Charles McGrath, the Times' book critic at large, in his glowing thoughts on John Updike's professional and personal life, has an interesting note of consternation. Updike, McGrath writes, "was the great chronicler of middle-class America, and hundreds of years from now, if people still read, they will read the Rabbit books to learn what that perplexing age, the 20th century, was really like." (Italics mine.) McGrath subtly but devilishly drops that clause in his essay. Having recently finished Jonathan Franzen's collections of essays, "How To Be Alone," which agonizes and intertwines privacy, the self, depression, imagination and reading (aka "being alone") over and over again, that clause is what sticks with me from McGrath's appreciation of Updike.
Why are we always so concerned about reading's impending extinction? It existed in Mesopotamia, on papyrus, more than two thousand years ago, and still does today, no? What about the late-2oth, when Franzen wrote the majority of the collected essays, and 21st centuries send us into such a tizzy about reading's future? The computer and all its hand-held descendants, obviously. Can true reading -- enriching, absorbing, edifying reading -- happen in present day, when the dominant medium is a lit screen instead of a printed page?
I want to say yes and join all the progressive education policy-makers and media pundits who argue that information is being consumed at the same rate -- if not a more prodigious, wide-ranging one -- only on a different platform that might actually have more educational benefits itself. But I always have trouble completing that affirmation. By sheer but amusing coincidence, Amazon released its second version of the Kindle, its hand-held reading device, about the same time Updike died. Reported Brad Stone and Mokoto Rich of the Times, the new version has seven times more memory, a sharper display and a joystick, and turns pages faster -- all for $359. "Amazon hopes that the Kindle becomes the iPod of the literary world, challenging the printed book," they wrote. (Is the name "Kindle" supposed to connote kindling, as in the burning pages of the books we no longer need?)
By now, I've accepted the iPod as an upgrade in the way music is consumed, even though I still don't own one. Music is, by definition, entertainment. Why shouldn't it be portable so you can be entertained wherever you go? My one point of displeasure is the iPod has rendered the album booklet and liner notes irrelevent. I've always thought they provide a joyful, idiosyncratic glimpse into a band's world. Of all the examples I could list, this one, from Pavement's 1997 record, "Brighten the Corners," quickly comes to mind: "And to our one-way corresponders, the address is still 9361 Cole Drive, Stockton, CA 95212." Nonetheless, I get it. The iPod is really an ingenious way for us to enjoy music and for Apple to make money.
But there is something hard to surmount when it comes to recognizing the computer screen as a superior vehicle for reading. Staring at a screen for an extended period of time -- and I do it at least eight hours each day (not only to blog!) -- is mind-numbing. In much the same way Franzen criticizes TV-watching, reading on a computer screen is more passive. It is easier to skim and disengage. There's something about holding a book (or newspaper), pulling it close while lying on the couch and, there, you're in another world.
No comments:
Post a Comment