bunnybundy:

masterbeethoven:

“The Great Gatsby was last updated in 1924. You don’t need it to be refreshed, do you? Maybe nobody will care about printed books 50 years from now, but I do. When I read a book, I’m handling a specific object in a specific time and place. The fact that when I take the book off the shelf it still says the same thing - that’s reassuring. Someone worked really hard to make the language just right, just the way they wanted it. They were so sure of it that they printed it in ink, on paper. A screen always feels like we could delete that, change that, move it around. So for a literature-crazed person like me, it’s just not permanent enough.”

—

Jonathan Frazen in defense of the printed book — “Jonathan Franzen: e-books are damaging society.” (via oliveryeh)

Oh this is such bullshit. i really don’t think ebooks are out to “change” the actual wording of literature. censorship/book burning has been doing that long before the advent of computers. 

i don’t think Franzen is trying to imply that someone WOULD change the wording of great literature. i think he’s saying that the written word on a glowing screen just somehow LOOKS more transitory and impermanent and changeable, whereas ink stamped into a page is final and unalterable. It’s a matter of feel and your psychological outlook.

Understandable, but I have seen this argument used way too many times as an excuse for the pretentious fallacy that paper books are somehow more “real” than ebooks. Sometimes it just makes more sense for someone, either economically or physically, to buy a pricier medium (ebook) and pay less for their literature.