Eleven months and a half months ago, Peter Pan gave me a Kindle. A device I feared and loathed and have only recently come to accept as a suitable conduit for the written word.
I am still wary. It sits before me in its black leather case, looking smug—and so . . . digital.
Flip side: it carries within the power of the pdf. It can bring me The New Yorker and the New York Times on the subway, so that I may stand a snowball's chance of reading either periodical between dances—and quarter life crises.
I tell myself: no real books. Proper literature must be held between the hands, the pages felt beneath the fingers as we lose ourselves in turning them. There must be one thing left sacred. Then again, is it only a matter of time? Methinks I doth protest in vain. I have skied up the hill of my own stubbornness to find my foothold slipping.
I mean, come on people. I blog (though I shudder at the verb). I spend untold hours sifting through detritus on Facebook when I ought to be nose deep in Faulker. I've even sunk so low as to tweet (again, with the shudder).
Is it the turtle shell convenience of it all? If I thought for a moment the purity of the device's intention was to lighten the bookbag load, I might more easily forgive myself, but the intention was to sell ice trays to Eskimos . . .
By which I mean: Thank you, Peter, for this new frontier.
I am still wary. It sits before me in its black leather case, looking smug—and so . . . digital.
Flip side: it carries within the power of the pdf. It can bring me The New Yorker and the New York Times on the subway, so that I may stand a snowball's chance of reading either periodical between dances—and quarter life crises.
I tell myself: no real books. Proper literature must be held between the hands, the pages felt beneath the fingers as we lose ourselves in turning them. There must be one thing left sacred. Then again, is it only a matter of time? Methinks I doth protest in vain. I have skied up the hill of my own stubbornness to find my foothold slipping.
I mean, come on people. I blog (though I shudder at the verb). I spend untold hours sifting through detritus on Facebook when I ought to be nose deep in Faulker. I've even sunk so low as to tweet (again, with the shudder).
Is it the turtle shell convenience of it all? If I thought for a moment the purity of the device's intention was to lighten the bookbag load, I might more easily forgive myself, but the intention was to sell ice trays to Eskimos . . .
By which I mean: Thank you, Peter, for this new frontier.
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3 comments:
I'm with you, there is nothing like the feel of a real book.
However, I like the idea of having my favorite books (I'm a big re-reader) at my finger tips. I just can't decide yet.
hey if it works for you.
i break all that crap, and miss opportunities and friendships and dates and things because i am loathe to get near my BugBug let alone open up a browser... (bugbug would be the laptop, because... it has a lot of bugs.)
and the stuff is expensive. if i got one as a present i'd be ALLLLL about it.
enjoy!
I stayed away as long as I could, then my guy got us a Kindle to share. Here's the thing:
It's okay to have a Kindle because it doesn't make you stop buying real, physical books. I just treat it like it's two separate beasts, because it is. I still buy books. And I still download other books.
The Kindle also lets you travel with tons of books at a time, and that's kinda cool. :)
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