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News & ArtsMonday, January 30, 2012
Tech / Books Jonathan Franzen Says E-Books Are Damaging Society
Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 4:25 PM
Jonathan Franzen, a man I have already described as "the greatest novelist the 1950's has to offer," has announced that e-books are damaging society:
“I think, for serious readers, a sense of permanence has always been part of the experience. Everything else in your life is fluid, but here is this text that doesn’t change.
“Will there still be readers 50 years from now who feel that way? Who have that hunger for something permanent and unalterable? I don’t have a crystal ball.
“But I do fear that it’s going to be very hard to make the world work if there’s no permanence like that. That kind of radical contingency is not compatible with a system of justice or responsible self-government.”
Sure, sure. You know it, Jonathan Franzen. The e-book is going to inspire the rise of fascist governments everywhere. And zippers are so easy to use that they inspire people to have immoral sex, so we should go back to button-fly pants, exclusively. And what's the deal with fire, anyway?
Franzen is always so worried about "serious readers." Serious readers were all he could talk about at Benaroya Hall when he came to town in 2010. I have yet to hear his definition of "serious readers," but I suspect when he pictures serious readers in his mind's eye, the serious readers he pictures look a whole lot like Jonathan Franzen.
1
Freedom was a great novel. Did people routinely cite themselves in the own articles back in the '50s?
2
It can be a little hard for some people to see the benefit of modern media's searchability and lowered threshold of entry, but claiming that permanence is somehow compromised is a little silly. Permanence does not exist purely in the physical form. A single copy of a printed book will last much longer than a single digital copy, but the digital copy can exist in so many places that it can outlast the physical copy. The danger is of course in the reliance on a technology that is not fixed or permanent, but the flipside of that argument is that the data worth keeping will always migrate to the new medium.
How many copies of the Mona Lisa are there? Original oil paint = 1. Printed posters = thousands, if not millions. Digital photos = infinite. If the Louvre were to burn down tonight, we'd still be able to see some version of the Mona Lisa.
How many copies of the Mona Lisa are there? Original oil paint = 1. Printed posters = thousands, if not millions. Digital photos = infinite. If the Louvre were to burn down tonight, we'd still be able to see some version of the Mona Lisa.
4
My problem with Franzen is that he's a serious reader who isn't really a serious writer. And part of the reason that he's not a serious writer is that he's way too freaking serious. I'm going to go home and rub the e-version of Portnoy's Complaint all over a used copy of Freedom and then try to read Freedom again.
5
Don't care one teensy little bit for his writing, and he couched it in the most obnoxious, ostentatious way possible, but I agree with his basic premise. Nothing's easier than changing digital 1s and 0s. Words can be edited, changed, or removed entirely from the digital realm. It's much harder to do that in the physical world. Who's to say, in the nightmare scenario, that we wouldn't see easily the words of the Founding Fathers or Greek philosophers are changed to match what our leaders want? Imagine how much easier the firemen of Fahrenheit 451 would have had it if they didn't have to burn actual hard copies, but instead just hit a delete button. I'm only a little serious; I am not saying it would happen. Only that it would be possible.
And in an aesthetic sense, I'll always prefer hard copy to digital. You don't get the smell or weight of things with an ebook. Just doesn't do it for me.
And in an aesthetic sense, I'll always prefer hard copy to digital. You don't get the smell or weight of things with an ebook. Just doesn't do it for me.
6
I like some of Franzen's work, but he's being disingenuous here. Throughout history texts have been changeable and have changed. The big shift in the relationship between the reader/consumer and the text is around ownership of the book not the fixity/malleability of the text.
7
Serious readers put on a suit and tie before sitting down to read a book. None of this disheveled sweaters and jeans nonsense. And they drink coffee while they read, not tea or hot cocoa or any other such garbage. Kids these days...
8
Serious readers like the fact that it is possible that every book, in every language, can potentially be accessed from anywhere in the world.
10
Serious readers read stuff that they think they're supposed to read rather than what they enjoy. Which would explain the popularity of Franzen.
12
I'm more afraid of Amazon eventually having a monopoly on the written word. At least they're in Seattle.
13
E-books are only as good as the power source. When the battery is at zero, so is the e-reader. Not so a book.
14
what a nimrod.
and we should scan all of van gogh's stuff and pack away the originals because it is 2012, after all.....
and we should scan all of van gogh's stuff and pack away the originals because it is 2012, after all.....
15
With time, the culture will change. This will likely affect the culture. Get over it. The complaints were all true - if we encourage literacy people will not work their memories as much and they will become unable and unwilling to hold large amounts of oral tradition in their heads. What is more accessible than your own brain? Sure enough, people rarely memorize large amounts of oral tradition any more. The world changed. We use writing to supplement our memories. As the products of this change, we like it. Things will keep changing, and people will probably mostly prefer whatever they are used to. And kids today will be so much more ill-mannered than they used to be, obviously. Because every generation seems to say that.
16
Has this guy every used a Kindle?
It's easier to fold, spindle and mutilate a book as well as draw smiley faces, put yellow highlights on sentences that really mean something and sign your name to books than it is to change a word on a Kindle book.
Oh, and you actually have to buy the thing to be able to annotate it -- in a completely separate web page -- or they take away your notes when it expires. Does that happen with a book? Nope.
You can screw with a book.
But don't screw with an Amazon e-Book. Ever!
18
Part of my objection to Franzen's point -- other than its source -- is that it sets up a dichotomy between paper and digital that doesn't do any reader any favors.
The difference between digital and paper is more like the difference between hardback and paperback: one is quick, disposable, and impermanent by design (a feature not a bug), while the other provides more stability and permanence for someone really invested in that particular text. People choose digital or paper based on how significant they think that book is going to be in their physical lives -- someone will buy the paperback of Freedom because it's cheaper, but if it really resonates then they'll upgrade to the hardback (or heaven forfend, a signed first edition) because it means something to them personally.
PS: If serious readers look like Jonathan Franzen, well -- sometimes Jonathan Franzen looks a lot like Stephen King: http://www.oliviawaite.com/blog/2011/03/…
The difference between digital and paper is more like the difference between hardback and paperback: one is quick, disposable, and impermanent by design (a feature not a bug), while the other provides more stability and permanence for someone really invested in that particular text. People choose digital or paper based on how significant they think that book is going to be in their physical lives -- someone will buy the paperback of Freedom because it's cheaper, but if it really resonates then they'll upgrade to the hardback (or heaven forfend, a signed first edition) because it means something to them personally.
PS: If serious readers look like Jonathan Franzen, well -- sometimes Jonathan Franzen looks a lot like Stephen King: http://www.oliviawaite.com/blog/2011/03/…
19
"I suspect when he pictures serious readers in his mind's eye, the serious readers he pictures look a whole lot like Jonathan Franzen."
TRUTH.
TRUTH.
21
I don't know why Paul Constant even bothered to go see Franzen speak at Benaroya Hall. Every article he's ever written about Franzen shows that he's already made up his mind about the guy.
23
Umm, somehow it seems to me that allowing fluidity of form for text lends more to its permanence than an easily-decaying trade paperback, but that's just me.
24
Never read Franzen. I was put off by his personal sententiousness and the fact that his third novel was selected by the Oprah book club. (Usually that means a book is intended only for "serious readers." Those people are scary.)
25
Not a Franzen fan, myself.
Paul has to go see him because that is his job.
Yeah, okay, there is a teensy bit of truth in what Franzen says. Generally, physical books are better than e-books, in my opinion, but there are some exceptions. Do you travel a lot? Do you have limited space to keep books? Do you need to increase the type size due to your poor eyesight? Do you have some physical disability that makes physical books hard to hold? Do you like reading racy novels and are too embarrassed to be seen reading them in public? There are reasons people need e-readers.
But if you don't need or want one, then please go buy your physical books from a brick-n-morter store. Please. Do it today. Save a book, save a job, save a way of life.
Paul has to go see him because that is his job.
Yeah, okay, there is a teensy bit of truth in what Franzen says. Generally, physical books are better than e-books, in my opinion, but there are some exceptions. Do you travel a lot? Do you have limited space to keep books? Do you need to increase the type size due to your poor eyesight? Do you have some physical disability that makes physical books hard to hold? Do you like reading racy novels and are too embarrassed to be seen reading them in public? There are reasons people need e-readers.
But if you don't need or want one, then please go buy your physical books from a brick-n-morter store. Please. Do it today. Save a book, save a job, save a way of life.
26
@25: After initial hesitation, I very quickly fell head-over-heels for my Kindle. I really want to be able to buy my ebooks from small businesses, though. Can somebody fix this? Make it so I can go to a brick-and-mortar store and load up my book machine?
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