The printing press is easily one of the greatest inventions in the history of humanity. It was a great leap forward not just in technology, but more importantly in social equality. For the first time, information could be widely copied and spread; ordinary people had access to knowledge. This caused fear in the social order as people did not think that the common man could be trusted with information. Heretical ideas could be spread, sacred texts could be “misinterpreted”; the monopoly on knowledge was being toppled as the distribution of printed material changed the world forever. Technology continues to drive forward, and today information is easier and more convenient to access than ever before. The e-book is a child of the modern age which allows people to download digital copies of books and store libraries of information in their purses. I am not going to try and argue that this invention is without merit; the e-reader allows people to access books instantaneously and in the case of literary classics which have entered the public domain, for no charge at all. A ten-year old child can download Jane Eyre on a whim one afternoon and learn the quiet dignity of courage and conviction. The e-book also allows for independent authors to bypass publishers and deliver their works to the public (although, there is value in separating the wheat from the chaff, and a flooded market is hardly an ideal situation). However, if one tries to claim that this modern marvel makes the traditional book obsolete, then they are sorely mislead as the traditional book offers so much more than the e-book ever will: the art beyond the text and the physical manifestation a book deserves. Perhaps these reasons seem to wax poetic, but poetry is the matter at hand and something worth fighting for.
A book is a piece of art: its breadth, its formatting and its language. Granted, some texts are purely vehicles of information in which every cigar is just a cigar. These are books for which e-readers are ideal and in which their strength is evident. However, the books discussed for now are far more than the narrative which they tell. Just as a concert is more than a melody, as a painting is more than a picture, as cinema is more than a video, a book is more than its text. Compare the sheer physical presence of the coarse and powerful Brothers Karamazov or The Lord of the Rings trilogy to the light, almost fragile, appearance of The Great Gatsby or Of Mice and Men; a book can tell a story that runs so seamlessly with its narrative that one can feel it without even realizing. There are some authors who creatively format their space, like the mouse’s tale-tail in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, or David Foster Wallace’s use of footnotes in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. It has been suggested that e-readers could automatically translate books to make them accessible to any reader. But if one thinks that a translation of an author’s work is merely finding analogous terms in another tongue, they are sorely underestimating the writer’s language craft. One of the touted strengths of the e-reader is its uniformity and customizability, but sometimes the chef should be left to decide on the inclusion of cilantro.
A book is a powerful symbol. It is the embodiment of the ideals which it houses, and we as humans need symbols in our lives to drive and inspire us. I do not wish to delve into the metaphysical question of how “real” a data-file is as compared to a collection of symbolics we process as ideas, but rather espouse the power and distinction of the latter. Could a congregation of believers be filled with wonder and awe over a flash-drive as they are for a gilded edition of a sacred text? Could people achieve the same catharsis from deleting files of Harry Potter or Fahrenheit 451 en masse as they would at a book-burning (not that I’m condoning the act, but rather referencing the meaning it has for its participants)? A book is a totem for some of the most powerful and provocative ideas to ever grace the planet. Their presence materializes the abstract beauty of literature and its philosophies such that one can literally hold the plight of Blanche Dubois or Laura Wingfield close to their hearts.
A book deserves a body. To turn the pages of Les Miserables and feel the paper tremble between your fingers as you fret over the fate of Fantine is to engage in solidarity with a hundred and fifty years of readers. Not unlike how the flavour of natural vanilla extract is made richer for the aromas that are not vanillin, a book’s character and romance are greater for its subtleties. The curling and gentle tears of the cream-coloured pages, the creases along the spine of a book opened and reopened, the musty smell of old paper, they all indicate the aging and maturing of a book which grows more prominent with each read, as does the depth with which the soul of the book permeates into the reader’s own. Like a favourite pair of jeans or an old teddy bear, a physical book earns its character and place in your heart in a way a digital file never can. When one peers at an e-reader, they may recall the last few books read on its immaculately uniform display, but it cannot rekindle their affection any more than looking at an address book can as compared to seeing the familiar faces of those you love.
The point I’m trying to make is clear: a book is more than a narrative, and that is all which an e-book can deliver. Perhaps an e-book will efficiently and easily deliver the works of J. M. Barrie and Roald Dahl to future generations, but will it be able to replace the feeling of passing down these books from parent to child? Will it fill the void left on the shelf? Will people think to open files on a whim in the same way that passing by the cover of an old favourite compels them to flip through its pages? Has not Jane Eyre done enough to earn a place in one’s home where she might be run into on occasion by an old friend or a new acquaintance? Yes, this may seem like an emotionally-driven argument, but that is exactly the point. A book can hold a special place in people’s hearts, and deserves more than to be stripped to its absolute essentials.
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