Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
For a real read
|
On World Book Day, KALA KRISHNAN RAMESH wonders if ebooks can ever come close to the experience of a real book
|
Photo: Sampath kumar G.P.
Nothing compares How could one lose oneself in Pullman’s magical world with bits and bytes for company?
A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. So the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion
— Umberto Eco
However, your book could be an old Rocket or Softbook or a newer REB1100 or REB1200s, or the latest Sony PRS-505, or Amazon’s own Kindle, or any other electronic book/ reader and then your problems would be about weight, battery life, screen re
solution and contrast etc.
Several generations of the eBook, each correcting the flaws of the previous generation, have been developed since Alan Kay, a postgraduate student first conceptualised the Dynabook: “a portable interactive personal computer, as accessible as a book”
The first was the paperback-sized Rocket eBook, launched in 1998, which held 10 books (4000 pages of text and graphics), weighed one pound, had a 4-by-3-inch high resolution screen, a selection of font sizes, could be set for left or right hand use, had search and bookmarking facilities and cost $ 270. Today, the eBook is lighter, better-looking, multi-functional and has many more uses than before.
But do these eBooks actually come close to the experience of a real book? Steven Beattie, critic and editor says, “To this point, no one has developed an effective e-reader. And I’m not sure I see that technology taking off anywhere except the academy, for the simple reason that nobody wants to read a novel on a screen”.
Umberto Eco makes a similar distinction between eBooks based on function: if you are using it for ‘consulting’, then it will do very well, with the added advantage of not taking up precious space on shelves, but, he says, “I don’t think it’s possible to read Homer on the computer”.
That’s a distinction that most of us would make, like Stephen H. Wildstrom of Business Week, who says “I love books, and electronic versions won’t replace print in my heart or on my overflowing bookshelves. But I see a place for eBooks — and it could be a big one.”
One place where this is evident is Second Life (SL), the 3-D virtual community that apparently has the means for intellectual, commercial and community transactions. Currently SL has virtual book signings, virtual libraries, and the offices of publishing companies (like Federated Media Publishing) as well as totally virtual courses run by over a dozen US universities!
The problem with all this virtuality, however, is that one literally loses ones senses; one can’t smell or touch or feel eBooks. I am an unashamed sniffer — I hold them close to my face without touching and take a long, addict’s sniff and I’m off! It’s not just the lack of sensual awareness with an eBook, but many of us, like Umberto Eco, also have an instinct about real books in a real bookstore, an ability to recognize a book’s contents from the many signs on and around it, which we, like Eco, simply lose on the net. And it’s difficult to loll around with an eBook as with a real book, snacking and sipping, leaving it to rest on random convenient spots.
Perhaps the paper book really is “perfect technology”, and nothing can better it, and we should just be happy when the eBook and the paper book meet in places like the HarperCollins Facebook reading group.
In tribute to books, this magical description of the world of books by Mary Oliver, in one her loveliest poems — “An Afternoon in the Stacks”
“…the chapters open their beautiful spaces and give a rustling sound, words adjusting themselves to their meaning.… An echo, continuous from the title onward, hums behind me... the world looms, a jungle redeemed by these linked sentences carved out when an author travelled and a reader kept the way open. When this book ends I will pull it inside-out …and throw it back in the library. But the rumor of it will haunt all that follows in my life.”
Books ends
eBooks are cost effective and can be easily stored
You can adjust font size and zoom in an eBook
While are they are hands free and can be carried anywhere, e books do not give the reader the tactile pleasure of ink and paper
Battery life and screen resolution in eBooks have to be kept in mind
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
|
