I recently had lunch with two
fellow Filipino writers - memoirist Carissa Villacorta and boxing journalist
Ryan Songalia. Ryan wrote a feature about my book, Back Kicks And Broken
Promises, that came out in several Filipino
and Filipino-American print and online publications and he is a former student
of mine. Carissa is the author of Surreality, her memoir of her first years in New York City. We
met in Chinatown, at my usual spot on Mott Street, and caught up on what’s gone
in our lives since I taught Ryan in the late 1990s. As we enjoyed our dim sum,
we also talked about writing, my book’s publication and the promotional work
I’m doing for it, other Filipino-American authors and the decline of print
publications and their quality - surely you’ve noticed how newspapers are
thinner, with less pages, and how some newspapers are made on thinner paper
with poorer quality ink.
Also at our lunch were my wife
and son and our friend, Ani, who is a fellow martial artist and who has been a
wonderful supporter of my book. She had a paperback copy with her, which
Carissa got to peruse for the first time. About a month or so ago, I’d sent
Carissa a copy of my book to her in The Philippines but it hadn’t arrived by
the time she and Ryan had come back to New York for holiday. Taking a stab at
the Philippine Postal Service, which over the years has been notorious for slow
delivery (I once got a birthday card from my father, that arrived on my
birthday, but a year late), Ryan joked that there’s someone in a post office
somewhere in Makati who’s reading my book. To that, I commented that I hope he
or she is, at least, enjoying it.
Anyway, when Carissa flipped
through the pages of Ani’s copy of my book, she made a comment that struck me
as very odd but was also horribly revelatory. She said that holding my book -
again, a print version - was the first time in months she had held an actual
book and turned its pages. With the growth of ereaders, all her recent reading
has been done electronically. Like I said, I was stunned. Ryan and I both
expressed how we prefer the print version of books for a variety of reasons. My
wife enjoys the print but she is very much into reading on her iPad. Ani likes
print too but she enjoys the convenience of ereading.
As part of the discussion, I offered
this: should the pages of an ebook be called ‘pages?’ I suggested, partly in
jest, that they be called ‘flicks’ or ‘swipes’ because that’s what we do with
our fingers across the screen (yes, I own a Nook and read books on it that only
come out in ebook format) when we move forward in our ebooks. Also, in print
books, pages are turned and the reader moves on to the next one. 112 is
followed by 113, 113 precedes 114 and so on. On my Nook, I am currently reading
a novel by a fellow indie author, The Forever Girl, by Rebecca Hamilton, that is only available in
ebook format. However, with Rebecca’s book, it’s two flicks for every page.
Perhaps this is a technical glitch but hers isn’t the only ebook that does that
on my Nook. The Kindle app on my iPhone refers to pages as ‘location’ and with
every tap or flick a page jumps 5 (sometimes more) locations. (Rebecca’s book
is quite good and if you enjoy paranormal-romance-drama with a little action
you’ll enjoy The Forever Girl.)
There are benefits to ereaders.
They help environmentally. Less paper books means less trees being cut down.
They also allow us carry more books without the weight bearing down on us,
which, believe it or not, can cause joint and back problems. This, though, is
probably more a concern with students who carry book bags with countless
hardcover textbooks to and from school everyday. With the emergence of
etextbooks, this will be alleviated somewhat and ereaders do allow notes to be
taken and sections to be highlighted. So, on some level, I am starting to
favour ebooks. In a previous post, I also cited how they’re very useful in
reading newspapers and magazines. I also read several books at a time so when I
travel, which isn’t that often anyway, I am able to bring all the books with me
if I have all of them on my Nook.
However, without turning actual
pages, smelling the paper and the ink and the glue, hearing the crack of the
spine the first time you open it, perusing the shelves of a bookstore,
dog-earing the corner of the page with your favourite passage on it that you’ve
underlined or highlighted with a pen you had to scramble for, ereaders don’t
offer a personal connection with a book. Books make us laugh and cry because of
the images the words make us conjure up in our own heads and the things we feel
in our hearts. All of the tactile contact with a book adds to that relationship
and the resulting emotions we feel. There’s something impersonal about the
electronic versions. I mean, in the 1977 movie Demon Seed, the electronic supercomputer Proteus became
obsessed with humanity that it wanted to have a child with its creator’s wife.
If that isn’t an indication of how impersonal electronic advancement is and how
desirable personal connection is, I don’t know what is.
I’m not a Luddite. In fact, I’m
quite technologically savvy and I like my gadgets and I do like the convenience
ebooks offer but when it comes to experiencing a book, in my opinion, the book has to be a print version. Back at my
lunch with Carissa and Ryan, I didn’t but I almost posed this as well: Based on
what I described above, should ebooks be called ‘books?’ I offer that they be
called ‘ereads.’ We can’t smell their ink and they don’t have a spine to crack
but we do read them.
I tried to write this post with a
little tongue in cheek. You decide if I’ve succeeded in doing so. I don’t
consider myself to be a naturally funny or humourous person, after all, so if
you think I’m bashing ereaders, let me reassure you that I’m not. They have
their place in our world and that place is here to stay. I was simply stunned
by what Carissa said about how my book was the first print book she’d held in
months. I was also hit with the reality that ereads (let’s see if I can start a
trend here) are more than a reality. They’re changing - they’ve changed - how
we enjoy our books. They’re part of our everyday lives and, before long,
they’ll be something we’re going to take for granted like we do with our mobile
phones.
Whatever way you like to read and
be moved, entertained and educated, just keep doing it. Turn your pages and
swipe your flicks. You’ll be better off for it.
