There's perhaps no more everyday physical struggle tedium that the 21st century Westerner has to go through than the house move. All of ones wealth and possessions moving from one physical location to the next. Having just finished post-grad wok i had somewhere in the vicinity of 30 boxes of books. Not 30 boxes of paperbacks, but 30 boxes (50 lbs or more each) of dense reads.
Several people cheekily suggested that all of these books would easily fit on a Kindle. It would be the same thing only lighter.
My first thought was of the great Star Trek episode when Cpt. Kirk was on trial and was defended by the eccentric Samuel T. Cogley:
My second thought was, "Really? Is it really the SAME thing?"
Now, although passionate (as one would expect from an eccentric Romantic), Cogley doesn't give the most clear defense of why physical books matter, but he does gives clues:
This is where the law is. Not in that homogenized, pasteurized, synthesized...
Homogenization is the process of making a mixture the same throughout at high pressure. Think the mixture of syrup and carbonated water to make soda. It's the process of making things the same.
Pasteurization, of corse, is the super heating then cooling of food to keep it from spoiling quickly. Yes, computers keep books from decay (though this itself is an illusion). But we also now acknowledge that there is something lost in pasteurization. Beneficialy enzymes and microbes. Raw milk and pasteurized milk are not the same thing.
This leads to the other clue, Cogley's concern that it is also synthesized ... synthetic. It is a new compound and different from the 'original'.
But then Cogley goes on what seem to be a non sequitur:
Do you want to know the law? The ancient concepts in their own language? Learn the intent of the men who wrote them? From Moses to the tribunal on Alpha III? Books.
This begs the questions: Why wouldn't you be able to do this with a computer? What does this have to do with the medium in which the artifact is presented? The key seems to be in a relationship between imaginative mediation of the artifact and use. Or more specifically, the way in which mediation has an affect on physical use as it makes the artifact known to us.
It's like the difference between a hot succulent fillet mignon and a freeze dried, or even space food steak. There is something ceremonial about the aesthetic details and the sheer physicality of the fillet that demands a different form of attention from our bodies. The space food is a tool in service of time that could just as well be a flavored pill. it presences the molecules in a reductionistict format so it can be more efficiently consumed. In fact, this is what Cogley says (although he is directly refering to the pressing matter of Kirk's court-martial, we can still apply the point):
If time wasn't so important I'd show you something. My library! Thousands of them.
In many ways this approximation of physicality reminds me of David Cronenberg's The Fly (1986). On the verge of unlocking the secrets of teleportation, Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) runs a final experiment:
Seth Brundle: [Seth and Ronnie try an experiment late at night. Seth takes a steak and cuts it in half. He cooks one half, and the other half is teleported then cooked. He hands one plate to Ronnie and cuts her a piece] Okay. Eat this, and I need an objective opinion.
Seth Brundle: [Ronnie chews it and looks at Seth confused as to what he is doing] Yeah?
Ronnie: Well, it could use some finesse, but um... it tastes like a steak.
Seth Brundle: Mmm-hmm.
[Cuts some steak]
Seth Brundle: Now, I want you to try this... teleported half.
Ronnie: Oh, are you serious? A monkey just came apart in there.
Seth Brundle: Baboon... Eat.
Ronnie: [Ronnie eats it] Oh... Oh, oh, tastes funny.
[Spits it in a napkin]
Seth Brundle: Funny? How?
Ronnie: It tastes um... synthetic.
Seth Brundle: [Seth smiles and takes the napkin] Mmm-hmm.
Ronnie: [smiles with intrigue] So, what have we proved?
Seth Brundle: The computer is giving us its interpretation... of a steak. It's, uh translating it for us; it's rethinking it, rather than *reproducing* it, and something is getting lost in the translation.
Ronnie: Me... I'm lost.
Seth Brundle: The flesh. It should make the computer, uh crazy. Like those old ladies pinching babies. But it doesn't; not yet because I haven't taught the computer to be made crazy by the...
[smiles at Ronnie]
Seth Brundle: flesh. The poetry of the steak. So, I'm gonna start teaching it now.
Of course, one of the dreams of technology is in unlocking the "poetry" of physicality. In our own time think of the endless quest for artificial intelligence and the fascination with Human +. But the cost seems to be that we are required to give up, or limit, the depths of what makes us human in order to reach that goal. Technology demands this abdication. Tools are not benign, they change us.
Returning to Samuel T. Cogley, then, we can say that there is a physicality to reading that goes far beyond the inputting of data into a machine. The ancient Christian monks used to read out-loud because they would hear with their eyes and read with their ears. Every person of substance that I know vociferously marks and makes annotations on any text they read.This only further enhances the physical interaction and hermeneutical interaction of the reader and writer of the text. These books aren't just oversized data disks, they are worlds that demand exploration; they are angels that bid us to wrestle with through the night. And maybe this is what Samuel T. Cogley was trying to say?
This, of course, posses particularly interesting possibilities and problems when we consider (the physicality of) cinema and the 'virtual' in the 21st century ...
Hey Reno, I finally managed to see a screening of 'The Tree of Life' today in Glasgow. What an incredible film, like nothing I've seen before and such a joy to see too. I'm sure you're very happy to have been involved ...
I had a look on your fb page incase there was anything pertaining to the film and then stumbled upon the blog, and now I feel compelled to leave a comment about the 'physicality of books':
I've recently taken up the Trombone and for the first time I'm playing from sheet music. Now to me music is a very different thing from its notation, as any musician would tell you, and music is ultimately what the notation is there to point towards. The analogy with words and their meaning seems obvious to me, if the meaning is the important thing, then should this not be what we are concerned with?
Now books can be very artfully rendered, like musical notation, and these are artworks in their own right. But I think it ought to be admitted that this 'physicality' has no bearing on the meaning which is inherent in the characters or notes that are contained within the work. So, in short, 'physicality' and 'meaning' are both important, but two distinct things and some would argue that one is more important than the other. That's all I'm saying!
Hope you and the family are well,
- Joe Stearn (ex Taste employee)
Posted by: Joe Stearn | July 19, 2011 at 01:27 PM