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

[John Bailey]

When you gaze too long into an e-reader the e-reader gazes also gazes into you.

(see also: books)

On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 11:21 PM, Dave Monroe
<against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
> ... 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