Books Jetsonsesque Novel-Reading Experience Terrifying, Wrong
posted by on March 11 at 11:36 AM
Via Bookninja comes this review of the Kindle in the Times Online. The first paragraph disgusts and scares me, with especially-frightening bits bolded for emphasis:
Imagine this: it’s 2018, and you’re gripped by the latest political thriller by JK Rowling. (Didn’t she start out writing children’s books? Who can remember now?) You scarcely want to break off to do the washing-up or have a shower. So you don’t. You just tell your e-book reader to read it to you for a while, then, when you’ve finished, you go back to it yourself. Later, you wonder if this part wasn’t a little different in the movie. At a click of a button, you’re watching the film. Or there’s a dramatic scene - a whispered conversation at a concert. You’re given the option to hear the concert music as you read. For attentive fans, the novelist has decided this piece should be one referenced ear-lier. Novels are changing, and Amazon’s Kindle e-reader is just the start.
When I read about shit like this, I keep picturing Chris Ware’s lonely future-man:
This is a sad sad story.
Kind of like those people I see in cafes with earbuds in playing online games with anonymous people while surrounded by their neighbors, all of whom are doing the same basic thing.
God, this city can be depressing ... today I was walking along Burke-Gilman, smiling as the sun poked through for a few minutes after the rain, and a woman with her dog said hi and I responded in kind.
Neither of us had earbuds ...
I would read a JK Rowling political thriller. Does it have wizards?
(People nostalgic for times without headphones have clearly not been yelled at by enough bums on the street.)
Earbuds, along with any future political thrillers written by J.K. Rowling, are of the devil.
But an e-book that reads to you so you don't have to interrupt your reading experience to change the laundry, or plays music as specified in the text? That sounds like it could be fun. Don't be such a purist!
Don't they already have these inventions, and aren't they called "books on tape?" Oh the wonders of the future!
I agree, an ebook that is also an audiobook sounds like a great idea. It would be an especially good feature for the vision-impaired; not every book comes out as an audiobook.
The movie part, not so appealing to me, but I wouldn't be against it. You can look at this as a book that comes with a movie or a movie that comes with a book. Imagine if every movie came with a novelization of the film. People would praise it as a great push for literacy.
It's a matter of perspective and not the least bit terrifying.
Putting a book down to attend to a task is hardly a hardship, unless you are so spoiled that you must have every whim gratified immediately. I would argue that a really good piece of literature deserves attention undivided by activities such as loading a dishwasher. Why should a passage set at a concert need an actual sound-track? It is a book, not a movie or radio play. Have we not imaginations? What the Kindle seems to offer is spoon-fed experience, which is fine as far as that goes, but it is not reading.
Poor Future Man - witness to the last songbird.
Wow. I was kind of excited about the Kindle (for the saving trees reasons, not for others) but this review put me way way off.
If I want to listen to music while I read, I'll choose my own thank you very much. I read Ann Patchett's Bel Canto while listening to Bjork. Now, Bel Canto is about opera, but you gotta trust me on this one, reading it while listening to Bjork was a sublime experience.
JC @5:
"Imagine if every movie came with a novelization of the film. People would praise it as a great push for literacy."
That is not true. Have you ever read a novelization before?
@6: Exactly! I see people reading books at the gym and I think of them telling people that they read, you know, a book a week or something like that, but it's not reading. It's skimming.
Ok, it can read to me, provided it does so with a British accent. A sexy one.
Such ignorance. Hearing the same material read aloud to you takes ten times as long as reading it, and results in far, far less comprehension. This applies not just to books but even to TV shows; people who read transcripts of news and interviews grasp the material much faster and much more thoroughly than those who view them.
Sounds good to me. The movie feature is a bit silly, but having the option of audio just makes sense. Nothing more frustrating than being in the middle of a good book and then having to do some menial task like cleaning or driving. Even if it is slower than reading, even if I don't like the voice of the reader, it's still better to be able to listen than just being bored.
And who hasn't played music mentioned in a book they're reading? What exactly is so scary about that?
Fnarf, is that true for everyone, or just visual-dominant learners?
See, when I read that description, I immediately think of the old "Transmetropolitan" comic series.
Spider Jerusalem would be proud.
@9, I know most of them are crap. It would still be a boon to literacy, not literature. And I've read a few crap novelizations that qualified as good guilty pleasures.
You know what, Paul? Those kids won't get off your lawn, not even if you shake your cane at them.
@16 is spot on. Paul, you actually get annoyed by people who read books at the gym? That's ridiculous. If I am doing something low impact (e.g., exercise bike), I always read. Sometimes the newspaper, sometimes a book if I'm in the middle of a good one. I have the ability to tune out pretty much everything else that is going on around me when I'm reading (including, you know, whether I passed my bus stop 5 minutes ago). Does all reading need to be done in a quiet place with soothing lighting and a comfy chair?
Kindle doesn't interest me at the moment, but whatever. I am not threatened by its extra features.
@11 - Fnarf, we said with a sexy British accent ... were you listening to your death metal again or something?
Also, that future-man picture bummed me out.
PAUL CONSTANT IS TRYING TO ANSWER HIS WALLET
PAUL CONSTANT GETS CONFUSED BY HIS REMOTE CONTROL
PAUL CONSTANT HAS A FULL BOWL OF WERTHER'S ORIGINAL
PAUL CONSTANT WOULD RATHER NOT RUN THE DISHWASHER ON WEEKENDS
PAUL CONSTANT REMEMBERS WHAT IT WAS LIKE
PAUL CONSTANT HEADS TO THE AIRPORT FOUR HOURS EARLY
PAUL CONSTANT DOESN'T LIKE FOOD IN THE CAR
PAUL CONSTANT UNPLUGS THE TOASTER BEFORE LEAVING THE HOUSE
Is it just me or does the idea of listening to a book while driving seem scary? Isn't it distracting to absorb a narrative while trying to drive?
Just me? Ok.
@21: That's why I don't listen to books on tape while driving.
Audiobooks are great for long drives. Common sense dictates that you not distract yourself while needing to concentrate on something, but on those long stretches of highway and such, they're great.
The more I read about the Kindle, the more I am reminded of the Segway. They are both intersting, but largely unneccessary, pieces of technology. For those who want to listen to a book there are already cd's, which can even be purchased and downloaded to your own computer. There are also satellite radio programs devoted to audio books for folks who are driving or washing dishes. So the question is: who really needs a Kindle? The Segway was supposed to revolutionize the way we move around our cities, instead it finds limited use as locomotion for mall guards. Even from the standpoint of eco-friendliness the Kinndle loses out; pieces of electronics with inherent obsolescence such as this will always require more resources to both manufacture and dispose of than a recyclable, reusable book.
@24, COME on!!!
The post-human is here, all hail the singularity! Like woah!
@20: I love Paul Constant, and agreed with everything he said about the Kindle (and the gym; it's better suited for magazines), but I found this to be very funny.
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