I keep bumping into the topic of electonic books over and over in the past month. Not long ago I had a very thorough argument with my mother on wether books will ever be substituted by computers or e-books. She, hopeful as she always is, believed that books would never ever become a “thing” of the past. But I, with great pain, must disagree.
For some reason people are very lazy when comes to reading anything, but specially books. How many times have I heard fellow students and friends say: How can you reed that? it is so long!. But they don´t understand that length has no relevance when comes to novels. They seem to look at it as a race, and the shorter the race, the better.
But, where is the hurry? Personally, when I´m enjoying a novel, I want it to last forever and have to restrain myself from devaouring it all in one day. There is nothing like getting into bed, with nothing to do, and peeking into other people´s lifes: I have suffered with Anna Karennina´s jelousy and with Raskolnikov´s torment; I laughed with Death and the MacFeegles in every Terry Pratchett Discworld novel; I cried when Aslan died and when Elizabeth finally had her happy ever after with Darcy. All of those moments are part of my life as much as my own experiences, thanks to them I have come to understand aspects of humanity I never thought I could.
So when I see people staring at me like I am some madperson because I carry arround Les Miserables with me, I can only sigh and feel sorry for them, because they will never understand, they are handycapped. My therapist says that life and emotions ARE literature, an if they cannot understand literature…then they are missing something
The reason for this aversion to written humanity may reside in the family or education… Personally I blame the deadlines and compulsory essays in school, but it is too complicated and extense for me to go into.
Going back to the origin of this article I have to say, with all the pain of my heart that, eventually, books will belong in a closed library where only the elite will have acess to them. People will read from screens and little electronic gadgets resembling books, and me, and people like me, will never feel the texture of the pages or smell that special scent that the old books come.
