Sunday, June 22, 2008

Online Books

They say the future of writing lies with online books: The ubiquitous ‘they’ again, the omniscient ‘they’. I don’t know about you, but paging down on a computer screen, or PDA or whatever other device is used doesn’t seem to be catching on; at least not so you’d notice. I’ve got books online, and the only remarkable thing about them is the lack of downloads. Of course this may be my fault, but I can’t help thinking the real reason is that most people would still rather hold a book in their hands; feel the weight of it, smell the paper, turn the pages, perhaps make notes in the margin. Online books are for certain kinds of information where we swoop around like birds of prey searching for tidbits, gathering text for specific purposes.
And what happens then? If you’re like me, and you probably are, you print it out to read at leisure. It comes back to the feel of paper in your hand. I think the future of the printed book is pretty secure; at least until paper gets as expensive as gasoline.
As House of Anansi President, Sarah MacLachlan recently said, “The question you really have to ask yourself is, ‘Do people really want to read a 320-page book on a screen?’ There is not yet an interface that is pleasant enough to do that with. I might be naive, but I actually believe that once there is a device that can deal with a digital file like a book then we will come up with a solution to that problem.” She added “I don’t believe that we will be left in the dust.”

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Letter Writing

Letter writing as a form of communication is to all intents dead and E-mail has delivered the coup de grace. Those who argue that E-mail has greatly enhanced the frequency with which we keep in touch don’t get it. Letters were a leisured form of written communication; they were snapshots of our lives, and required thought and some effort. They required paper, pen, envelopes, stamps and a trip to the postbox. E-mail on the other hand requires nothing but a few hurried words and a tap on the ‘send’ key. Presto, like lightning it arrives next door or at the other side of the world. And now there is ‘texting’ on cellphones which further reduces the message to minimalistic shorthand.
As a boy, I remember my grandfather retiring to his study after breakfast every day to write letters: to friends, family, his brothers in Canada and Sweden. They were letters about nothing and everything: his garden, his grandson, the state of the world, books he had read, of ships and shoes and sealing wax.
I wonder; does anyone still do that? Does anyone sit at a well-worn desk, slide a clean sheet of bond paper from a pigeon-hole and write, simply for the pleasure of communication?
Sadly, I doubt it, and I doubt they ever will again unless...and then they probably wouldn’t know how, because not only has the art of the letter vanished, but also the ability to write legibly, and the ability to compose a half-decent sentence.