Kim Rattigan’s account of the publication of her first book. It took a long time and a lot of rejection. From every letter she gleaned something useful and kept tweaking and revising her work. It made the resulting book better, she wrote. I love the idea that what I read reflects that kind of effort and determination and artistry. Publishing a good book should be difficult. Buying a book — paying for it, paying its producers and creators — is a reminder that it is a thing of value. When things become available to more people, I rejoice. But when they become “free” — worthless — I grieve. You get what you pay for.