I was going to write something up about researching places to submit your short pieces this week, but I’ve been on vacation and in addition to not having done much in the way of my own research, I had a very strange experience that I thought I’d toss out there and see if others have had a similar experience.
I own a Kindle. Not a Fire or anything, just an old school Kindle. Normal size. I actually use it quite a bit. I’ve been reading to my children from the seventy-two volume set of Oz books. The version of the books I’ve been reading lacks pictures. My mom owns several first editions which I read as a child and when we visit her, we read from the books, and enjoy the pictures very much . The stories hold their own without pictures, so it’s not a big deal to miss them, except for me who loves the early 20th century stylings. All this is just to say, I read a lot of different things on that Kindle and love that I have two thousand or so books to read from.
But here’s what happened: I perused the hard copy novels to read on my vacation. The owners of the house we stay in have a great circle of friends who also use the house and somewhere along the way, great books find their way to these shelves. This time, I spied The Elegance of the Hedgehog. I was a bit reluctant, as I’d taking a good running start at the thing on my Kindle and despite having enjoyed it a lot at the beginning, somehow I eventually felt driven away from the work. So many of my friends, people I respect, have enjoyed it, though, that I decided to give it a go in hardbound.
A revelation. It was not the same book. Not at all the same book. It kept me up well past my bedtime (when kids get up crazy early, you must sleep to the occasion). I couldn’t put it down. I loved listening to the intellectual and at the same time emotional wanderings of these two different souls.
Sadly, I hadn’t finished before I left, so the hardcopy stayed in Stinson on a shelf and I travelled back to my home with my kindle copy in tow. I thought perhaps having gotten a good leg up on the novel would set me free on the kindle. To some extent it has —I am invested, curious and committed now. But it is a little bit like watching a film designed for IMAX on your phone. But Why? It’s words, right? I’m a fan of the kindle, or at least of e-readers in general. So what was this whole thing about?
My guesses? Maybe my screen is too dark. Maybe the formatting of most E-books is so hard to get right for a reader that it disjoints the experience. Mostly, when you read something expansive that makes you want to look occasionally at the world around you and try on the idea that has just floated by, you want something doesn’t feel visually like returning to a box. For non-fiction, as you read to comprehend, a box is awesome. It keeps you from spiraling outward, keeps the facts and ideas contained. Fiction demands the reader step into broader emotional territory. For me, the kindle, and e-readers as a class, are best for things that might also do well as a power point presentation or flash cards. But for the soaring, swooping, whooping formats of fiction, I’m afraid we may have already created its most perfect form. Oz is okay on a kindle, but better in a book. How to Create a Lasting Impression on Your Boss —perfect grist for the electronic mill.
When you read, what do you notice of your experience, either in books or in e-readers? What draws you to the page besides the story?
Angie, intriguing post. I don’t yet own an e-reader, though I’ll probably succumb. I tend to read very long, massively heavy books on history, and lugging them around on the subway is getting old. But that said, I love hard copy book passionately and I’m pretty sure I will continue to prefer them to screens.
Why? Because reading on a screen is like looking at a butterfly through glass; reading a printed book is like being with the butterfly. Or, to use a darker metaphor: for me reading a book is like taking a long, lost-in-thought walk with the writer; reading on a screen is like visiting her in prison, where you can only talk through glass.
I mean this quite literally. The sensual experience of the butterfly, of anything, is changed when it’s only accessible through glass. The experience of reading is similarly changed. The words on a screen are oddly less accessible, more removed and remote. They feel colder. Even to write in the margin of a printed book with a pencil is a much more sensual and direct experience than to tap out a note on a screen notepad.
I suppose I might change my mind when I do get an e-reader. But somehow, unless I can plunge my hand into its screen and feel the words slipping silently through my fingers like little fish, I don’t think so . . .
I agree with Sylvia’s comments, though I have just finished my first book on the kindle, Hound of the Baskervilles. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and the reason, I think, is that I thought of Conan Doyle writing and Watson narrating the story in order to stuff it into a bottle to be discovered. I thought of the kindle as a time capsule sent from those passionate gentlemen to the future, which is the only way I could get around my reading objections. I did like the convenience, and that was a big motivation for finding a way into the kindle. And I’ve always said that for print, what matters is the story. Which is why I don’t worry too much about messing up my books. That said, Thaisa Frank has a character in Enchantment who rediscovers Montaigne by candlelight. Maybe a reverse time capsule going on there, both in time and space. As for all the space 3-dimensional books take up, I find it reassuring: there’s no pretense that reading is a thin endeavor. Kindles might not be saying things are easy, but they’re promising easiness, in a manner of speaking.