I’ve been reading Kin by Kealan Patrick Burke for the better part of a year and I’m only halfway through it. It’s no War and Peace or David Copperfield, so I should have knocked it off in a few weeks. Why haven’t I? Well, there are many reasons, but chief among them is the digital revolution.
For years I resisted e-books and digital downloads because they seemed antithetical to two things dear to my heart: printed books and DVDs. Cost and convenience eventually won me over, however, and thanks to iTunes and Netflix I haven’t bought a DVD in years.
I initially felt the same way about e-books. I loved how I could browse from my lounge chair, download a sample of a book before purchase, and avoid the loony prices Australian bookstores charge (my well-worn hardback of Stephen King’s On Writing cost $45 in 1999 – approaching a tenth of my weekly wage back then). But while I was making another pitiful attempt to get through Mr Burke’s perfectly good horror novel, I realised I was longing to hold a paperback in my hands. It makes no logical sense, yet there it is. To take Green Day completely out of context, I guess masturbation’s lost its thrill.
Which brings us to the other problem, Netflix. You know that episode of Family Guy where Quagmire discovers internet porn? That’s how I feel about my Netflix subscription. For diddly squat per month I can choose from an apparently endless universe of good quality TV shows, movies and documentaries. When I’m exhausted from work and getting two kids to bed, the choice between reading and watching an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise (which I never caught the first time around) is really no choice at all.
The reader and writer in me hates it, sees it as an unhealthy addiction, but goddamn if the TV and film buff in me isn’t sowing his oats.