A well-meaning rant of dead-tree fetishism starts off well, dive bombs into personal attacks, and pulls up on the back-side of surreal

BLOT: (27 Mar 2013 - 02:44:33 AM)

A well-meaning rant of dead-tree fetishism starts off well, dive bombs into personal attacks, and pulls up on the back-side of surreal

To a degree, I was behind Zoë Triska's now-nearly-a-year-old dead-tree fetishistic rant (which I only read tonight, by way of a Twitter link to it), What NOT to do with Books, even though Triska spends half an article ad'ing all the hominems before diving headfirst into points so well-intentioned—points about leaving books around like litter and how those of us who "get free books, buy on ereaders, have disposable income" don't understand how overpriced books are contributing to the illiteracy problem—they become shiny mean-nothings. I can honestly say I rarely support cheap Martha Stewart-esque crafts at the cost of destroying books. Then it cuts to the the video about which all the fuss is being made, and the surreality bomb explodes into billions of fragments like confused confetti at a funeral march:

Those books—that unfortunate series that does include, as it were, events—ended up, by the crate, in overstock bookstores because they were overproduced in 2004-2005 to capitalize on the Harry Potter craze by filling all the endcaps around Christmas time with huge displays of them, possibly because the publishers misjudged how big the Young Adult explosion would be and so they figured it was best to strike when the iron was hot. They are effectively cheap paperbacks published with a faux hardcover, bad glue binding, and an unnecessary deckled edge. They open poorly and pull at the their pages with any but the most courteous readings. Those books will only gain value when people do manage to destroy a quantity of them. Currently, there isn't a single book in the series that can't be gotten for $.01, used, on Amazon. According to Worldcat, the first book (alone) is in 3508 libraries that report to Worldcat. Our local library has 11 copies of the first book, 2 copies of the first book on tape, and 4 of the first book on CD. I'm not saying that's ok to destroy all copies of the book, I'm just saying that it's ok if some Nora Roberts or James Patterson paperbacks get used to prop up a table.

Let's look at a small selection of comments, why don't we?

Enough of a rant. Just to enforce plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, I'm going to end with a quote from The Great Gatsby, a book anyone can read for free on any computer or mobile device (assuming, of course, they are in a country with reasonable copyright laws, and if not, it is in over 5500 libraries worldwide):

A stout, middle-aged man, with enormous owl-eyed spectacles, was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge of a great table, staring with unsteady concentration at the shelves of books. As we entered he wheeled excitedly around and examined Jordan from head to foot.

"What do you think?" he demanded impetuously.

"About what?" He waved his hand toward the book-shelves.

"About that. As a matter of fact you needn't bother to ascertain. I ascertained. They're real."

"The books?"

He nodded.

"Absolutely real—have pages and everything. I thought they'd be a nice durable cardboard. Matter of fact, they're absolutely real. Pages and—Here! Lemme show you."

Taking our scepticism for granted, he rushed to the bookcases and returned with Volume One of the Stoddard Lectures.

"See!" he cried triumphantly. "It's a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella's a regular Belasco. It's a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, too—didn't cut the pages..."

Books

OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: March 2013

A well-meaning rant of dead-tree fetishism starts off well, dive bombs into personal attacks, and pulls up on the back-side of surreal