CON GAMES: Read All About It—Books Can Go To Hell

April 17th, 2008 at 06:00pm Michael Conniff 2

When I saw the book “Print Is Dead: Books In Our Digital Age,” my great fear was that Jeff Gomez had found out the great secret I have been carrying around for fifteen years in hopes that nobody would find me out.

Fortunately for me, Gomez—an Internet marketing executive for a book company—made his way through his fascinating dissertation with many compelling observations of his own, though without coming close to my conclusion about the future.

My secret is safe for a few paragraphs more.

“Print Is Dead” is a comprehensive survey of everything anyone has written about changing media in an online world, with a large dollop of those unbearably ponderous “I love the feel of ink and paper” essays invariably written by those with microscopic readerships. (John Updike notwithstanding.) Then I would point out the countless essays about the smell of coffee and newspapers by those who now get their news online. The point is that Luddites will always defend the realm before the walls fall—and they will always do so with a whiff of romanticism.

Me? I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

Gomez eloquently points the way to a future where books in their printed form fade away. The big headline: the power of books is in their content, not the print wrapper they come in. Gomez also calls the connection between books and content a “‘false equation’ that, if not changed, will doom the world of print to a ghetto of tweedy collectors and literary snobs.” He posits a time where “books will—after they have lost their general utility—be retained in many people’s lives as works of art.”

Well, maybe…but maybe not. The history of media is the story of evolution and survival, with threatened forms living to fight another day. Consider radio, network television, cable television, magazines, and even newspapers. They are much more likely to suffer and evolve than they are to be the subject of a snuff movie.

So may it be with books. Rather than a complete black-and-whiteout, books are likely to survive in some form beyond a half-life in Hef’s mansion as an exotic conversation piece. The reason? Books are a great, portable medium, and are likely to stay that way—just the way nothing on television will ever replace the radio talk show you listen to in your car.

Gomez, in contrast, comes to the perhaps predictable conclusion that the words will become detached from the book to become available “through whatever mechanism it takes to get words in front of a pair of curious human eyes….”

The key word in Gomez’s sentence is “words” and the notion that without the physical container of the book that words will still drive a reading experience.

“What’s going to be transformed,” he writes, “isn’t just the reading of one book, but the ability to read a passage from practically any book that exists, at any time that you want to, as well as the ability to click on hyperlinks, experience multimedia, and add notes and share passage with others. All of this will add up to a paradigm shift not seen in hundreds of years.”

Even with the assumption of digital form, Gomez is still talking about a medium that’s read—the medium of books, not the multimedia world of words, graphics, photographs, scraps, and video. He has removed the wrapper of books but believes the basic rap hasn’t changed. For a publishing poobah, he has written a radical tome, but for my taste the story “Print Is Dead” really begins where Gomez ends his (print) book.

Here’s what I mean: in the world of the Web, the creation of literary art will no longer be about books and reading, but about an online canvas that permits every form, every genre, and every media to co-exist. The written word will remain potent, but will be subservient to a new form that encompasses all forms of media online and off.

That’s my secret: after fifteen years of hard labor my work is called, ironically, “The Book of O’Kells,” an allusion to both the diminishing power of print and the beautiful ancient Irish illustrated manuscript called “The Book of Kells.” My supernovel includes more forms than I can count (novel, novella, play, screenplay, and so on) with more to come.

Needless to say, nobody in the print publishing world gives a flying whatever.

Have I given my secret away too cheaply? No way. My secret is safe—because nobody reads any more these days.

Entry Filed under: Technology, Books, Colorado, Con Games, Business, United Post

6 Comments Add your own

1. Hugh520 | April 18th, 2008 at 5:47 pm

I think what my father was most proud of in his life and most excited about aside from his sailing adventures, were the books he read. He had a lyrical ear and a macho Hemingway inclination -- one year he gave all his kids The Right Stuff for Christmas. Nothing else.

We were expected to read it and share about it over cocktail hour. In my fathers house ( which was not my own because my parents divorced when I was six ) you were expected to be a reader.

Towards the end of his life he kept coming back to one book though: Tim O'Briens, The Things They Carried -- a work of brilliant short real pieces about Vietnam in the Capote vein of real fiction.

My mother was also a reader. She tended towards the heavier Russian and French novelists, but also Becker's The Denial of Death and Reiff's, The Triumph of the Theraputic -- Uses of Faith after Freud. Mom's choices were weightier than my fathers. She and I read Solzhenitsyn together when I was in high school. It was a thin thread, but it kept us connected through her descent into alcoholism.

Both my parents read before bed -- a habit I picked up and will never shake. Both kept a battery of books on their nightstands. Reading was religion, and religion was the pursuit of knowledge. There was no worse indictment in my household than, "He's not very bright."

No-one in my family collects paperbacks, but we all keep our hardcovers. I even strategically place my favorites at the end of the row so I can be reminded of the narrative, or place, or story. I remember keeping the colorful African cover of William Finnegan's, Crossing the Line -- A year in the Land of Apartheid on the end of one shelf to remind myself of his adventure in South Africa and perhaps to get me to do something similar one day.

Because of my mother, I never read for casual amusement and my father was no lightweight -- just not the seeker I am and my mother was. Books.

It is gratifying to know that books take the number one spot for entertainment dollars in America. We spend more on books than movies and DVD's combined.

I believe the physical, holdable, beach-capable, bed capable, portable book will survive well into and through the digital age. I can't wait to finish an interminable renovation on my NY apartment, just to liberate my books from their boxes. I'll be building shelves of my own to show off my oeuvre. Notice "my oeuvre?" That's because I chose 'em and put in the time to read 'em, and I my family taught me that this was always valuable, provided the choices were worth it.

There's another level of reader/storage/collector of which my friend Fred is a avid adherent. He collects first editions, and he displays them in dust free glass enclosed shelves. I may not go that far, but I'm just as proud of my meager collection. There are people who've gone on a Kerouac adventure and those who haven't. There are people who can't live without books and I count myself one of them.
2. Mitch Mulhall | April 18th, 2008 at 9:54 pm

Hi Hugh,

Two phrases resonate with me in your comment: "her descent in to alcoholism," and, "a Kerouac adventure." Perspective: a woman I've known since kindergarten died of brain cancer Wednesday. Diversion:

Cheers,
3. Hugh520 | April 19th, 2008 at 11:56 am

What a treat. It'll be the first time I've ever heard his voice.

The coda on Mom and Dad's drinking is that they both sobered up when we kids were in our late teens and twenties. Better late than never, but the wrecking ball had done its terrible damage.

Sorry about Kim. I'm reminded of a book that at its essence is all about loss: Lonesome Dove.

Cheers, Mitch
4. Hugh520 | April 19th, 2008 at 11:56 am

What a treat. It'll be the first time I've ever heard his voice.

The coda on Mom and Dad's drinking is that they both sobered up when we kids were in our late teens and twenties. Better late than never, but the wrecking ball had done its terrible damage.

Sorry about Kim. I'm reminded of a book that at its essence is all about loss: Lonesome Dove.

Cheers Mate, Hugh
5. Hugh520 | April 19th, 2008 at 11:58 am

Oops!
6. Mitch Mulhall | April 20th, 2008 at 12:04 am

Hey Hugh,

[Sorry about Kim.]

Me too.

I have an anecdote about her. Long before she could drive, I used to call her "lead foot." Why? Kim used to chase me and Norman Franke around the asphalt playground of Bolitho Elementary (see comment #12) and kick us in the shins... (I now realize what Michael means about overuse of ellipses.)

Many who read here may find this offensive--it's quite possible Kim would too--but what the hell, it's Sunday morning:

There's a haircut benefit (?) at GSHS starting at noon to help with Kim's medical bills. My son and I will be getting shorn for the cause. For these haircuts, I will be paying a premium.

Godspeed, sweetheart...

Cheers,