Comments on: Dave Edelman says the novel will die

By: Eek

Eek — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:45:57 +0000

I agree with soubriquet. Electronic books are just a disposable convenience. Easily obtained, easily dismissed. I have a zillion mp3s on my hard drive, yet nothing makes a dent on my psyche. Why not? I listen to them all the time, yet none of them seem important. Because they were easily obtained and not cared for at all.

Out of sight, out of mind. A book is made for one purpose only. A book on a hard drive or an e-book reader or whatever…that electronic utility has multiple purposes. How long before we’re watching video through our ebook readers? How can you enjoy a novel when you’re being messaged on MSN, or think about uploading a photo on facebook?

I like looking at the books on my shelf. They’re significant, I think. Infinitely moreso than just looking at a bunch of burned DVDs with millions of libraries on them, stamped with a labelmaker.

As someone that makes graphic novels, I know that there’s artistry and technique to novels that cannot easily be translated to the computer, regardless of what people think. And one of those things is permanence. Data is highly volatile when it’s in the mind of a computer; paper, not so bad. It’s not permanent, but it’s the next best thing.

By: soubriquet

soubriquet — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 13:23:57 +0000

Oops! sorry for the typos… I hate writing in tiny boxes too, where’s my quill pen?

By: soubriquet

soubriquet — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 13:21:13 +0000

As a reader and booklover, all I can say is “I hope not!”.
just before I came and read this, I was browsing through a book which was printed in 1732, -in it I found a closely spaced, handwritten page of argument with some of the printed text. I don’t know who wrote those notes, arguing with Lord Salisbury, in the year in which George Washington was born, in which a royal charter founded the colony of Georgia… but I strongly doubt that your thoughts, written in the margins of your iphone screen will be read two hundred and seventy six years from now.
Of course, that’s an extreme analogy, buy i find I can read, mentallt scan, riffle back through pages, far faster and with less eye-strain in real books than virtual ones. Yes, a google search facility might be handy, as a way to train my brain not to bother with real comprehension or memory.
e-books probably appeal more to people who don’t really read.. maybe you could have the text pre-digested, um, pictures… oh Moving pictures with sound?
Welcome to the disneyification of literature.

By the way, I don’t cling to vinyl for my music, it’s on the hard drive, but I’ve never hankered after an ipod.
The place for an elecrtonic reading device may well come, I can see it as handy for travel, allowing me to select from a library without lugging weight, but I’ll expect its page change/refresh to be intantaneous when I get to the bottom line.
I like real books.

By: Peter Tupper

Peter Tupper — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 03:02:49 +0000

Do you mean the novel as a story form or as a form factor? Both seem to be doing pretty well, if walking through Chapters is any indication.

I’m wondering what killed the short story. Where did the market for short fiction go? Everybody wants to read 1000-page novels in six-volume series. All that’s left of the short fiction readership are science fiction digests with minuscule circulations, and unreadable laboratory pieces in literary magazines.

I hope that, if and when Iphone-like devices are as common as music players are now, it could lead to a resurgence of short fiction, maybe in styles and formats we’ve yet to imagine.

By: PJ

PJ — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:04:34 +0000

What do you mean you can’t read an ebook in the bathtub? I know many people that use their ebook readers (cellphone, Nokia N800, whatever) in the bathtub without a problem. Also, you forgot to mention: books aren’t backlit, so they require an external illumination source, unlike a decent LCD screen.

The main problems with ebooks right now are 1) availability and 2) format standardization.