The award this week goes to a comment made about Andrew Keen’s public outcry over the soullessness of ebooks and their authors, not to mention his creepy obsession with having his books physically loved and fingered by “young women” waiting in line for his signature in Rio. Oh my, he does not get out of his mother’s basement much does he?
I am not making this up! Here, you read it and tell me this does not make you go hmmmm…
The traditional book is the most physical of things, a text to be bent and fingered and written on and imprinted with human signatures. Something to be physically loved. The ebook revolution changes all that. In the new digital age, readers and writers and publishers will increasingly come to reflect their soulless product.
Yes, you can call me a reactionary, but, as a book author, I want my work to be fingered by my readers. I want young women like Lillian to wait in line for me to sign copies of my work. Like a character in a Stephanie Meyer fantasy, the e-book drains the blood from the physical text. No, this cultural revolution can’t be recommended.
Anyway, his comment section had this gem…
If you ask me, the soul went out of books when that so-called “printing press” came along. Real books were painstakingly copied and illustrated by dedicated monks. This mechanical nonsense meant everybody could own them, and it’s been downhill from there.
I’d also be more impressed if the article spelled Bernard CornwEll’s name correctly.
Tags: Common Sense
V. Greene wrote,
Excellent!
However, there’s a good question somewhere in all that faint creepiness. What’s the e-equivalent of a book signing, and can one politely autograph someone’s Kindle? If so, what sort of ink endures best?
Where’s Miss Manners when you need her?
Link | September 18th, 2009 at 9:40 am
TeddyPig wrote,
How about simply a collectible postcard or poster with the front cover of the new book to sign?
I mean artists do that all the time. It’s not like everyone can afford to buy an original.
Link | September 18th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Julia Barrett wrote,
Well…perhaps he’d like to return to the days when only priests and royalty were literate and could afford those hand printed copies. The invention of the printing press was the great equalizer. Perhaps nothing has been more influential in shaping society. The Church protested because if the common people could read their own copies of the Bible, they might have, God forbid…questions! I love books I can hold in my hand. I love books, period. But I suspect ebooks are the way of the future. And if ebooks encourage reading then I’m all for ‘em.
Link | September 18th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Tuscan Capo wrote,
hmm.. if the soul of books went out with the invention of the printing press I guess the art of dying beautifully went out with modern medicine and sanitary hospitals?
Link | September 18th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
vein wrote,
Well, there are a lot of creepily beautiful paintings of Victorian women dying of consumption… but I think the world can do without them….
Link | September 18th, 2009 at 8:54 pm