I know all the arguments: it saves trees, it allows out of print authors (including me) to be actually read by peope, it permits errors to be fixed after publication, you can carry a thousand books around in one device, it's even a boon for the blind...And yet I hate the Kindle, I hate the look of it, I hate the name of it, I hate even the idea of it. Kindle reduces books to their raw text and books for me are so much more than the words in their pages. Books have a tactile quality, an innate puissance, a beauty all their own. Some books, especially older ones, have a smell, a history, an aura. Most of my books are second hand and they are idiosyncratically filled with marginal notes, dog ears, phone numbers or just years (sometimes decades) of blood, sweat and tears. I love books as objects not just as carriers of a message or a meme. I love the different covers that books can have in different editions. (Here's an entire blog about the various covers JG Ballard's Crash has had over the years, covers that Kindle will never fully convey.) The Kindle 2 has been getting great reviews but I have a feeling that as it becomes standard it will be just another excuse for publishers to make books cheaper and nastier or not publish them in a paper form at all. Mark my words if we let this happen 10 years from now bookstores (if they still exist) will have a self help section, a Stephen King section and a coffee shop....
Sunday morning update: depressing news on this (though not to him) from Andrew Sullivan
71 comments:
Amen. While I can appreciate the technology, I'll never want to give up being able to feel a real book in my hands. The majority of used bookstores here in Raleigh, NC really suck, but even the worst of them are more interesting to browse through than deciding which book to buy in a web browser.
Craig
Raleigh, NC eh? Dont you love coincidences, I was supposed to go to bed two hours but I got sucked in to watching Bull Durham again. An all time classic.
YEs, there's nothing liek actually holding a book. I even enjoy the different experience of reading a hardcover as opposed to a trade paperback as opposed to an MMPB.
In addition, I'm old. As I tell the Beloved Spousal Equivalent once a week, everything that really needed to change should have changed by the time I turned 50. After that, I'm not much interested.
I try to buy in independent bookstores whenever possible, I'm spoilt for choice re:used books and I still prefer to read on paper- especially what I read for pleasure.
On the other hand, I'm indifferent to covers, notes and stuff, and I've downloaded a lot of books in the public domain and sent their physical counterparts to boxes in the basement- thus recovering vital space.
They are generally non-fiction or classics I probably won't reread- but if I want to check a passage a few clicks of the keyboard and it's there.
Regardless, I think the disappearance of books in paper form will be inevitable in the long run.
to watching Bull Durham again. An all time classic.
Oh yes, that film with Tim Robbins and Kevin Costner and... who was the actress? ;)
Ha, Marco, that's funny. (it was a joke, right? I mean, Susan Sarandon, oooh).
At the beginning of every baseball season I watch Bull Durham and at the beginning of every hockey season I watch Slapshot.
What should I watch at the beginning of soccer season?
As for the Kindle, it isn't available in Canada. I like the Sony e-reader (I'm really only interested in the content of the books), but if you all want I'll get my wooden shoes, too, and if we can find the machines I'll start throwing.
Adrian -
Up until six months ago, I would have been totally on-board with you. That is, until I signed a contract with an e-publisher. How's them for principles? :)
I don't think print copies are going anywhere. At least not for a long time.
Your concept of the book stores containing only cafes, self-help books, and Stephen King books sounds like something out of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic universe. Pretty scary stuff.
I dunno, I'm conflicted about the e-readers. On the one hand they're far too cold and clinical to qualify as real books; on the other, I really like the idea (as a writer who can't get himself arrested by a publisher) of being able to by-pass publishers and go straight to the audience via download. Always presuming said audience exists.
Unless some buck-eejit manages to gather up all the books in the world and burn them, I don't think any of us will run out of hardcopy novels in the near future. And if that buck-eejit comes anywhere near my collection, I'll hand him his eyes.
E-readers, aye, I guess there must be a few other fans out there, other than John and Dec, but I haven't met many of them. On the other hand, I know tonnes of folk who like to bring a good book into the bath or onto a sandy beach. I imagine that as long as there's a market for them, somebody will be producing books in print format. We'll all be a long time dead before they disappear (just to end on a positive note, like).
gb
What should I watch at the beginning of soccer season?
I can't think of anything- except Escape to Victory but it's not a film on football in the same sense Bull Durham is a film on baseball.
A couple of
On the one hand they're far too cold and clinical to qualify as real books;
On the other hand, I know tonnes of folk who like to bring a good book into the bath or onto a sandy beach. I imagine that as long as there's a market for them, somebody will be producing books in print format.
First of all, the newer generations are already familiar with internet and cell phone messaging from the cradle and the paper imprinting is much weaker.
Secondly, there are already plans for devices which mirror much more closely the esperience of reading on paper Plastic Logic
I'm sure if there will really be resisters it won't take long the create readers virtually indistinguishable from normal books -only more pliable, resistent and durable and with the capacity to house 100,000 of texts, illustrations and covers.
Off-topic, but to connect with a previous discussion, apparently Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was only the tip of the iceberg .
Pride and Predator. I'm still wondering if all this is real or April Fools' Day has been anticipated.
Marco:
Pride and Predator has "film" written all over it. Starring Keira Knightley, Jason Statham, and Carl Weathers. You always need Carl Weathers to make a good action movie.
Brian, you know Carl Weathers played pro football in Canada for years. I think he was a linebacker.
Marco, I was coaching litte league baseball when Bull Durham came out and some of the kids were growing up faster than others. When the movie came up in conversation one of the boys said, "That movie's not about baseball, it's about sex." Then he looked unsure and said to me, "Isn't it?"
John - Maybe you could watch Mean Machine before the soccer matches. It's a soccer version of The Longest Yard. No masterpiece, but it'll do the job.
Marco - We can only wait and see. And I'm not convinced that E-books and print books must be mutually exclusive. My kids, for instance, each have packed bookshelves of little tomes relevant to their ages, and they both love them as much as I love mine. My four year old also has a Leapster games system (a little like a Nintendo DS) but it doesn't get as much attention as the books do. Could be it'll boil down to personal preference. Like how I still buy CDs even though it's cheaper to download music.
gb
Dana
I know where you're coming from. As far as I can see the big progressive cultural developments of the last 20 years have been: banning smoking in cinemas and the rebirth of Triumph Motorcycles but that's about it.
Marco
Exactly, but also I dont know if there are that many other films of any genre that have a 98 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Fetch
Man thats a good question. I dont know. Hockey - Slapshot, baseball - Bull Durham, basketball - Hoosiers, cycling - Breaking Away but footballl? Hmmm.
As Marco points out there is Escape to Victory and it does have Pele, Bobby Moore and Michael Caine, but Stallone's doing nets and that's not good.
Until I make the film about Carrick Rangers's glorious win in the Irish Cup (1976) which allowed us to qualify for Europe for the first time I think we'll have to wait.
Brian
Yes I do take your point and its a very good one. Still there is always the chap book route, no?
Dec
Yeah I see what you're saying man but how will anyone hear about the books if its just a gushing damn? At least in a bookshop theres a chance you can browse and find something interesting.
Ger
Thats good to know about you and your little ones and of course I want to know how they're going to do a signed copy on the kindle. My eldest daughter has a signed copy of Winnie the Pooh (signed by the illustrator not AA Milne) and she considers it as something special which it is.
Marco
In the Onion's AV Club tolerability index Austen and Zombies has already headed into "intolerable" territory. In the same issue of the AV Club there's also a review of a film called Billy the Kid versus the Vampires (and a much needed reappraisal of Eyes Wide Shut).
Fetch, Brian
Either of you remember Carl Weathers work in Arrested Development? Great stuff.
A spoke in the wheels of the downloadable book train (hmm, that doesn't really work, does it?) is the ease of which they can be pirated. I mean, you get web-pages like this. I would have thought publishers would be keen to keep the book industry from following the music industry down the digital pan (I'm having a bad metaphor day).
My kids, for instance, each have packed bookshelves of little tomes relevant to their ages, and they both love them as much as I love mine.
Yes, my kids have a lot of books, too, but I don't know.
I'm so old I remember vinyl LPs and I loved them but my kids have MP3 players.
Adrian, I'm now really looking forward to your Carrick Rangers's film. If you used it as a backstory in a book, I'd be happy with that, too.
No, I don't remember Carl Weathers in Arrested Development, but I'm going to look for it now.
I didn't recognize the title Escape to Victory because when I saw it in a threatre when it was first released (how freakin' old am I?) it was just called Victory. I do remember Stallone, he got higher billing than Pele.
Michael
Jesus yeah. I suspect that pirating e books is going to be even bigger than pirating audios. It wont trouble the big sellers but people on the margins like thee and me will get shafted, as usual. And of course hypocrisy alert I get most of my music from the pirate bay
It's funny, because we were just talking about the whole Kindle phenomenon at work today. More specifically, one of my co-workers was just starting to get the implications of the whole ebook revolution and was wondering why the book industry didn't get ahead of this, rather than perpetually kind of being caught short by it.
What she said was that there are books that people do want to have and cherish as the physical objects, and indeed the entities (my word) that they are in the world, and that we should be focussing on those and realizing that certain kinds of more information driven books are inevitably going to become web-based.
Personally, I think that the book as beloved object is done, but that there is going to be a long enough lagtime that we don't need to worry about it too much as book lovers. For ourselves. And despite what Marco says about the imprinting, a lot of parents right now are passing along their favorite books and book culture to their children as books, not electronic downloads.
So I think the change will be gradual. But, yes, inevitable. And that when you have a lifetime experience of books as such, you will know what others are missing. Reading on a computer is not the same. Shorter things work better, but I don't actually see how the print medium is going to compete with flashier, easier things you can download--in the long run.
The thing is, we really don't know yet, and may not live to see how new technologies change people's habits. But we do have an inkling from what has already happened. In short, there is attrition.
John
Yes a truly great Carrick Rangers film is out there, especially when they went into Europe the next year and got to the second round of the Cup Winners Cup! and mighty Southampton FC had to come Taylors Avenue (ground capacity back then about 800 people, and still today with a 5 degree slope in the pitch).
Alas Fox have taken all the Carl Weathers bits down from YouTube which is ridiculous. He was Tobias's mooching acting coach and a recurring character in much of season 3.
Do you not predict a future then for chick lit, Batman: The Origin Retold, and James Patterson, you ganchy motherfucker?
================================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
I mean, you get web-pages like this.
Do not lead us into temptation... Though your argument isn't really relevant, since I would guess most of those now are scannerized versions of normal books.
If anything something only existing as an e-book with drm-technology would be much more difficult to copy.
"That movie's not about baseball, it's about sex." Then he looked unsure and said to me, "Isn't it?"
Cute. Of course a biopic of Maradona or Pelé or a film based on their characters would have lots of groupie sex too.
A few Italian films have a soccer theme- but they are either documentaries, horrible comedies or generational tales.
It's strange that I cannot think of films about underdog teams making great runs- there are a few stories out there.
There's a feelgood comedy about rugby though- a thirtysomething with a passion for the sport who ends up coaching a bunch of orphaned children.They even end up doing the haka.
Oh,and Keira Knightley? I thought Bend it like Beckham was good.
I'll think about the Kindle when the technology is entirely unproprietary, when the number of available book edges well into the millions and then the devices are available to anyone who drops in on his or her local public library. Oh, and when there's a chance I can meet Susan Sarandon while browsing possible downloads.
================================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter
Oh yes I totally forgot Patterson and his wig are unkillable.
In a similar vein to Hendrix and 2 Pac I predict he writes four novels after he's officially "died" and the bookstores such as they are will be full of them.
Marco
There's not a good rugby union movie but This Sporting Life isnt a bad rugby league film.
Do you know of Nate Silver? A geeky baseball analyst I like who called the electoral college to within 1 vote has a piece in New York magazine saying that Slumdog will win the Oscar, so I may be wrong about Benjamin Button and if I'm wrong about that I might be wrong about Kindle, Boomers, everything really. Its food for thought.
You'll know my confidence is shattered when I start praising U2 and Coldplay...
John - Maybe my music comparrison wasn't the most relevant. I'm 29, and I remember my parents' vinyl collections. The first time I spent money on music, I bought a vinyl single (Do The Bart-Man -- I was 10). When I was a teenager I bought all of my Metallica albums on cassette. By the time I figured out there was more to music than thrash metal, I'd progressed onto CDs. Somewhere in between minidiscs happened. So as an industry the music product is a thing of constant transition.
Books have been basically the same since Gutenberg (not the guy from Police Academy) got involved. I do think that the industry needs a good shake-up and E-books will probably play a big role in that. But as a product, the book is perfect. Like a shark, it has no real need to evolve, in my opinion, so I can't see it disappearing. Or maybe I just don't want to see it.
gb
Seana
I hope you're not right about the book being toast, but I do think you're a little unfair on Jack Kerouac.
Yes he was selfish and hated on the squares and Dean was an ass, but this was 1949 when they were both kids and you can forgive them being terrified of being tied down.
And as for the consumption thing. Maybe it was just excitement. I remember doing Inter-rail and after 3 days in Paris I was desperate to go on to Marseille or wherever, you just want to move and see everything as quickly as you can. Its not until you're in your 30's when you realise that it takes months to discover a place and you appreciate a deep map over a broad one.
John Updike largely agreed with you by the way and wrote Rabbit Run as an anti On the Road, but for me the big out of On the Road is the beauty of the prose. That forgives a lot.
Its like that episode of Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman when Walt Whitman turns up in Colorado Springs....ah I can see I've lost everyone there...
Ger
Ah the frightening what was your first record that you bought question. Yes we'd all love it to be Never Mind the Bollocks from the Sex Pistols but it always turns out to be Toto's Africa or the Human League or something.
Adrian - I'm just glad I'd already blown my pocket money when Vanilla Ice's first single hit the shelves.
Cheers
gb
For soccer - you might try a movie made in Bhutan called 'The Cup'.
Granny B
I second that vote for The Cup. And the first album I remember owning was a Herman's Hermits record I received from my aunt and uncle as a present.
Ah the frightening what was your first record that you bought question. Yes we'd all love it to be Never Mind the Bollocks from the Sex Pistols but it always turns out to be Toto's Africa or the Human League or something.
Dire Straits Love over Gold.
Good, but very distant from how my tastes evolved.
I had all Metallica too, up to The Black Album.
Marco - Yup, they really lost it after the Black album, though I did go see them on their Reload tour (1998 I think). They played mostly old school stuff and Corrosion of Conformity supported. Great gig. I hear their latest is a long overdue return to form, but I haven't rushed out to buy it yet.
gb
Arrested Development is one of those shows I always wanted to see but never got the chance to. Something else to add to the netflix queue.
John -
I knew Weathers played football in college but I didn't know anything about this Canadian athletic exploits.
I still love his rendition of The Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun" in Happy Gilmore.
Re Jack Kerouac:
If the prose was more memorable, I would forgive him more too. It isn't.
If he wasn't such an influence, and one that I have witnessed the deleterious effects of, I would not really mind what their trip was like.
If he had actually been hungry to see things instead of just hanging out in the company of Neal Cassady, I would understand the speed, but they went everywhere and noticed no one but themselves. I know--it's a flaw of youth. But it's still a flaw, and not one that I find particularly glamourous.
Since you do like lists, Better Road Trip books, et al:
Travels with Charlie
The Wind in the Willows
Any travelog by Paul Theroux, despite my reservations.
The Mouse and His Child, by Russell Hoban
The Catcher in the Rye, though of course Holden's road trip is just around Manhattan
Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
Both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings
The Roads to Sata by Alan Booth
Thelma and Louise, which is not a book, but I feel this whole road trip idea is getting too weighted towards the masculine. Plus, it has both Brad Pitt and Susan Serandon.
Dead I Well May Be, which some might argue is not really about a road trip, but I beg to differ. And in fact, it is the antidote to many of Kerouac's excesses and self-absorption, whether you like it or not.
I didn't know that Updike and I were in the same camp about much of anything, so thanks for that.
Do you know that Peter Rozovsky's friend accidently dropped Peter's beloved copy of On the Road into Walden Pond--for real?
I can't think of a more overdue baptism, though Peter of course was not amused.
Au contraire. I was highly amused. And I got the book back. Walden Pond is shallow.
==============
Detectives Beyond Borders
“Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home”
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
I stand happily corrected.
Peter
Did you go to the nearby graveyard in Concord?
Brian
I think you might like Arrested, especially Season 1. Though the Carl Weathers mooching happens in Season 2
marco
Love over Gold isnt shameful enough. Telegraph Road is on that one isnt it?
Ger
Here's a bit of trivia you know the live concert where Metallica played with the orchestra? My brother and sister and in law were both in the orchestra - French horn and violin. And they still get royalty checks to this day. Nice work if you can get it.
Seana
Hmmm, I'll admit its a while since I read On the Road, possibly decades, however I do remember liking it. I seem to recall a really nice descriptive passage when he arrives in Denver - in the fact I enjoyed the whole Denver chapter.
And also he cant really focus on places that much because its a love story. Did you ever read A Room With a View. They have one of the greatest views in the world but all they can think about it is each other. Jack's in love with Cassidy and Cassidy doesnt reciprocate that much (at least not in the book.) So hows he supposed to concentrate on the Grand Canyon or wherever.
Incidentally Gore Vidal has a lengthy and very interesting section on Kerouac's sexuality in his memoir.
Nice idea for a post. My favourite travel books. Off the top of my head:
1. The Worst Journey in the World
2. A Time of Gifts
3. The Great Railway Bazaar
4. When the Going Was Good (E Waugh)
5. In the Valley of the Assassins
6. A Goddess in the Stones
7. A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
8. Between the Woods and the Water
9. Dark Star Safari
10. Journey Without Maps
Nope, no graveyards. I did stroll past and around the replica of Thoreau's little cabin, though.
My pilgrimages to Walden Pond were not really pilgrimages. I just visited there because it was a pleasant place to dip my feet in the water, relax, and read -- which Thoreau might have called a fine pilgrimage after all.
==============
Detectives Beyond Borders
“Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home”
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
That's an interesting list--I don't think I've read a single one of them, though I'm familiar with most of them. Oddly, though, this is the third time that Short Walk in the Hindu Kush has come up today. I found myself pulling our last copy for returns this morning--a ruthless process that I don't have a lot of leeway on in the current state of things-- then heard someone requesting it in the afternoon and made a mad dash to the back room to retrieve it. And now see it coming up here. I've heard of Newby forever, but apparently few else have, at least where I live. Guess I'm going to have to bump him up my own reading list, though.
I think we're actually on the same page about Kerouac on most levels, though probably not on the merits of his prose. I think you and Gore are right about his love for Cassady. But it's not that I want him to write descriptive passages about the American landscape. It's that when they run across the countless people they do run across, I want them to do something other than just a.) exploit them and b.)mock them. When I was young and traveling around with a backpack, I remember being grateful for kindness from any source. And I think that was a more typical reaction than this whole Beat thing. And of course, I do notice the extra advantage taken of women--homoerotic relationship between the two of them or no. I believe there have a few tell all memoirs from wives and offspring to testify to that.
I dunno - I've got mixed feelings about my kindle. Basically, I'm in favor of whatever will get people to read more than they do, and having owned my kindle about a year now, I can attest to the fact that I buy a f**k of a lot more books than I did before. And I had a book buying problem before.
From the perspective of a year's ownership, the kindle's good for some things and not so hot for others. It's great to take on vacation - I read a lot of fiction when I'm on vacation, which often has entailed taking 8 or 10 books with me, then searching for an English language book store part way through a trip when I've finished those books. Before a two week trip to Ireland last spring. I loaded up the kindle & had plenty to keep me occupied during the whole trip (although I still found excuses to visit what seemed like every book store in Dublin).
Kindles are pretty handy to with you to read a few more pages/screens when you're waiting in line at the DMV, the post office, etc. etc. etc. Smaller than most books, it's not a big deal to grab it along with the cell phone whenever I leave the house. You can do that with a paperback, but then you're stuck with reading that book - I've always got at least 3 books going at one time & I can have all of them with me at one time with the kindle.
One of the features I really like is the ability to download the first chapter of pretty much any book in the kindle store as a sample - I'll take a flyer on a lot of things that I probably wouldn't even have walked by in the IRL bookstore. So, at least in my case, the kindle's expanded my horizons a little bit.
Kindle's are handy for people with sight problems because of the ability to make the text bigger (yeah, I know there are large print versions of a lot of books, but there are a lot of books that don't have large print versions). My 80 year old ma has had vision problems related to cataract surgery & having a kindle has allowed her to read again, so it's been a godsend to her.
That said, there's a bunch I don't like about the kindle. First off, the software could be improved - kindle's excel at being a device for someone who reads totally linearly - straight through a book. That's not how I read nonfiction and often not how I read fiction. It's a PITA to skip around a book in a kindle. This is a solvable problem, but it sounds like the 2nd gen kindle has no improvement in that area.
Second - if a book's got pictures, any kind of charts or any kind of graphics, fuggetaboutit. This will be the stumbling block for Amazon trying to extend this to the textbook market - texts today are heavy on graphics, especially on color graphics.
Third, I worry about the long-term on my favorite books - I've got books at home well over a hundred years old & they mostly hold up fine (although my complete collection of original Mickey Spillane paperbacks was clearly meant not to last much past the late 50s). My kindle won't last forever & I have no idea what Amazon's plans are for making sure I can always download my library again. Which concerns me enough that I have bought physical copies of a number of books I've read on my kindle (somehow I now own audio, kindle and paperback copies of Dead I Well May Be). That said, most of the books I read aren't something I'm likely to read again.
Lastly, you're right - there's something oddly satisfying about being able to run one's hands over the pages, scribble notes in the margin and fox the corners on favorite passages. And kindles offer no comparable experience.
Anyway, you can see I'm conflicted about my kindle.
Love over Gold isnt shameful enough. Telegraph Road is on that one isnt it?
Yes. In fact that song made me buy the album -don't remember were I heard it though. Probably through a cousin.
I was lucky- my first lp could have been something by Duran Duran, they were all the rage when I was 11-12.
But soon I slided into trash metal/ hard rock/ classic rock and then into hardcore/punk and wave/alternative.
My brother and sister and in law were both in the orchestra - French horn and violin. And they still get royalty checks to this day.
The more tidbits I read the more I realize you've married into a very interesting family.
I think it's fairly clear that Kerouac was a asshole. Also, that he was deeply misogynistic and homophobic, which doesn't help much with relationships.
I know it's a big confession to make, but I've never read On the Road - probably the hype turned me off.
I had reaction similar to Seana to Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night -one of my high school friends thought it was the best thing ever, but I couldn't get past the homosexual who curled into a ball crying at the slightest provocation or the "inferior" black men.
Oh, yesterday I saw and bought a copy of Black Swan Green.
Did you read that aslo? After I've read John McF's books and Fifty Grand it will probably be next in the queue.
TCW
Fox the corners - can I steal that?
I've got to say anything that will make the DMV a less hellish experience sounds better and better.
I like the vacation concept too, but I'd be worried that someone would nick it. The number of times I've left my ratty books on the beach or a chair by the pool or in a waiting room and of course no one wants them because they are second hand and crappy looking.
I was reading something on Andrew Sullivan about the next gen e reader when is supposed to be a flexible plastic sheet that you can read in the bath and in bright sunlight etc. That tempts me too, but it still makes me nervous and we have the dog ear, skimming and marginal probs that you point you too.
Marco
I got a signed Black Swan Green from Dave Torrans at No Alibis. I thought it was pretty good. Not quite up there with Cloud Atlas but what is?
Yes Kerouac in his last years was a militant quebecois anti gay right wing drunken nut, but he certainly wasnt when Gore Vidal knew him and when Ginsburg and Burroughs were his best pals.
Tender is the Night is the one where they're all living in Cannes and be bungs the missus in the loony bin? Its rubbish.
TCW,
I think that's an excellent pro and con summary about the Kindle, and it explains why anyone might have conflicted feelings about the Kindle or any other digital reader.
Peter's points about accessibility are probably the main reasons it won't take over the world any time soon, whereas if they were twenty dollars a pop, which they or their equivalent may be at some point, that might break down people's resistance to them for good.
The issue of whether downloads to one reader will be tranferable to the next generation reader are also worth thinking about, though people probably won't think about them, anymore than they think about how worthless, or almost worthless their priceless VHS collection is.
One of my friends at work brought up what may actually be the most serious issue, and I don't think anyone brought it up here yet, though if I glossed over it by accident, forgive me. What she was saying was of real concern to her was of having so much information coming through one source--not the Kindle but what I guess you could call the streaming digital medium--and thus vulnerable to either deliberate suppression or some accidental viral attack that wipes out the whole enterprise. My other friend thought this was far-fetched, but I kind of tend to agree with the first friend that the messier world of print may protect publishing in a way we don't quite understand yet.
I know that the more I tell these kind of stories, the more you all are wondering if I ever do any actual work, but today at the bookstore, I was reading the latest Harper's and found Gideon Lewis-Kraus's article The Last Book Party, about attending the Frankfurt Book Fair, to be both drily hilarious and acute. It doesn't touch so much on the Kindle, unfortunately, but it made me feel oddly optimistic about the future of publishing, though more because there's money and ego involved in it than because of any idealistic ideas about literature.
Marco, I don't think there is any shame about not having read On the Road. I only took the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the scroll or whatever it was to try and overcome my innate resistance to it by getting my book group to read it. Contrary to how it may sound here,I actually like to be proven wrong about books I have some prejudice about and actually, I often am. But this time, it was pretty much exactly what I thought it was, which made me even more irritated with it. I realize that it partakes of certain powerful romantic American themes, and that's why it strikes a note with so many. It just doesn't strike a note with me.
I know that now is hardly the time to utter another heretical statement, but I didn't really like The Great Gatsby, and I've read it twice now. Tender is the Night, on the other hand, though flawed, does give me some sort of comprehension about why everyone thinks Fitzgerald is such a hot writer. Gatsby just kind of leaves me cold.
Seana
Nice link but for me it had gloomy echoes of parties on the Titanic. Maybe I'm half empty kind of guy.
Cant get on board with GG hating. Loved the economy of style and the pacing and the hints of backstory and even the melodrama at the end.
No, unlike my stance on Kerouac, where I think I'm probably right, on Gatsby I attribute the fault to myself. I'm tone deaf on this one.
I think what's optimistic to me about all that Frankfurt stuff is that the publishers sound like a lot of these bankers who have been so out of touch with reality. Most of the writers I have even the faintest acqquaintance would just like to get a decent living off of their work and maybe some support and editing from their publishers. It's not impossible that if the model of mega advances and adversity to small risks changes, more writers who deserve an audience will find one. I liked the Harper Studio guy's model in the article, though there are probably flaws in his idea that I didn't think of.
I got a signed Black Swan Green from Dave Torrans at No Alibis.
I thought No Alibis was a crime bookshop?
Tender is the Night is the one where they're all living in Cannes and be bungs the missus in the loony bin? Its rubbish.
You'd be surprised how many think it's his best work
Yes Kerouac in his last years was a militant quebecois anti gay right wing drunken nut, but he certainly wasnt when Gore Vidal knew him and when Ginsburg and Burroughs were his best pals.
No, he was. Just as you can be attracted to women and mysoginous, you can have homosexual tendencies and be homophobe. The only difference is that if you're misogynous contempt falls squarely on the women, if you're homophobe it can shift from you to the people you're attracted to or settle into "yes, I have sex with men and women but that doesn't make me a faggot".
There's nothing strange in feeling a deep love/longing for a particular person, have wildly swinging reactions about the idea of any number of possible sexual configurations with him or anyone else, even tolerate/overlook homosexuality in people you like or respect and yet be profoundly dissatisfied with having these feelings or desires yourself.
(Basically that was my default configuration up until early-mid twenties).
Everything I've read about Kerouac, from the passage in Vidal ,the recollections of Ginsberg, the works on the Beat Generation, the excerpts from the original version of On the Road (which describe homosexual encounters but are very disparaging of faggots) without forgetting his catholic background and macho persona fit the type very well.
Marco
I dont know about that. AG and Vidal were very affectionate about Kerouac in the stuff I read, esp Vidal's memoir. However do you know the Lucian Carr story? Caleb Carr's father? This has always seemed very suspicious to me. I used to drink in the West End Gate all the time and its quite a walk downhill into Riverside Park. There arent too many reasons you'd go on that walk. The whole thing doesnt add up.
esp Vidal's memoir
Didn't he say that Kerouac had to be drunk to have sex with him and afterwards denied/minimized the fact, though?
And in 1945 K wrote a letter to Ginsberg saying that he found the physical aspects of gay sex disgusting, even though he didn't deny the possibility of having homosexual tendencies himself.
Yes, the Carr story doesn't look very kosher.
Marco
Yeah but doesnt Vidal also say that he "loved him"?
I'm not saying that Kerouac and Carr murdered him in a gay bashing, but...
Yeah but doesnt Vidal also say that he "loved him"?
But I don't think this contradicts my point.
As I said, you can feel a profound affection and longing for a person, even think this feeling is the greatest thing you've ever experienced and still, on another level, be very disturbed by this and think it is the result of some deep-seated flaw in your personality (and Kerouac did read Freud and co., didn't he?)
The way Kerouac lived his life, it's easy to think he never really resolved the conflict and see his anti-gay turn in later life as a kind of backlash effect.
Marco
oops, what I meant to say is that you are going to love my next post.
Its a topic you are going to be very excited about and I'm sure you'll have a lot of comments.
Marco
Dave Torrans has a private stash of rare and signed books that he will part with
- for money.
Its a topic you are going to be very excited about and I'm sure you'll have a lot of comments.
Baseball, fashion...you could have added golf and it would have been a real winner.
saying that Slumdog will win the Oscar, so I may be wrong about Benjamin Button and if I'm wrong about that I might be wrong about Kindle, Boomers, everything really . Its food for thought.
Is your confidence shattered now?
Dave Torrans has a private stash of rare and signed books that he will part with - for money.
Money means how much more than normal price?
I ask b/c you always say you don't have enough money to try new books.
And what's the point in a signature if it's not dedicated to you?
Marco
Actually I dont want to libel Dave, he gave me that BSG after a reading at his store, however he did charge my little brother, but I dont think the mark up was excessive.
There are some books he's hoarding away though waiting for the author's death I think. Got quite a good poetry collection too.
I remember one bookstore I went to in Jackson, Mississippi that had an entire room of signed first editions, I'd say that that was a million bucks worth of books in there easy.
The budding and beautiful downtown Greenville, SC has NO book stores. I asked at perhaps 10 places, many of whom admitted that Greenville (pop 438,000) has not a one downtown. The thought that the intrinsic value of tangible books and the wonderful smell and subtle sensations of having bound pages in your hands are being lost on people is unbearable. Down with the Kindle indeed!
Nate
The reports I'm hearing about the economy make me think the bookstores are going to go and wont come back.
Yep.Where's the Obama restructuring plan for the book industry?
Actually, it's Saturday afternoon, a bit wet out and it's been so busy I can barely extricate myself from the bookstore to go home. myself. So don't despair completely just yet.
I do think there has to be a new model, though, and no one is sure just what that is.
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