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June 5, 2000: This message was distributed by Papyrus News, a free e-mail distribution list on the global impact of information technology on language, literacy, and education. Feel free to forward this message to others, preferably with this introduction. For information on Papyrus News, including how to (un)subscribe or access archives, see <http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/web/faculty/markw/papyrus-news.html>.
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reprinted with permission....mark
Monday, June 5, 2000
DIGITAL NATION
Still Hard to Digest, but Digital Books May Have a Future
By Gary Chapman
Copyright 2000, The Los Angeles Times, All Rights Reserved
It has slowly dawned on me recently, with a feeling of pleasure and gratitude,
that we may be in the midst of a new Golden Age of literature. At the same
time, the disconnect between the creativity and quality in contemporary writing
and the content to be found on the Internet could not be more profound. Will
electronic books bridge this gap?
The quality of literature today is better than I can remember, in the works of
young writers such as Michael Cunningham, Zadie Smith, Dave Eggers, Arundhati
Roy, Ha Jin, Jhumpa Lahiri, Sherman Alexie and Andre Dubus III, as well as
older, more established writers, including Sue Miller, Tim O'Brien, Jane Smiley
and Russell Banks.
But these writers are essentially invisible in cyberspace, except on the Web
sites where customers can purchase their books. For now, good literature and
the Internet appear light-years apart.
Many people feel -- and I have been one of them -- that good writing and books
are inseparable. Digital technologies seem well-suited for pure information and
small packages of cleverness, but the longer and more pleasurable forms of
storytelling and narrative seem to require the familiar, old-fashioned book.
"So far, the Internet seems to be largely amplifying the worst features
of television's preoccupation with sex and violence, semiliterate chatter, shortened
attention spans and near-total subservience to commercial marketing," said
Librarian of Congress James Billington in a speech before the National Press Club
on April 14.
"There is a difference between turning pages and scrolling down,"
he said. "There is something about a book that should inspire a certain
presumption of reverence."
Like many people, I cherish my books, even though I own far more than I have
room to store and I probably haven't looked at the majority of them since I
bought them. The idea of an electronic book, with its presumption not of
reverence but of impermanence and pure functionality, seems alien and vaguely
unsettling.
The publishing industry, on the other hand, seems to disagree. Lately there's
been a stampede to get into position for an anticipated new market for
electronic books. Random House, Simon & Schuster and Time Warner Books all
announced deals with Microsoft a few weeks ago. Esquire magazine has released
its latest issue in a digital format that can be read on e-books such as the
Rocketbook or Softbook, or on Palm Pilots or Pocket PCs. Some people are even
reading novels on their Palm Pilots, downloaded from Peanut Press (http://www.peanutpress.com).
The recent BookExpo America convention in Chicago featured more than 60 digital
book vendors, triple the number last year. Everyone in the publishing industry
woke up when mega-author Stephen King sold about half a million online copies,
at $2.50 each, of his 33-page short story "Riding the Bullet" within
48 hours in March.
Still, the industry has a long way to go to perfect the technology for electronic
books. Screen legibility, the biggest complaint until recently, has improved
and is no longer a serious obstacle for reading text on a screen. But e-books
still need a power source, they need better and faster ways to download online
material, and they should be more versatile -- so you don't have to carry both
an e-book and a laptop. The material available for e-books needs to expand
dramatically.
Writers have tended to be skeptical of electronic books, but that may be changing.
"Writers tend to be Luddites," said Steve Wasserman, book review
editor of The Times. He noted how Gore Vidal still writes his novels in
longhand, on legal pads, and then has those pages transcribed. Vidal still
believes that the tactile feel of a pen in hand is important to the creative
process, the way many readers think that the feel of a book and its pages are
essential to the appreciation of writing. But Wasserman believes that e-books
may expand the choices for readers.
"Books aren't going to go away," he said. "Just as radio
continued to exist after TV appeared, books will be with us even after we're
all used to e-books. But the role of books may change." Michael Silverblatt, host of the
"Bookworm" program on Santa Monica's KCRW radio, said, "Reading
is a kind of daily meditation, almost a spiritual ritual. Reading has something
to do with at least my long-term memory. If I'm reading a book for a second
time, I can tell you what words are about to come up.
"To the extent that electronic books allow us to keep this quality of reading,
this kind of meditation, then they'll be very useful." Lawrence Wright, an author and staff writer
for the New Yorker magazine, said, "Our experience with technology
recently has been that if something doesn't work for consumers, they'll fix
that, and quickly.
"I'm interested in finding new ways to write," Wright said.
"I'm very interested in the interactive capabilities of digital media and
how we can use those capabilities to do interesting new things in
writing." He added that one great benefit of e-books to writers is that
they can help keep books in print.
Silverblatt added, "Publishing is no friend of great literature. . . .
The more serious a book is these days, the less likely it is to be
published."
E-books and online distribution may change this, because authors may be able
to circumvent publishers the way musicians can now distribute songs on the
Internet without a recording contract.
E-books thus seem inevitable. Like MP3 in music, they will shake the publishing
industry, change the craft of writing, transform the role and character of
paper books and open up new opportunities and problems for talented writers.
"We're living in an age of delirium," Wasserman said. Thus, we're
largely unable to sort out the changes the Internet is bringing to culture. As Sarah
Bird, a novelist and screenwriter, said, "We're all holding hands and venturing
into the future carefully, one step at a time, checking with each other,
saying, 'Does this work for you?'"
Gary Chapman is director of the 21st Century Project at the University of Texas
at Austin. He can be reached at gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu.
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