In my own commonplace notebook (from which I am extracting for these posts), I came across something I wrote after I finished Frankenstein for the third or fourth time:
Finishing a book is like reaching a destination to which you didn't want to go--it was all about the journey, but you let it pass you by, and now it's over, and what have you got to show for it? It's silly to cry for the death of a fictional world you didn't know you were a part of until you weren't anymore. If only you had enjoyed what was happening when it was happening...
This really feels applicable to the last short paper on "media, technology, and the way you read." In my paper, I adamantly express the preference of a paperback book over an e-reader. This sentiment, paired with the above excerpt after finishing the novel, brought me back to the days leading up to my finishing of the book.
I read the same ragged copy I've always had on a bus to New York to visit my sister. I read it on the lawn in Bryant Park, in Central Park, in her apartment in the East Village, on the subway, by the Hudson River in Chelsea, in Rockefeller Plaza, and finished it on the bus back home. Would any of that have been possible with an e-reader? More importantly, would it have been the same?
And what have I got to show for it?
Certainly not a digital screen--rather, the same ragged copy resting comfortably on my bookshelf, waiting to be picked up again, one day.
No comments:
Post a Comment