Don't Change What is Fine as It Is/Another Perspective

Last night we watched It's a Wonderful Life - my first time for 2010, but probably not the last as it is such a delightfully subversive movie - and I had this thought strike me this morning: colorization.

Remember when the great controversy was the colorization of classic old black and white movies? Man, when was that, 10 years ago, 20? I really don't remember. But it was a huge controversy. Does adding color 'improve' the movie, or is it a desecration of something great and wonderful as it was? It didn't help that the colorizations themselves were weak and washed out, as if someone had gone through the film frame by frame and brushed in watery color from a grade schooler's set of oval disks of tempera. Really, what were they trying to do? Cater to a lazy rabble (as Mr. Potter would call us) who require colors to watch the tube? Sell us another copy of what we have ("Guess I'll have to buy the White Album again" - great line from Men in Black) - probably.

But when was the last time the colorization issue even came up? When was the last time you even saw an old favorite that had been colorized? They don't show them. Turner Classic Movies probably spends half of their air time showing black and white movies and wasn't it Ted Turner who was one of the leaders of colorization? It was a fad, a 'new thing' being driven down from the top. There wasn't a massive outcry FOR colorized movies. We were being told it was the Wave of the Future.

Now we're all being told that e-books are the Wave of the Future. Printed books are dead, out of date, passe, hopelessly old fashioned. Sure demand is up for them and the readers and the downloads are selling well, but is it really an improvement? Colorization just changed the viewing but didn't make the movie better. E-readers are handy for people who travel and people who like gizmos. But they're not cheap to buy, they can break easily, the downloads can be withdrawn, you can't loan them, you can't sell them or turn them in for credit to get other e-books, you can't smell the paper, you can't quickly flip back and forth from text to end-notes or glossery or cast of characters, the battery can run out, your computer at home can be on the fritz and you can't download any more books, the damn thing get's stolen when your backpack gets taken at the gym, you leave it on the bus --- I don't see the improvement of e-readers! Nothing about them makes them an improvement on the simplicity of a printed book!

So call me a relic of a past age, call me a stick-in-the-mud, call me a dinosaur, call me a curmudgeon, but e-readers are just this era's colorized movies. In ten or twenty years we'll all look back at things from the past that caused a hub-bub but ended up being flash-in-the-pan buzz and I think e-readers will be a cocktail party conversation, like pet rocks. Think of the things that came to public consciosness with great alarm or celebration: Y2K, laser disks, was George Orwell rigtht about 1984, cars that converted to boats, or quadrophonic stereos. We've gone from the 33 1/3 to the 45 to the album to reel-to-reel/cassettes/8-track to CD, we've gone from the Wright Brothers to the Space Shuttle, we've gone from the Model T to the all-electic car, from having to place your phone call through an operator on a trunk line to every grade-schooler having their own cell phone, from physicians using leeches and blood-letting to non-invasive surgery, from silent movies to 3D extravaganzas... And what has been with us the entire time?

The printed book.

Can't be improved.

Even if you colorize it. 

 - JB

Another perspective

I do see where JB's coming from, I really do. 

However, I don't think that e-readers are easily dismissed as a fad.  I think they're simply another way of delivering content, that's all.  Like cassettes and CDs, I think e-readers are simply another way to "read" books.

I know for a lot of people, the convenience and immediate gratification is a huge selling point.   We've got a whole generation that, it seems to me, has been born with nanotechnology embedded in their genetic code.  There a lot of folks, not just the nano-set, who are addicted to the latest gadgets and will want the latest no matter what.  People used to think that personal computers were a fad too, at one point.  Now they're indespensable!

But a lot of the younger folks are as addicted to the paper book as I am.  I find that to be hopeful.

Traditional books will be around for a long, long time yet to come, I have no doubt, partly for the reasons that JB has outlined, but also partly because books are art, they're heritage, they're inheritable, they're classics.  A signed first edition can be handed down from generation to generation, while an electronic book can't, and even if it could, it wouldn't have the emotional weight of the physical book.

Then too, with a book that has been published by a mainstream publisher, the reader is assured (generally) that the book has been edited, has been polished, rather than having been sent out without any safeguards. 

Still, because of their convenience and immediacy, e-books are going to be increasingly popular, and I do think they're here to stay.

Well, at least until the zombie apocalypse, and then, when all the power grids go down, the traditional book will be back with a vengeance!

--Fran--

Comments

[George V. Reilly]

I think ebooks are here to stay, but printed books aren't going away.

I like printed books individually. I have thousands of them. In the aggregate, they're a nuisance. They're bulky, they're heavy, they fall apart, they grow moldy, they burn. Yet a well-crafted printed book is more attractive than an ebook.

I have a Nook and an iPhone. I've read dozens of ebooks on them. Novels, read linearly, are easier to read than technical books where I need to flip back and forth, take notes, or look in the index.

I don't seriously expect to be using a device like the Nook in five years. I hope it's evolved.

[George V. Reilly]

Powell's is partnering with the Google eBookstore: http://blogs.forbes.com/michaelhumphrey/2010/12/17/googles-un-goliath-ebook-strategy-a-chat-with-powells-books/?boxes=Homepagechannels