Today’s newspapers reported some recent comments made by author Jonathan Franzen about digital books at a literary festival in the US. Now Franzen is generally thought to walk on water by the literary establishment and not without reason. “The Corrections” was an amazing book although I have yet to read his latest book “Freedom”. Having read his most recent comments I felt the urge to blog a response, because quite frankly I think Jonathan Franzen is wrong about eBooks.
Says Franzen:
“I think, for serious readers, a sense of permanence has always been part of the experience. Everything else in your life is fluid, but here is this text that doesn’t change”
Already I am on the offensive against the use of the term “serious reader” which quite frankly makes him sound like an elitist snob. Franzen’s own novels of enormous import are available as eBook editions. Does this mean that if I read it on my Kindle that I am somehow a less “serious” reader than someone reading that same book in print?
But then Franzen goes on to paint an apocalyptic vision of a world of digital literature
“I fear it’s going to be very hard to make the world work if there’s no permanence like that. That kind of radical contingency is not compatible with a system of justice or responsible self government.”
All this because of eBooks? Really?
What is this “permanency” that Franzen thinks is missing? Perhaps he is thinking of the first Kindles which infamously had a pre-loaded George Orwell novel remotely deleted due to copyright issues. The classic argument that a paper book is a thing that lasts is an old one, wheeled out by many digital-phobes. But centuries of bigotted book burners have shown that paper is not indestructible. It burns, it rots and it fades away. Anybody who works in a publishing house knows that modern day manuscripts aren’t stored on paper. They are stored digitally.
Franzen seems to suggest that the digital format means that the text is in current flux. He asks whether F.Scott Fitzgerald has ever needed updating. The answer is of course no. And of course “The Great Gatsby” Kindle edition is exactly the same text as the Penguin Classic paper edition. The idea that somehow digital editions will mean that our classics are changed or lost to us, is just ignorant.
I am reminded that a mistake with the typesetting of “Freedom” lead Franzen’s publishers to recall over eight thousand paper copies of the book. What a waste. The eBook was corrected instantly.
Franzen’s ramblings are sentimentally driven and insensible. He sounds like the droves of people bleating about the “smell” of books, the “feel of a book in your hand” and the supposed emotional detachment of reading from a screen rather than a page. It’s the inevitable push against change and the human urge to preserve the status quo.
It’s fine if Franzen doesn’t like eBooks. It’s fine if he prefers printed books. But rather than just admit this he tried to dress up his prejudice in something that sounds like a reasoned argument but is, in essence just his own personal views.
I love printed books too, and the idea of a world without them makes me sad. However, the fact is that the world is changing and eBooks are here to stay. People who read them can be “serious readers”. Ebooks will not cause the breakdown of society or the breakdown of literature and art. There is really no need to be afraid.
Happy reading, whatever format you choose.
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Thanks for your comments! Mrs Gold