One of my favorite things to do is wander around used bookstores, filtering through the collections that have their own mysterious stories to tell. In the age of electronic literature, I’m beginning to feel as outdated as some of the centuries old memoirs in these shops. Students on campus purchase ebooks and ‘vooks,’ and yet I sense that all this new technology looses something in translation–or rather digitization. I love the smell of an old book, the way the corners of the pages crinkle, the feel of its weight in my hand. But paramount, it’s these tangible books that turn authors into old friends in a way I just cannot imagine an online text could. My oldest and dearest such friend is Kurt Vonnegut Jr. You probably know him too.
Now I only allow myself one of his stories a year. I will be terribly disappointed when I’ve read every one and will probably begin again when the time comes. He weaves a special magic between an otherwise ordinary jacket using simple words to convey something profound. He turns ideas over and creates characters that are both ordinary and extraordinary. Put simply, my love of Vonnegut will endure as long as I do. So it goes.
Together, we shared the past weekend on Cold Mountain (yes, there is such a place). It was my first time away from work in I don’t know how long. Under the October sky, he told me the story of Howard W. Campbell Jr. in Mother Night. There is perhaps no greater pleasure in the world than getting lost in the pages of a good book. Real pages. The kind that turn and bend, fold and tear. Those that envelop you into the story. I hope such books persist. For as long as they survive, the old friends who composed them live on as well.
October 19th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Yep.
October 19th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
There’s nothing like a good book to transport you into a different reality for a time.
October 19th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Agreed, though my favorite book of his was – and remains – “Slaughterhouse Five”. Have been utterly perplexed why he refused, even as he was dying, to admit that he had begun his career as a science fiction writer and, even as a celebrated “mainstream” writer, continued to write science fiction. His widow Jill Krementz is a noted NYC-based photographer who specializes in photographing writers. Still have somewhere an autographed calendar of writers containing her photographs with signatures from her, Vonnegut and Frank McCourt.
October 19th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
I feel the exact same way (about books, I’ve only recently been introduced to Kurt Vonnegut). There’s something special about reading other people’s names scrawled across the front pages of a book, or seeing the tear stains in a particularly well-written section of a story. It’s a further connection to fellow readers, and more than that, there’s never any chance of a battery dying or power outage to stop you from getting to the end
October 19th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Nothing like a real book to hold in your hand. My private library has about 5000 of them (5138 at the last count), so I can completely understand how you feel.
October 19th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
I may be wrong, but there is something else about the tangible book that is different, namely it’s “convenience.” It can be taken with you without much effort. It does not require a power source which might not be available for various reasons. You can hand it to someone else. You can more conveniently glimpse a page or two, put it down, glimpse another page or two, put it down, and on and on. It can be passed on to your kids. Its cover can be artistic and attractive in and of itself.
October 19th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
I had not heard of “vooks”, but I really cannot imagine “reading” one. I want the images in my head while reading a book to be mine. I cannot stand it when a movie or image infiltrates (and contaminates) MY image of the characters and places in a good book. Also, I am happy (and comforted, frankly) with a pile of books by my bed and therefore am not interested in a Kindle or the like. Ditto (strongly) on the Vonnegut and the used book stores.
October 19th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Got to say, if you can get a searchable copy on your computer it makes research a lot faster.
I’ve got such bad cataracts that I’ve got to use very large magnification to read a book. For that computers are good.
October 19th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Don’t worry, you can always re-read Vonnegut (I do). You are right that nothing will ever replace the sensual pleasure of a book (for me, anyway). However, I do own a Kindle and find it very useful — especially for traveling or urgent literary needs. We have so many thousands of books that looking for a single volume can consume an entire day — a day which would have been better spent reading the book. There simply is no greater pleasure than reading a book.
October 20th, 2009 at 3:23 am
Sorry, but I prefer electronic literature. I hate folding/unfolding newspapers to the right article. With regard to books, a hard copy has a big disadvantage: if you want to know more information or the definition of a word, you also have to carry with you a dictionary or two. Right now, I’m reading “On the Origin of Species” for the first time and it helps that I’m reading it as a PDF for the above mentioned reasons.
October 21st, 2009 at 7:42 am
It was 40 years ago last month that I landed in Vietnam to spend a year thinking about why I and my country were there. Having accidentally and fortunately landed a job in the offices (S1) of 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment (I was actually trained to be in the infantry) I discovered early on the boxes of books sent from the US as reading material for members of my unit. Miraculously, this is where I was first introduced to Kurt Vonnegut and his novels such as Cat’s Cradle, Player Piano, The Sirens of Titans, and Mother Night. Since then, Slaughterhouse Five has become one of my all time favorite anti-war novels. Within the past five years I have re-read both Slaughterhouse Five and Mother Night, and have concluded that Kurt Vonnegut retains a special place in my heart and mind, and has played an important role in helping a young scared private in the US Army to formulate a strong humanistic anti-war world view. May he rest in peace.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:21 am
I had the pleasure of hearing Kurt Vonnegut Jr. lecture about his career in November of 1992 at LSU where I was beginning my graduate work. He was as fascinating to listen to as he was to read. For a southern curmudgeon, he did alright.
As to books, papers, and the written word – my dad is a latin american history professor, who has done nearly all of his academic research in the archival collections in Spain. I remeber well, as a boy, going to the AGI in Seville, and being escorted by my dad back into the stacks. There, in book cases older then the U.S. were all the documents that the Spanish had saved from their attempts to conquor the “New World.” All were hand written, amy were fraglie, and while i could not touch them, the history was seeping out none the less. While warehousing all the paper we produce is a mighty logistical challenge, those pages spoke to me. I only hope that in the furture my great grandchildren can have the same pleasure with words I have written. If its all digital, I fear they will not.
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:47 am
Vonnegut is excellent for his re-readability. Love Cat’s Cradle, Galapagos, and Slaughter-House Five, and many others are also fantastic!
Kudos on both good taste and enjoying some of the best books out there.