Diary of a Mad Editor

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way….”
— Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

The subject of the Amazon Kindle has been all the rage on literary blogs since it’s introduction. It’s a controversial subject in the wake of the apparent decline of print publishing.  But it is fascinating to me to see financial blogs talking about it.  When I mention the Kindle, I’m not usually thinking about it in terms of whether or not it’s the best buy of the century.  I’m interested in it in terms of whether or not it’s good for literature.  How will it change the way we read and write and to what degree is it a good or bad thing. Financial bloggers don’t really care that much about us literary folk — they see it purely in terms of dollars and cents and discuss its viability as an investment.

I don’t care about that. Technology always gets replaced by newer, better technology.  It’s obvious that the Kindle is just the granddaddy of future generations of better and better e-readers. They’ve just released the Kindle 2.0 and no doubt there will be a 3.0, 4.0, 5.0 and so on.  So the question isn’t whether or not this technology is a good long-term investment — I don’t see how it can be otherwise.  The question for me remains, “how can we define this technology without allowing it to define us?”

Don’t get me wrong — I think the Kindle is kind of neat and wouldn’t mind having one myself but, like a lot of people, I’m wondering what that means. Just last week my beloved local library started carrying the Kindle and with it, a vast library of digital downloads for this device.  Yes, they still have real, hard copy printed books on the shelves, but over the last few years, I’ve noticed that there are fewer books and less space being devoted to new volumes. The fiction section has shrunk and there is more physical space devoted to computers and DVDs. I don’t even think this library accepts book donations anymore.  They simply aren’t interested. Part of it is the economy, but a lot of it is just evolution.

If you’d asked me a couple of years ago, I would have agreed with Stephen King that real books would never be replaced completely — only that the means of producing those books would change (everything shifting to POD).But now, I’m not as sure of myself. After all, the generation growing up now is growing up digital and virtually book-free. Some days I feel like some old grandfather musing about how the “talkies” destroyed vaudville and when people like me are dead and buried, who will be around to champion conventional books? Long term, such a change may not matter much because what is different isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The world adjusts and people get on with things. But to live to see such a change is a sad, sad business as much as it’s also kind of exciting.