This started as a short, pithy response to an infuriating article, but, as usual, I got out of control. So, um, sorry. I'll post a video of some guy kicking groins next time.
The cover story of Newsweek's 11/26 issue is titled, "The Future of Reading," and the cover features a photo of Amazon's Jeff Bezos slyly poking his head out from behind his new innovation, the Amazon Kindle, which is more or less an Ipod for books. The product is displayed so prominently on the front page that you wonder if the article is going to be a big advertisement for the new product. And, of course, that's exactly what the article is. Article author Steven Levy's cheerleading is so egregious throughout that you have to wonder whether Amazon actually paid for this coverage, as Levy's breathless praise makes the machine sound like it's better than 10 Super Bowls.
What's so good about this thing? First, it allows you to buy books online very quickly, and have the full text in your hand within minutes. That actually is pretty cool. Of course, you'd have to read it on a tiny little screen, but okay, still not awful.
What else is awesome about it? Well, it's connected to the Internet. And, hey, that's pretty cool, I guess. The article never considers asking why I would need to be able to access the Internet through the same device from which I'm reading-- especially when many people read specifically to escape from the constant bombardment of awful noise-- but, like most of the article, it relies on the base assumption that if it's connected to something else, it is inherently good. Examples of what all of this connectivity will provide?
Let's let Levy pick his jaw off the floor and speak for himself:
This is already happening on the Web. Instead of retreating to a cork-lined room to do their work, authors like Chris Anderson, John Battelle ("The Search") and NYU professor Mitchell Stephens (a book about religious belief, in progress) have written their books with the benefit of feedback and contributions from a community centered on their blogs.
"The possibility of interaction will redefine authorship," says Peter Brantley, executive director of the Digital Library Federation, an association of libraries and institutions. Unlike some writing-in-public advocates, he doesn't spare the novelists. "Michael Chabon will have to rethink how he writes for this medium," he says.
Jeff Bezos' little handheld machine is going to make Michael Chabon rethink how he writes? Really? Why-- because he'll have to cater to the whims of regulars on Internet message boards? As a message board regular myself, I must confess to you non-message boarders: 95% of all things written on message boards are retarded.
. Adam Smith, product director for Book Search, says the process is all about "getting rid of the idea that a book is a [closed] container."
Maybe we should just get rid of people who have this idea in the first place.
Jim Gerber, Google's content-partnerships director, suggests that it might be an interesting idea, for example, for someone on the liberal side of the fence to annotate an Ann Coulter book, providing refuting links for every contention that the critic thought was an inaccurate representation. That commentary, perhaps bolstered and updated by anyone who wants to chime in, could be woven into the book itself
I like anything that could make Ann Coulter look worse, but the concept of people being able to litter your books with any idiotic observation they want? I don't like that. If I wanted that, I'd buy more used books.
If I want an opposing viewpoint, I'll read another book, rather than cramming it all onto one page.
Finally, Levy suggests that the reason so few people read (you know the statistics) is that books are too pricey. So, he comes up with a totally logical solution:
For argument's sake, let's say cutting the price in half will double a book's sales—given that the royalty check would be the same, wouldn't an author prefer twice the number of readers? When I posed the question to best-selling novelist James Patterson, who was given an early look at the Kindle, he said that if the royalty fee were the same, he'd take the readers.
If you cut the price of a paperback from $10 to $5, the number of readers will double! The problem is that no one out there can afford that extra $5, because they need it for cigarettes and gas money. And of course, James Patterson would be fine with it because he'd get the same amount of money. Assuming, of course, that there are hundreds of thousands of would-be readers out there just wishing the price of a book of short stories could drop, and that they could be as affordable as, say, butt shorts (perhaps their shorts say "Reader" instead of "Hottie" or "Slut") or sneakers with wheels in the heels.
Oh, and just in case sales don't increase, Levy suggests that they could just slap some advertisements in the books. Why the hell not? I can't see how this could possibly have a negative impact on literature.
Two dissenting views are offered, very gently rebuffed, and mostly ignored. First, Levy quote Annie Proulx as saying "Nobody is going to sit down and read a novel on a twitchy little screen. Ever." The rebuttal? A patronizing, "Oh, Annie." you've won me over, Levy!
Also, John Updike is given some space to argue that not everything needs to be connected to everything else, and that the Internet is not some inherent good that automatically makes everything better just by touching it. But his voice is watered down and crammed into a paragraph at the end, after you've already been pounded over the head with the greatness of this $400 device, no rebuttal is offered, and Bezos gets the last word.
Of course, Levy does offer some criticism. His main critique? The Kindle does not have Youtube capability. Because when I'm reading Beloved what I really, really want to do is be able to access videos of fat people getting hit in the balls with watermelons. So, maybe the next version of the Kindle can allow me to access youtube, Itunes, multiple porn sites, and a celebrity gossip blog; that way, I could do all my reading without having to worry about actually reading the book. The fact that the youtube "problem" is even an issue to him reveals an inherent disconnect with the concept and goals of real reading and writing; if that's why you're not laying out $400 for the Kindle-- a device smaller, more expensive, harder on the eyes, and generally more useless than any book ever-- then you just don't understand why people read in the first place.
I love new technology as much as the next guy, but not everything is necessarily better if it's palm-sized, connected to the entire world, and littered with the refuse of the Internet.
