Ebooks are changing the way we read, and the way novelists write

[Dave Monroe]

... I'd just end up filing my shelves w/ e-readers, so ...

On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 8:19 AM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe it's a both-and.
>
> I like my little e-reader (perhaps because it was given to me as a
> present). I don't read much on it, but I have lots of free book
> previews and long articles I've downloaded that I finally get to read
> when I have a break out of town. But I also like the dog-ears and
> weird notes I've left in old books I pull down from the shelves on
> occasion. How good is it to wonder why the hell you cared to fold the
> corner of a particular page ten or twenny years ago!? I am left agog
> at who I once was.
>
> On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 10:54 PM, Dave Monroe
> <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
>> ... also, http://www.theonion.com/article/man-reading-pynchon-on-bus-takes-pains-to-make-cov-3192
>> ...
>>
>> Books, comic book t-shirts + vintage airline flight bags are my only
>> fashion accessories ...
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 7:53 AM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I can't keep my coupons, receipts, bus schedules, lottery tickets,
>>> postage stamps, business cards, take-out menus, postcards, newspaper
>>> clippings, u.s.w., et soforthiam in an e-reader ...
>>>
>>> On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 7:42 AM, Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I love my kindle fire. If anything, I read more. If I hear an interview with
>>>> an author, or read a review in the Sunday paper, I can quickly download a
>>>> sample to see if it is something I want to read all of. The same goes for
>>>> recommendations from friends (or the P-list).
>>>>
>>>> I like having the built in dictionary. I can click on a word and get the
>>>> definition, or go further to wikipedia or web search. It increases the depth
>>>> of my reading. I have no trouble becoming immersed. My wife calls it "the
>>>> Black Hole". Since I usually keep a dictionary or three handy when reading
>>>> anything demanding, it's not much different. Just easier.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 7:37 AM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Ebooks are changing the way we read, and the way novelists write
>>>>> Paul Mason
>>>>> Monday 10 August 2015 06.35 EDT
>>>>>
>>>>> Our attention spans have shortened, we’re distracted, and authors have
>>>>> changed their style to suit, but these changes are part of the wider
>>>>> digital transformationI
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> If you hand me the original paperback edition of Thomas Pynchon’s
>>>>> Gravity’s Rainbow I can, quickly and without too much scrabbling, find
>>>>> you the page where the hero loses the girl. My disappointment on his
>>>>> behalf has lingered physically on that page for the past 20 years....
>>>>>
>>>>> [...]
>>>>>
>>>>> Yet with the coming of ebooks, the world of the physical book, read so
>>>>> many times that your imagination can “inhabit” individual pages, is
>>>>> dying. I’m not the only person in my circle who has stopped buying new
>>>>> books in anything other than digital form, and even the cherished
>>>>> books described above are now re-read, when I need to, on Kindle.
>>>>>
>>>>> But what is the ebook doing to the way we read? And how, in turn, are
>>>>> the changes in the way millions of us read going to affect the way
>>>>> novelists write? This is not just a question for academics; you only
>>>>> have to look at people on a beach this summer to see how influential
>>>>> fiction remains, and how, if its narratives were to change radically,
>>>>> our self-conception might also change.
>>>>>
>>>>> In Words Onscreen, published this year, the American linguist Naomi
>>>>> Baron surveyed the change in reading patterns that digital publishing
>>>>> has wrought. Where the impact can be measured, it consists primarily
>>>>> of a propensity to summarise. We read webpages in an “F” pattern: the
>>>>> top line, scroll down a bit, have another read, scroll down. Academics
>>>>> have reacted to the increased volume of digitally published papers by
>>>>> skim-reading them. As for books, both anecdotal and survey evidence
>>>>> suggests that English literature students are skim-reading set works
>>>>> by default.
>>>>>
>>>>> The attention span has shortened not just because ebooks consist of a
>>>>> continuous, searchable digital text, but because they are being read
>>>>> on devices we use for other things....
>>>>>
>>>>> [...]
>>>>>
>>>>> In turn, in so far as form and business models has reacted to such
>>>>> behaviour, fiction has become shorter....
>>>>>
>>>>> [...]
>>>>>
>>>>> What I think the literary academics are worried about is the loss of
>>>>> immersiveness. If I list the books I would save from a burning house –
>>>>> or an exploding Kindle – they all create worlds in which one can
>>>>> become immersed: Pynchon, Grossmann, Marquez, Lawrence Durrell in the
>>>>> Alexandria Quartet, Peter Carey in almost everything.
>>>>>
>>>>> [...]
>>>>>
>>>>> It’s probably too soon to generalise but my guess is, if you scooped
>>>>> up every book – digital and analogue – being read on a typical
>>>>> Mediterranean beach, and cut out the absolute crap, you’d be left with
>>>>> three kinds of writing: first, “literary” novels with clearer plots
>>>>> and than their 20th century predecessors, less complex prose, fewer
>>>>> experiments with fragmented perception; second, popular novels with a
>>>>> high degree of writerly craft (making the edges of the first two
>>>>> categories hard to define); third, literary writing about reality –
>>>>> the confessional autobiography, the diary of a journalist, highly
>>>>> embroidered reportage about a legendary event.
>>>>>
>>>>> Somewhere among them is probably a novel that will impact as indelibly
>>>>> on the teenager reading it as Pynchon and Grossman impacted on me. But
>>>>> here’s the difference.
>>>>>
>>>>> I remember reading novels because the life within them was more
>>>>> exciting, the characters more attractive, the freedom more
>>>>> exhilarating than anything in the reality around me, which seemed
>>>>> stultifying, parochial and enclosed.
>>>>>
>>>>> To a kid reading Pynchon on a Galaxy 6 this summer, it has to compete
>>>>> with Snapchat and Tinder, plus movies, games and music. Sure, that kid
>>>>> can no longer see what other people are reading on the beach – whether
>>>>> its Proust or 50 Shades – but they can see in great detail what people
>>>>> in their social network are recommending. Life itself has become more
>>>>> immersive. That’s what writers are really up against.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/10/ebooks-are-changing-the-way-we-read-and-the-way-novelists-write
>>>>>
>>>>> Words Onscreen
>>>>> The Fate of Reading in a Digital World
>>>>> Naomi S. Baron
>>>>>
>>>>> http://global.oup.com/academic/product/words-onscreen-9780199315765
>>>>> -
>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>>
>>>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l