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The fascinating irony is that the book is a superior technology to the Internet or Computer. In terms of presenting written material to a reader at all times and places, who can argue that? The focused, intentional mind that makes a book, is the highest form of technology with more than a bit of soul thrown into the mix. But then, the Internet and Computer can do what the book has always promised to do better: Deliver great content. A focused, intentional mind using the Net at its optimum will put an end to the print, publishing system. For that reason, it's better to think of the perfect Net user, or perfect, free resourceful person than the gizmos that make-up the beast. One day, the new publishing system will be as difficult to get into as the print publishing system is now. But, for one precious moment, all is open. And it's true that the pornographer, the con man and con woman, the bottom-feeder can do more with less, now. But, so can the poet, the story-teller, the thinker, the person of letters, and so forth. This remarkable fact will be with us for some time. As we like to say, the colony always attracts the very high-minded and the scum of the Earth and between them they create a new culture. Technology matters. McLuhan said, "the medium is the message." A generation raised on movies and TV, moving images darted into the brain with sound, etc., has a very hard time reading Victorian novels. And, in fact, any decent sensibility who wants to escape the sight and sound of our own perverse culture escapes into those novels. They are a wonderful refuge. But, we build for the present. And a new generation is learning to read and navigate the digital beast. They are like the ardent young man who, with his mind racing at different angles, goes to the great university library and sits with thirty books in his cubicle, picking up one, then another, randomly walking through the volumes until the speed and angular convergence of his mind is satisfied. Perhaps, even, he smokes afterwards and sighs while overlooking the empty university. And it may be that after the Net, the young will not be able to return to the book. They will have learned how to cull the vast resources of the Net and synthesize them for their own use. It's very hard to predict these things because just when you think you have it right, here comes the kazam to make everything different. * * * * * * * * The Book lifted me from more than one heart of darkness. The Book, in its ability to take the mind upward and fill it with treasure is supreme; other objects can give off information, rich and sublime at times, but only the Book can act with us, in concert with us, living beings, to take us where the gleaming machines can never take us. So, when people say, “the era of the book is over.“ I don't celebrate it. However, a funny thing happened along the way to the book. The publishing system decided that it needed to make some money. Now, ideas are like medicine; art and medicine are remarkably similar and you can hardly get either to make a profit. You destroy the artfulness in each by doing so. It's important to understand that at the beginning of the printed book the writer dealt directly with the printer. The publisher only entered later on because the relations between writer and printer became complex. In the present, the machine and infrastructure do the printing and distributing. As yet no perceivable relation has developed between the writer and the reader, freed from the old, print literary system. As a reader I still love the book because I know where the good ones are. As a writer I love the Net because I love the sense of taking full responsibility for what I do and trying to make a way on a new publishing system that will follow the print one. * * * * * * * * One irony in my experience with the Net: Everything that I had tried to run from, everything that I wanted to avoid came at me with a vengeance. It made me resolve the conflict in youth and, therefore, move on. * * * * * * * * David |
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