An AP-Ipsos poll
in August reported that 25% of Americans read no
books in the last year. No books. None. Shocking!
But
wait a minute. Take a step back. Last Sunday, I didn’t read a book. Not one. But
that doesn’t mean I didn’t read. In fact Sunday is the day for combing the NYT Magazine—online. I also catch up on
the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books. Online. Every
day I read the plain old New York Times and
the Guardian online. I cancelled my
subscription to the local paper over a year ago because the reading-to-waste
ratio was too awful. Now, I scan the headlines—online—and my recycling box is a
lot lighter.
The
point here is that just because a poll says one thing, you can’t presume it
says a whole lot of other things. Just because Americans aren’t reading books
doesn’t mean that they’re not reading.
So a friend of
mine stopped by a few days ago and gazed around the living room at the
wall-to-wall books. He’s a musician, and his comment was: I have thousands of
CDs, but I don’t want them taking up space in the studio anymore. I don’t need
to be able to see them in order to access their information. My collection is
digitized and accessible wherever, whenever from my iPod. How would you feel
about having your entire collection of books in your pocket?
I admit that my
reaction was visceral. It was that pain of loss when your organs shrink away
from your skin. My books are so much more than a collection of words. They are
more than mere devices that display text. They are—artifacts. Some of them
smell like one place, and some like another. The old Jane Eyre that’s been through every major move of the last thirty
years is so worn out it’s unreadable. Still, I wouldn’t dream of throwing it away.
It’s an old friend. They’re all old friends. I know where I was when I read
them first, or last. I know on what side of the spread memorable passages occur.
But wait a
minute. Didn’t records used to be like this? I recall staring at Pink Floyd’s The Wall, prominently displayed, while
listening to the same. Long before that hazy afternoon, however, 8-tracks were
already in our family’s car, and by the time I was in college, cassette tapes
had taken over. Good thing, we said, as we took off to Mexico with
a stash of music in a shoebox instead of a crate. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve
felt any physical connection to my music collection. Unlike with my books, I
don’t know who’s sitting next to whom. I don’t care. The ease of accessibility
has overwritten the pleasure of spatial conviviality.
Or is it that
there’s no sense of loss because the records have been gone for so long?
The definition
of artifact is, something created by
humans for practical purposes. Records are no longer practical. CDs are no
longer practical. Newspapers are no longer practical. And when the right,
cross-platform, display device comes along, most books will no longer be
practical.
All right, so
books may no longer be artifacts, still,
not all books are meant to be practical. On another recent Sunday, my youngest son
woke up early, and finding himself in a quiet house, browsed the bookshelves
nearest the floor. He found a hardcover first edition of Animal Farm—a hand-me-down from a defunct family library—and he sat
on the couch under a blanket and read the whole thing before breakfast. I think
he’ll remember the experience forever. The book of paper and ink may cease to
be a tool, but it will never stop being a gift, a memento, or a treasure.