Note: From time to time, I may include reflections from my grad school seminar. The following comes from my recent post on our discussion board.
Ah, the Kindle. Its very name conjures up the image of reading next to a roaring fire...but I would love to throw it into one.
I was that strange girl surreptitiously sniffing the pages of books whenever I visited B&N as a kid; even today, I still love cracking open the covers of Shakespeare or Whitman or Plath. The raw joy of reading includes hearing that soft crackle and feeling the cobblestone bumps of pages. It is as satisfying as walking into a glorious library and seeing rows and rows of books, aged and loved by so many people (Beauty and the Beast dream library, anyone?).
But perhaps what the Kindle can never capture is the craft of book-making, the history of binding pages together into a complete piece. An art teacher once showed me how to make pulp out of starch and shredded paper, which would then be applied to a solid backing. The finished product -- journal covers in all their rough edges and imperfections -- felt majestic yet familiar. With blank pages added, it felt like a worthy vessel for words.
Walter Benjamin wrote that "mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art" (234). The Kindle, though light and efficient, is simply a beautiful machine for our fast-paced, glistening world. It is cold and heartless; every piece is designed to operate perfectly, whereas a book finds a tenuous identity through the hands that hold it. For instance, I can never expect what happens when one of my students picks up a book -- will he embrace it, throw it at my head, or ask me how to turn it on?
Love your description of a book's individuality as connected to a person's individuality! I was anti-Kindle, then I got one for Christmas and quickly became hooked. But now, I've realized I prefer books to e-readers. The Kindle is a nice device to have and use, but it can never replace books!
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