Kindle Resolutions and Revulsions

Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass

My parents mailed me my Kindle Touch, and things didn't exactly begin with a peachy-keen start when it took well over a month to ship and I had a glorious fine of 30 odd pounds to pay in customs fees. Cheers.

When I went to put books on I found, much to my disgust, that most of the classics are not free, but have a .77 pence charge in taxes.  Chaucer is not free. Thomas à Kempis is not free. St Augustine is not free. But Walt Whitman, he was free. So I downloaded Leaves of Grass to supplement my newly-bought book from Tills so I wouldn't have take lug the tome home with me. When I went to read it, I was appalled. As a lover of the line, a Creative Writing minor in poetry whose sole eye is for the value of the line, I was shocked. Which lines were continuous? Which ones were new? I played with the size and to my horror, found the line expanded and changed, as obviously it would with an increased or decreased font, but with absolutely no reference to which line was a continuation and which was a new line. The makers of the Kindle were obviously not poets.

Next I downloaded Henry James, Turn of the Screw. I began to read aloud to Fran. It was nice having the touch-word dictionary, but I found I had no idea how long the work was, where I was in relation to the end of the book, or how much I had left.  On the bottom a little figure with "8%" appeared, but it wasn't the same as page numbers or the thickness of a book in my hands. Then I had to turn off the highlighting function. It showed where other peopled had highlighted, which lines were most popular. Insert any academic snobbery appropriate [here].

When I downloaded .PDFs I became even more frustrated. Perhaps I just don't know how to work it well, but it definitely wasn't in book mode. I had to zoom in and zoom out, adjust and readjust.  It is not the painless experience I expected, and sadly, a computer is much more user-friendly. 

I have, much against my better judgement, decided to give it a month's trial.  I don't want to take any books home with me on my journey to the States, so I've compiled all that I can onto that 5 x 7 demon: The Bible; spiritual books, (GK Chesterton and Brother Lawrence); the book Fran and I are currently reading aloud to each other (The Turn of the Screw), books for personal pleasure, (Middlemarch.) And I will try to finish Walt Whitman on the kindle though it seems some sort of crime against humanity.  Or at least America. 

It comes down to me being a snob. A filthy, self-righteous book snob. I get frustrated when I buy real books that are not up to scratch. My poetry must be set by the line, my medieval texts not translated, my penguin paperbacks published between 1958-64, my favorites in hardback editions. I don't think I would ever buy a classic on my kindle that I did not already own a copy of. There is something so painless, immediate, esoteric about the "whispernet" delivery service that these books don't seem real or permanent. I don't give a toss about an academic essay or a popular Terry Pratchett novel on my kindle. Those I can read and delete with no compunction. But it feels wrong to download pieces of literature that have been treasured, translated, studied, memorized, in a matter of 20 seconds, to delete it once finished, like it's ephemeral and fleeting, and doesn't have the potential to a change a life, fell a country, spark a revolution, demonstrate selflessness, enact a love story, refine one's personal views, and encounter worlds beyond one's own. 

Perhaps it's just me and I'm kicking up a huge fuss about nothing. After all, the argument could go, it's still the author's words and that's all that matters, surely? We've evolved to transcend the printed text. I think it was Aristotle that made an argument about physical beauty leading to spiritual revelation.  The beauty of a woman (he says) can lead one to know and understand other beautiful things, slowly moving from physical beauty to more intangible concepts until you are suddenly encountering the divine. I find it easier to read and understand what the author says when it comes in gilded edges and a 1920s copyright.

The kindle finds its place in my home when it comes to old works that are often out of print. While not my first choice, I need it to read the books I study. It's a necessary evil, a Catch-22. But I can't help but think Amazon and its competitors have paved paradise and managed to set up virtual parking lot, allowing ease, immediacy, and popular demand to dictate and immensely reduce the first-love encounter with literature to a word on a screen which disappears and blinks every time I "turn a page."