As I write this blog post I’m 70 pages into Dan Simmons’ epic novel Drood and enjoying it immensely. But I have a confession to make. I read the first 52 pages on my iPad… and I liked it!
I have long been dismissive of e-books, even to the point of writing an article back in 2008 about why they were irrelevant. My argument – which I still think has some validity – is that it’s very hard to improve on a book, especially a paperback. A book looks good, it smells good, it feels good. It works in almost any light, it never runs out of battery, if you drop it on a hard surface it won’t get damaged. And when I'm done with it, I add it to my bookshelves and it becomes part of my identity.
But then the other day, something unexpected happened.
I had come across Drood while rambling about on Goodreads and I added it to my ‘want to read’ list. Then, while at the airport waiting to board a flight, I was surfing the net on my iPad when I remembered Drood. I decided to try and find an excerpt to see if the novel was worth buying.
I found an excerpt all right – 52 pages of it, free to download. Which I promptly did. I then whiled away the two hours to Hamilton Island and back reading Drood on my iPad.
Digital reading did have its limitations. The size of the iPad was a bit annoying in the confined space of my economy seat and the reflective screen wasn’t ideal when the sun shined through the plane window. But I loved the large text, and once I got underway, I forgot I wasn’t reading a traditional book.
I ended up buying a hard copy anyway, of course. I began reading Drood again last night and… it hurts me to write this… the paperback is in some ways inferior to the e-book.
It is difficult to read one handed, as you might do while eating a sandwich or standing on a train, because Drood is a whopper of a novel. Also, the text is small – much worse for the eyes than looking at the iPad’s high-definition screen.
For someone who welcomes most new technologies with open arms, I am wary of the digital world as it applies to creative endeavours. I owned an iPod for years before I decided to download my first album instead of buying a CD. My CD towers, like my bookshelves, defined who I was. But I got over that. My last CD purchase was Unto the Locust (2011) by Machine Head.
Will I make a similar transition to e-books now? I’m not sure. I still believe printed books have value as objects and historical artefacts. If some despot ‘switches off’ the internet one day, books will be the only reliable backup of humanity’s collective memory.
