I'm sure we've all had the wonderful experience of having a vague concept of something suddenly solidified by the discovery that our language actually has a word for it. That is precisely what happened to me today when I encountered the word
bibliomysticism
on a linguistics blog that I frequent called The Language Log, where contributor Eric Bakovic defines it as "the belief that the printed-on-paper word is somehow endowed with power that cannot be replicated otherwise."
The primary context in which I have noticed this phenomenon is in hearing people talk about the Kindle (and ebooks in general). I'm a proud Kindle owner myself, but I've heard many people speculate that they might not like the Kindle because there's "just something" about the printed-on-paper book, some nearly mystical quality, that outweighs the plethora of advantages offered by e-readers, such as easy storage, not having to hold your page, and ridiculously fast access to books, to name a few.
Personally, I'm fine with some aspects of the bibliomystic mindset, as long as it is acknowledged that this "mystical" quality is primarily a type of nostalgia and has very little to do with anything inherent in the paper form itself.
3 comments:
The paper form does, in fact, allow other senses to be engaged than does the admittedly very useful e-book format. One cannot smell an e-book, nor is there the kinesthetic experience of turning pages. Also, until the ability to annotate electronic texts is improved, there is the inestimable benefit of marking up a text--something attested to at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/magazine/06Riff-t.html.
So while nostalgia does, in fact, play a role, as does a long-standing cultural standard which values the "permanent" printed word, there are things that can be had form paper that canot--at least as yet--be had from the Kindle or Nook.
Good point Geoff. I do acknowledge some advantages of paper books; however, I feel that these advantages are rather peripheral to the actual reading experience and that they do not warrant the active resistance to ebooks that I often see in the "bibliomystics".
I do not think it is quite so peripheral. Effective reading--by which I mean the understanding and interpretation of a text, as opposed to simply making the funny marks make the appropriate sounds in order--depends on context, of which a large part is memory. It is a commonplace that scent triggers memory, and if this is true, then the scent of a book aids in remembering things taht are then used to actually make meaning from the text, that is, to effectively read it. Also, you and I both know that notes are of inestimable benefit when returning to a text.
That said, I certainly see some advantages in ebooks--their portability far from least among them. My own...hesitation to use them is in the initial starting cost and the fact that, because of my own coming-up, I cannot stare at a screen for long periods of time--and not being able to look at the thing for hours on end is a hindrance to the deep reading that typifies the "reading experience."
But that is an idiosyncratic thing, and not necessarly applicable to anyone other than myself.
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