Lost In Time

In many cases, the use of e-readers can be seen as an honor. When society has chosen to preserve a work by putting it in various mediums – hard copies, .doc files, .pdf files, online data-bases – it has made an assertion that that work is valuable. To publish a work in different mediums is like providing insurance that the provided work will never be lost or destroyed. If books are burned, there will be digital files; if digital files are obliterated, there will be books. Such insurance clearly shows that a society wants to keep a work alive for future generations, and in keeping a work alive, the substance of the work will remain the same.

The real value of a work is in its idea. Anyone can write, but it takes a literary artist to come up with a narrative and frame it in such a way that is appealing to an audience; the artist gives a work its integrity. Consequently, a society who so wants to preserve a work by converting it into different mediums will not change the substance of a work, and the integrity of the work will remain the same. The writing itself will not lose its appeal so long as the audience is drawn into the art, the substance, and the idea of the literary work.

Now, is there an aesthetic appeal to hard copies that is lacking in an e-reader? Is there an aesthetic appeal to e-readers that is lacking in hard copies? The answer is yes. If you ask anyone on either side of the issue, they will of course try to protect their own position. For some, there is something very special about holding a book, physically turning its pages, seeing how the pages thicken as chapters upon chapters are completed, and closing the cover as the narrative wraps up. For others, there is something wonderfully economical about having an entire library of knowledge, history, narratives, and adventures held in the confines of a light-weight tablet no larger than a sheet of paper. However, regardless of aesthetic appeal, thoughts are thoughts; a story is a story; words are words.