The caves of altamira
Visiting Arusha also gave me the chance to bring the rest of my book collection with me. I was stunned with how much good stuff I had left behind when I moved to Kigali. Two Stephen King story collections plus Danse macabre (King's utterly fascinating study of horror on film and TV) Surrealism an introduction to surrealist art, James Joyce's A potrait of the artist as a young Man (reviewed it here many months ago), Thomas Hardy's Return of the native (it's Hardy- what do you expect besides genius), Alexander Masters Stuart: A life backwards which is one of the most enthralling books ever written about homelessness (and one of the best non-fiction books ever written period)The Damage done, Charlie Brooker's hilarious ScreenBurn...I felt as if I had left Arusha fleeing the secret police or something.
When I was working there, I used to head down to town at least once a week to see a guy who sold tons of second-hand books. Most of the stuff he had was rubbish but there was always the occasional gem. Nick Hornby's About a boy for example (granted not as good as A long way down)or A short history of tractors in Ukranian. I bought both Hardy and Joyce from there too. There were also books I bought which I thought I'd like but which turned out to be crap of the highest order (Glamorama- dear lord how bad was that?)I was completely stunned one day to see The ghosts of Motley Hall in the pile- the sight of it triggered an avalance of pleasurable childhood memories. Sadly the book was so tattered that I feared it would just crumble and turn to dust if I carried it away from its current abode.
In England my book haven was Fopp (RIP) which is still my all-time favourite store. Waterstones was usually too expensive, but Fopp was cheap and it sold CD's too. Furthermore, it had that down-to-earth charm that the big bookstore chains didnt have and yet it had more sophistication. You really never knew what literary goodness you would stumble upon in there- I was like a kid in a candy store. There were plentyof books scattered all over the store-sometimes as tie-ins to a recently released DVD or because the author was enjoying some kind of renaissance in public opinion or simply because the book was a bona fide classic. Best of all there were rarely any popular 'happening' books like the material being shoved down our throats by Oprah or the latest Dan Brown snoozefest- just smart or edgy books most of which you could never find anywhere else in town. You certainly wouldnt have to wade through drivel like '100 ways to take charge of your life' or all the million self-help books that are out these days. I was shattered when I returned to Reading last year and discovered the store had been closed for good. It was like finding out that your childhood haunt had been set ablaze by arsonists. The place had soul.
I was thinking of stuff like that when I heard about the new e-book from amazon called kindle. You wont need actual books anymore! Just download any book you want and read it electronically! Witness the dawn of a new age!
The thing is, I hate the idea of an ebook. Im sure its convenient and there's probably a host of perfectly valid reasons people are going gaga over it, but personally I intend to board the luddite express. I love books with all their imperfections. I remember the smells of books I used to love and the way they felt in your hands. My memories are tied up not just in words but in textures and smells and sights. My mother used to bring me loads of second-hand books every week when I was growing up in Kampala and I still remember the musty smell they used to have or the crisp feeling of turning each page. I liked the imperfections- the books became even more valuable because they were perishable. You had to treasure them and keep them from falling apart and if they did, they were perfect anyway. My book was a tangible possesion- magical and life-affirming in a way that the e-book can never really be. Reading was a comprehensive sensory and mental experience.
But now the kindle comes along and tries to 'improve' the reading experience. That's not the way it works. It may make it more convenient, but again thats not the point. Im sure a lot of people will find the whole experience exciting, but feeling the sleekness of the kindle, staring at a monitor instead of a real page, scrolling down to read the next paragraph...the whole thing is sacrilege to me.
Even worse is the audiobook which is the stuff of my literary nightmares. It's obviously been around a whole lot longer, but I still hate it. Part of the pleasure of reading a book is having your own voice doing an internal narration. That's part of what makes it a truly personal experience. The last thing I want is someone else reading it all into my ear because that just seems to be to be a distortion of the whole process. Im not holding a book or turning a page- Im just sitting there with headphones in my ear listening to someone else blabber on. As the English would say, it's just not cricket. It would be like an intrusion of my privacy.
Now one could argue that there isnt that much of a difference between a book and the kindle- after all books are designed and packaged just as the Kindle is so it might undermine the romanticized view we have of books if we think critically of the craft that goes into the creation process once the author has handed in his final manuscript. A Kindle enthusiast might ask- is there any intrinsic value in a book being in paper form that makes it somehow superior to the Kindle being in its current form? One could also argue that my love for books in their conventional form was some sort of historical accident- after all, what would have happened if the kindle had been my first reading experience? Perhaps I would consider the idea of reading a book quite odd. My childhood memories of book textures and smells and drawings would have been replaced with the feeling of a metallic object in my hand. Perhaps I would have looked back on my reading experience with almost the same kind of nostalgia?
Somehow I doubt it. I think my childhood would have been all the poorer for it. I think the Kindle 'condenses' the reading experience in a way books did not do. It presents a sort of sanitized and abbreviated version of the whole process. It tries to iron out the kinks and glamourize the whole process. No thanks.
When I was working there, I used to head down to town at least once a week to see a guy who sold tons of second-hand books. Most of the stuff he had was rubbish but there was always the occasional gem. Nick Hornby's About a boy for example (granted not as good as A long way down)or A short history of tractors in Ukranian. I bought both Hardy and Joyce from there too. There were also books I bought which I thought I'd like but which turned out to be crap of the highest order (Glamorama- dear lord how bad was that?)I was completely stunned one day to see The ghosts of Motley Hall in the pile- the sight of it triggered an avalance of pleasurable childhood memories. Sadly the book was so tattered that I feared it would just crumble and turn to dust if I carried it away from its current abode.
In England my book haven was Fopp (RIP) which is still my all-time favourite store. Waterstones was usually too expensive, but Fopp was cheap and it sold CD's too. Furthermore, it had that down-to-earth charm that the big bookstore chains didnt have and yet it had more sophistication. You really never knew what literary goodness you would stumble upon in there- I was like a kid in a candy store. There were plentyof books scattered all over the store-sometimes as tie-ins to a recently released DVD or because the author was enjoying some kind of renaissance in public opinion or simply because the book was a bona fide classic. Best of all there were rarely any popular 'happening' books like the material being shoved down our throats by Oprah or the latest Dan Brown snoozefest- just smart or edgy books most of which you could never find anywhere else in town. You certainly wouldnt have to wade through drivel like '100 ways to take charge of your life' or all the million self-help books that are out these days. I was shattered when I returned to Reading last year and discovered the store had been closed for good. It was like finding out that your childhood haunt had been set ablaze by arsonists. The place had soul.
I was thinking of stuff like that when I heard about the new e-book from amazon called kindle. You wont need actual books anymore! Just download any book you want and read it electronically! Witness the dawn of a new age!
The thing is, I hate the idea of an ebook. Im sure its convenient and there's probably a host of perfectly valid reasons people are going gaga over it, but personally I intend to board the luddite express. I love books with all their imperfections. I remember the smells of books I used to love and the way they felt in your hands. My memories are tied up not just in words but in textures and smells and sights. My mother used to bring me loads of second-hand books every week when I was growing up in Kampala and I still remember the musty smell they used to have or the crisp feeling of turning each page. I liked the imperfections- the books became even more valuable because they were perishable. You had to treasure them and keep them from falling apart and if they did, they were perfect anyway. My book was a tangible possesion- magical and life-affirming in a way that the e-book can never really be. Reading was a comprehensive sensory and mental experience.
But now the kindle comes along and tries to 'improve' the reading experience. That's not the way it works. It may make it more convenient, but again thats not the point. Im sure a lot of people will find the whole experience exciting, but feeling the sleekness of the kindle, staring at a monitor instead of a real page, scrolling down to read the next paragraph...the whole thing is sacrilege to me.
Even worse is the audiobook which is the stuff of my literary nightmares. It's obviously been around a whole lot longer, but I still hate it. Part of the pleasure of reading a book is having your own voice doing an internal narration. That's part of what makes it a truly personal experience. The last thing I want is someone else reading it all into my ear because that just seems to be to be a distortion of the whole process. Im not holding a book or turning a page- Im just sitting there with headphones in my ear listening to someone else blabber on. As the English would say, it's just not cricket. It would be like an intrusion of my privacy.
Now one could argue that there isnt that much of a difference between a book and the kindle- after all books are designed and packaged just as the Kindle is so it might undermine the romanticized view we have of books if we think critically of the craft that goes into the creation process once the author has handed in his final manuscript. A Kindle enthusiast might ask- is there any intrinsic value in a book being in paper form that makes it somehow superior to the Kindle being in its current form? One could also argue that my love for books in their conventional form was some sort of historical accident- after all, what would have happened if the kindle had been my first reading experience? Perhaps I would consider the idea of reading a book quite odd. My childhood memories of book textures and smells and drawings would have been replaced with the feeling of a metallic object in my hand. Perhaps I would have looked back on my reading experience with almost the same kind of nostalgia?
Somehow I doubt it. I think my childhood would have been all the poorer for it. I think the Kindle 'condenses' the reading experience in a way books did not do. It presents a sort of sanitized and abbreviated version of the whole process. It tries to iron out the kinks and glamourize the whole process. No thanks.
posted by Minzo at 2:13 AM
3 Comments:
This was such a good read, made me wonder, isn't blogging the first nail in the coffin of "paper based literature"? I read your blog and don't even notice scrolling down to the next paragraph! Face it Minega, you are helping kill the book!
Should publish your blogposts in paper back& post us all manuscripts?!! Think of the postage charges !! The trees that you're saving by blogging.
I guess it's kind of like Global Warming; as much as we DON'T want to stop the North Atlantic Drift, we (by 'we', I mean 'me') STILL throw wrappers of Orbit bubblegum on the street and like the butterfly effect; somehow reduce the oceans salinity.
A short history of tractors in Ukranian, what was that like?
I always liked audiobooks as a child. Meant I could play and have a story at the same time. But now I'm so fussy about which reader I listen to. Extremely fussy!! Sometimes you just find a voice you love to listen to and frankly I don't care what the book is, I just want to listen to them speak...
BAZI:
Couldn't agree more on Books V E-books.
Man, a line on this post sent me back to your previous post on James Joyce's "A Portrait...", making me so damn eager to read "Ulysees".
The catch is that I'm reading Homer's "The Odyssey" first as I read that Joyce's story draws majorly from it. Also drawing from Homer? Virtually everything else in Western Literature.
Hope you're well, (and receiving my emails-No Reply Yet) and take care.
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