or what is really going on with the Kindle?
vs.
Yesterday I was reading the NY Times and I found this:
E-books have officially outsold hardback books on Amazon.com. We all knew this day was coming, but I am still disappointed.
So, there are several things to be noted here and they all have to do with the idea of artistic creation in a capitalistic paradigm and the current shift to digital literacy.
In lou of digital literacy being incredibly postmodern, (or maybe even the end of postmodern) this post will be all over the place.
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1) Paperback vs. Hardback
*Paperbacks have the soft cover, hard backs, well, they have the hard binding. They are typically more expensive due to the cost of production and binding. It makes sense E-books out sold hard back books. When they outsell paperback books, it will be the demise of modern literature and it will represent a the end of an era and the beginning of a completely new way of interacting with text on a mass social level. I don't believe we, as a society are there yet. Libraries still have books, bookstores still exist and people still buy non e- books.
2) E-books are cheaper but proven less cognitively effective for memorization than 'real' books, in theory. It is proven, tangibly touching, highlighting, underlining, writing in, etc. books is a more effective means of memorization by both psychologists and linguists. It is the way our cognition works with the interaction of linear text. Most people learn by interacting with something real, not a binary code on an electronic screen transformed in html/xml format. This is why most college bookstores still have actual textbooks and not e-textbooks. (or so I'd like to believe!)
3)Reading from a screen for longer than an hour at a time outputs frequencies that are harmful to your eyes.
Regardless
3)Reading, whether it be on a fucking e-book or a paperback IS GOOD. So, if you wanna read a Kindle, go ahead. But, there is more here than actually meets the eye.
Elaboration on point 1- In a society economically based off production and consumption, the cheaper the better. It's a simple cost/benefit analysis. However, a writer is an artist. So in accordance with this, value must be placed on the work of art. Artists have meager paychecks in relation to how society values their art economically. This is why there was a huge movement with artists in Great Britain via pre-modernism with Socialism. In a political sense, Capitalism is not an economically conducive structure for those who create art. Problem starts here.
These are all post-industrial Neo-Marxists and Socialists, but represent the wide array of ideas about artistic production and value in a Capitalistic Industrial Society. Is the problem the Kindle, or is the problem the production of books?
Walter Benjamin:
William Morris
or
Oscar Wilde
Socialist League
So, there is something larger to be noted here. The Kindle proves that art cannot escape the structure of the sociopolitical atmosphere. What does this mean? Artists are not valued economically in a Capitalistic setting. This is part of the problem.
Sidenote: Oprah and Barnes and Noble have a large say in the NY Times Best Sellers List. In fact, there is a direct correlation with the marketing Oprah does in partnership with Barnes and Noble. So in an economic lens, books are simply another outlet for consumption. You will consume them by purchasing them. Publishing houses will find ways to make books have high profit margins and desirable to the general reading public.
However, I often times think, people forgot that mass written literacy has only been around since 1500 with Martin Luther and the invention of the Printing Press. Until that point, words were mostly oral to the masses, they were sounds and not a visual object. They had no permanence; in orality, they were only linguistic sounds, nothing more! In fact, most people in Western society couldn't read. Then, the printing press was invented, text became a permanent object fixed in space in time. Text became linear. However, currently, we are in a shift that allows text to be uni linear (or hypertext). In fact, the words I type right now are uni linear, strictly in the way I interact with the letters that form the words, that, in turn, form the sentences.
Case in Point:
So, contextualized, words are going to change, whether you or I like it or not. I dislike the Kindle, personally because I prefer artistic creation being tangibly real rather than a binary code embedded in an electronic box, in a strictly formalist perspective. On a sociopolitical level, I think the Kindle is merely a symbol for a larger problem with the value of artists and their creations in an economical lens.
However, I will weep with my piles of books as Kindles eventually outsell paperbacks. It's only a matter of time. But, let's all take a step back and critically analyze why this is occurring.
-Social Shift to digital literacy
-Cost/Consumption/Production of an artistic object in a Capitalistic Paradigm
However all is not lost! Something incredibly fascinating is going on with hypertext and books, when it is done in a creative manner.
Two wonderful works of art that SHOULD be read on an electronic screen:
and
My Conclusion:
All is not lost, just in the use of linear text in a uni-linear outlet. Hypertextual novels have a lot to offer in their theory, in the postmodern, formalist, fragmented whole, Barthes "Death of an Author" kind of way. Kindles should be used for hypertext novels like "House of Leaves", as a Kindle can do things a bound book cannot. Linear texts on a Kindle? A big fucking, "No thanks!"
Until creative authors really hone this new medium and hypertext becomes interactive, stick to a book you can put on a shelf. It's better for your memory, better for your eyes and in my opinion, better for the writers/artists who created the book.
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