Just how obtuse can the High Lit world get? Here we are–in the era of E Ink, with e-books ahead that will have flippable pages, just like paper. And yet Anne Fadiman, the departing editor of The American Scholar and author of Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, is uttering such malarkey as:
I worry that electronic books will become increasingly sophisticated and therefore increasingly popular. The content may be the same, but there’s no substitute for actually holding a book in one’s hands and taking it to bed at night. The difference between an e-book and a book is like the difference between a picture of your lover and your lover herself.
Yes, I, too, like the feel of a book, but it’s the words that count. And via the economies of e-books, ordinary people will eventually have access to many more words than through the paper variety–especially in such narrow areas as Hmong culture, one of Ms. Fadiman’s own specialties. Just a fraction of the world’s literature has been digitized, alas. But that will slowly change, and meanwhile, via e-books, people miles from a library can already call up thousands of classics. Oh, the horror!
It’s a shame that Ms. Fadiman’s famous father, Clifton, who constantly used the mass media to promote reading among average people, isn’t alive to enjoy today’s e-books and look ahead to still-better technology.
No dummy–the American Scholar is none other than the scholarly journal of the Phi Beta Kappa Society–Anne Fadiman ideally will be reasonable if given a chance to acquaint herself with the latest tech. Perhaps she can read or reread a widely circulated report showing that literary reading is in dramatic decline. E-books can help reverse the trend, especially when millions of children are growing up as accustomed to screens as to paper. What’s more, keep in mind that e-books will eventually be rather paperlike.
Books and lovers: Speaking of lovers, you can read an e-book more easily in the dark while your lover is asleep than you can a paper book. You needn’t mess with little penlights in bed, and less light is around to distract your mate. Can’t Anne Fadiman at least admit that e-books are useful in that respect? She might also remember that you can legally copy public domain e-books and share them with your SO–and both read these classics at the same time.
