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Stephen Puddicombe looks at the unusual appeal of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot
Ciaran Rafferty investigates the science of book classification
Sitting in a lecture this term, I was struck by the beauty of medieval manuscripts. A far cry from the well-thumbed paperbacks of the JB Morrell library and in a completely alien world to the softly glowing reams of font on an e-reader, these massive tomes were works of art in themselves. Taking scribes many months to painstakingly copy out, stories like The Canterbury Tales and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight were illustrated with intricate borders and drawings, the fancier artwork even using delicate gold leaf. Books were immensely valuable, so valuable in fact that in the "Chained Library" in Hereford Cathedral which you can still see today, books were chained to the shelves to prevent theft.
Of course, with such expensive books came exclusivity. Even if you were fortunate enough to be literate in the medieval period, books were not widely available and were usually the domain of rich families who would commission manuscripts with their family badge or coat of arms illustrated inside. The invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century heralded the beginning of a new age of literacy and literature accessible to the general public. And obviously this was a good thing. Everyone deserves to be able to enjoy great literature, to borrow books from libraries and share them with friends. But now we take them for granted.
There is nothing quite like the sheer physical pleasure of holding a book. The satisfaction of picking up a copy of your well-thumbed favourite novel, seeing how your love for it has made it slightly crinkled and dog-eared after many a rereading. The slight struggle to pick up a massively dusty old dictionary and drag it to a library table. Looking at some of the bizarre cover illustrations that books often have (never how you imagine the characters of course). The frisson of excitement that you feel after finally obtaining a long-awaited book for the first time, as you hold it in your hands in the bookstore.
Technology is not something you can touch. Electronic information cannot be handed down from family to family, will not survive an Ice Age/zombie apocalypse/world electricity failure. Books won’t get a virus, books won’t need to be recharged, books won’t freeze on you. In our technology driven, Facebook checking, Internet shopping world, sometimes we just want a little bit of soul and heart. And I think books do that perfectly.
People said exactly the same thing when hardbacks were superseded by paperbacks, and perhaps more pertinently, when CDs were superseded by MP3s (or when videos came out - death of the cinema!!! - or when cassettes came out - death of the vinyl!!! - the list goes on...) When a new technology becomes popular there is always a backlash. In ten or twenty years time you'll be bemoaning the "loss" of something else. I bet you have an iPod, right? If this was 1999 you'd be writing a piece on the soullessness of MP3s; about how nothing beats holding a CD in your hand, gazing at the artwork, leafing through the booklet... Now everyone just plugs in their headphones and never gives it a thought.
Personally, if Kindles and their ilk make it easier for more people to read more books, then I am completely in favour. Perhaps the important thing about a novel or a poem is the *words*, rather than the smell of the paper or the font in the cover art =)
I don't think it's the the same with music - your enjoyment of it is aural; whether my headphones are attached to an iPod, CD player, walkman or gramophone isn't that relevant. And to be honest, I still buy 95% of my music in hard copy (whatever I can't get in hard copy I'll download) because there is a pleasure in having something tangible to hold.
I agree with Lizzy. We stare at screens all day - TVs, computers, phones - that it's just nice to retreat into a book and if for nothing else, rest your eyes from all the glare. I'm not saying Kindles etc shouldn't exist - whoever wants one, buy one - I just worry that they'll eliminate printing press entirely in fifty years, and for those like myself and Lizzy who like the satisfaction of holding a book and turning a page, that's a tragic prospect.
Responding to Robin, I agree that anti-Kindle arguments are a bit precious (no offence, Lizzie), but there are practical reasons why we shouldn't digitise all modes of our culture. First, how the easily corruptible and delete-able format makes such stores dangerous if we want to keep this information in some kind of archive. Secondly, we don't know how long we will have a society of power cables, internet and operating systems in which to disseminate this culture. Physical objects; words on paper; are, so long as not purposefully destroyed, more hard wearing than human beings, and it's how civilisation has survived, in my opinion.
Also, I think you're dead wrong with your music-format analogy. Who thinks of an .mp3 as a soulful medium? We've had them for long enough so you'd think we'd start to see beauty in the medium if there were any to behold. I think there is a radical change from a physical recording format (even digital, such as CD) to an flow of binary information.
Uh, what? Where did I say an MP3 was "soulful"? I was using the analogy to make the point that twelve years ago everyone was saying the exact same thing about the upcoming switch to 100% digital music - MP3s lack soul and heart, I want a real physical item to hold, music is going to be devalued, etc etc etc etc. Now, although admittedly there are people who still like to own hard copies (like #2 above) the overwhelming majority of people exclusively use MP3s with no complaint. They don't mope about not having a case or a booklet or a physical disc - in fact, if they wanted, they could easily go out and buy the CD - they just enjoy the added ease of attainability, the added convenience, and get on with *listening to the music*.
You call anti-Kindle arguments precious, but don't you think your WHO KNOWS HOW LONG DIGITAL CIVILISATION MAY LIVE argument is a bit, well, melodramatic? And besides, no one is saying that books will cease to exist - there are plenty of vinyls about, despite the fact they stopped being current three decades ago, and hardbacks are still selling sixty years after the paperback revolution. The way I see it panning out, big releases will come out in paper format first, much like hardbacks do now, followed by the electronic release a few months later. If anything, the physical quality of new paper books will go up, as publishers strive to make them more attractive to compete with their electronic counterparts.
Basically, what I'm saying is that whenever something new comes out there are always oceans of people who throw up their arms and weep for the future of (X). These are the same people who ten or twenty years later are happily and effortlessly using the new technology. It happened with paperbacks, it happened with cassettes, it happened with MP3s, and its happening with ebooks.
ps. #2 - I know this isn't going to affect the thrust of your argument, but for the sake of clarity, the screen of an ereader is nothing like a computer/tv/phone screen. It's basically like reading the words off a piece of paper, that's why they call it e-ink =)
check your facebook for my reply, Robin
Anyone who's ever looked at a kindle screen would agree that it's hardly got a conventional screen, and is in fact perfectly pleasant to look at. That's the point. It doesn't glow, it looks like text.
Anyway I couldn't really care either way re the argument as I don't read enough (despite my housemates' cries of "phillistine!")...
I can't help but think that the examples used in this article have little relevance. I'm sure that the fully illustrated version of The Canterbury Tales is incredibly beautiful, but that's not what E-books are replacing. Things like the Canterbury Tales will always be created and preserved for future generations, but can you honestly say that that in a few hundred years time students will be amazed by a grubby copy of the latest Dan Brown paperback? The point is that it's not a straight choice between E-books and paper books, the two can and will exist together.
Also I have to agree with the previous comments that E-book readers are just as easy on the eye as normal books. In fact in some cases it can be an improvement as you can change the size of the text to whatever you prefer.
Interesting points. I agree that the two have their own beneficial aspects and can, even should, coexist to provide what the other may not. But a screen does get tiresome, especially if you spend a lot of time looking at the laptop/TV/phone as almost everyone does. Personally I tend to lean towards books because for some reason the smell of the paper is oddly comforting. Call me weird but hey. But something like Kindle is definately better if you want to go for variety, practicality, and probably economy too, in the long run.
what I don't like is that after you read a text a certain amount of times you lose it in some cases. And apple's version is typically frustrating to say the least
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