Prompt 1

The quote to be discussed below comes from Sven Birkerts’ The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age, and I think is a great way to summarize how some feel about the state of the late printed age.

“The printed word is part of a vestigial order that we are moving away from – by choice and by societal compulsion” (Birkerts 1994, p. 118)

Sven Birkerts takes on a rather bleak outlook of books and printed word in The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age, Birkerts might be biased in this claim because of his job as a book buyer – he is more than likely an avid reader and proponent of books and printed text. Nonetheless, Birkerts initially expresses the view that printed text will soon find itself along side the floppy disk as once useful pieces of technology that are now long forgotten in the minds of most. Like many who are not born digital or from the digital age, the professor of English tells Birkerts, “No, but I am getting out. Out of the teaching business, I mean. Out of books” (Birkerts 1994, p. 117). Somewhere in human history – or at least Western human history – education and teaching became closely related to the printed word and books, one is not educated unless they are well read. I have often heard the layperson also express this same view on education, it is not uncommon to hear someone say ‘they are street smart’ which in a sense means they know how to survive or get by but that is all they know. Personally, I do not share the bleak outlook that Birkerts has for the book and printed text, I am more inclined to support his later claim – or parts of the claim – that

“we are living through a period of overlap; one way of being is pushed athwart another. Antonio Gramsci”s often cited sentence comes inevitably to mind: “the Crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear” (Birkerts 1994, p. 212).

He goes on to claim that the old – books and printed word – is dying, while I do agree that we are living in a period of overlap, I do not agree that the old way is dying. As shocking a revelation as this may be, youth today do still read! As we discussed in class, digital natives often read in different ways than did digital immigrants, but the information and knowledge is still being engaged in by the digital native. I have never seen a digital native pick up the Sunday paper and do the crosswords but I have seen numerous of them playing word games online competing against each other in real time. Is the printed word really dying? No, how about evolving? Sure I can comfortably say that. The handwriting of digital natives – or lack there of – is what should be more concerning than the death of books or printed word. Books like the printed word are adapting to new forms, with the advent of eReaders the book has a whole new platform to propel itself forward and to welcome in the digital native in to the fold of literature! Publishing companies have realized they need to meet the digital natives on their playground - that is full of technology, shiny objects and ease of access – not the playground of their parents which at best had a tire swing and slide.

As a reader, I do not think the book or printed text is in any real danger. Being born into the digital generation has not made me avoid books or reading, what it has allowed me to do is to read books that I never would have thought possible. Now with the ease of the internet I can search for a book, look for ones in a similar genre, by different authors, and even have websites recommend books to me based on my likes and dislikes of previous books. Where the internet has really opened up new avenues for book exploration is in websites that help readers to understand main concepts, language, ideas and themes. I have used these websites when reading difficult texts such as The Heart of Darkness, they do not distract from the book but rather enhanced my experience.

“The astronomer reading a map of stars that no longer exist; the Japanese architect reading the land on which a house is to be built so as to guard it rom evil forces; the zoologist reading the spoor of animals in the forest; the card-player reading her partner’s gestures before playing the winning card; the dancer reading the choreographer’s notations, an the public reading the dancer’s movements on the stage, the weaver reading the intricate design of a carpet being woven; the organ-player reading various simultaneous strands of music orchestrated on the page; the parent reading the baby’s face for signs of joy or fright, or wonder; the Chinese fortune-teller reading the ancient marks on the shell of a tortoise; the lover blindly reading the loved one’s body at night, under the sheets; the psychiatrist helping patients read their own bewildering dreams’ the Hawaiian fisherman reading the ocean currents by plunging a hand into the water; the farmer reading the weather in the sky – all these share with the book-readers the craft of deciphering and translating signs.” Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading, 1996, p. 7.

It is interesting that Manguel acknowledges that reading involves more than reading a book, but rather that reading is involved in almost ever aspect of everyday life. Like Birkerts, Manguel presents one side of an idea early on but then later seems to jump to the other side, as if, like a coin the two concepts can not co-exist but must be one or the other. Initially, before starting the alternative text course I would have to admit I understood reading to be the activity done with a book or words at the vary least, unless it was other wise specified – like map reading – reading was something that only happened when you had text – in the form of words – in front of you. However, I have come to understand reading to be everything listed in the quote at the start of this section and much much more. Manguel, would appear to take the approach as well, as you move through the chapter, he moves closer to the idea that the only type of reading is that that is done with a book or text. There are no claims that reading is falling to the way side, although, there are urges from parents to “go out and live” (Manguel 1996, p. 21). Unlike in Birkerts article where he see’s digital natives as not reading enough, Manguel from his past experiences shows how todays parents often feel when they see their child spending time reading. Is society really coming to that? Do parents think their kids read too much? Probably not, but this is closer to my own childhood, where my parents would tell me to at least go outside and read. I found that much of the chapter was filled with Manguel ‘book-dropping’ – much like name-dropping. While at one time in society it might have been impressive to list off the books that you have read, in the digital age, I find that not only is this not impressive it is almost annoying. I know personally I was left wondering if Manguel did not have anything better to do with his time. Reading the long list of books Manguel describes having read shows the other side of the coin from the quote at the top of this section. He has flipped the coin and now shows, intentionally or not, that reading is only done when you sit with a book and does not include any of the acts of life he previously described as reading. This made me think; maybe I am more of a digital native than I had originally thought. I have read my fair share of books, and the older I get the more I read for school and not pleasure, my lack of personal reading of books has not manifested itself in reading of other kinds such as movies, tv, the stars or maps; however, I have found myself engaging in digital text more, when I look out the window at the world outside and wondering what the leaves and bark of trees can tell me, what the deer is trying to say to me when it stares at me. These realizations have made me understand that reading IS more than engaging with a book, reading is fully participating in life and engaging in the environment around you. I have no qualms about reading a book on my computer, nor did I find it any different than reading a book in paper copy – unlike some who have expressed their dislike of ebooks because they lose the feel of the book. Maguel hit on what the internet has allowed books to become for digital natives though and that is something that they can take and poses and make their own – for better of worst. This is nothing new, and for centuries readers have been doing this, ‘in the early Middle Ages, scribes would supposedly ‘correct’ errors they might perceive in the text they were copying, thereby producing a ‘better’ text” (Manguel 1996, p 15). Just like those ancient scribes, digital readers like to take and make things their own and improve upon what others have done, digital books and text has allowed this to become a wide spread reality.

Birkerts, S. (1994). The Gutenberg elegies. New York, NY: Routledge.

Manguel, A. (1996). A history of reading. Toronto, ON: Vintage Canada.