Is Amazon’s Kindle a Big Deal for Literature?
Ars Technica recently had a fascinating article on the Kindle leading off, “A novelist turns to Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader to “beta test” his new novel. Is this the future of fiction?” [#]
This is a fascinating and innovative approach to editing, I think. It taps into collective intelligence through the internet to improve a process normally made offline, and that is awesome. Dare I say, it is even Web 2.0! But Amazon never seemed to envision the Kindle as anything more than an e-book reader. Is the Kindle, as Amazon imagined it, really going to change literature?
No, quite frankly, I don’t think it will change a damn thing, at least in its original form. You know why? Because there is not really anything new about the Kindle. And really, other than PR hoopla I don’t think it really intends to be anything more–it sets out to be an “electronic book,” and that’s exactly what it is. It’s a book that happens to be electronic.
It’s the same thing that is the downfall of traditional newspapers going online. They’re still newspapers, they just happen to be electronic now. There’s no change in the underlying technology. Because a book, that’s a technology itself. A newspaper, that’s technology too. Old technology, but technology nonetheless.
Think of it this way: if you slap an e- on the front of something, you’re still in the old box. An e-book cannot be revolutionary because it’s still defining itself in the terms of the old guard. Look! It’s right there, hiding behind the hyphen!
This is not to say that the Kindle isn’t cool, or that it might not encourage some people to read more. Those things are great. But does it represent a fundamental shift in literature? No. It’s just old technology in new technology clothing. There’s nothing truly original there except the books you read on it (maybe).
Still, I am encouraged that people are hacking the Kindle with new uses such as Daniel Oran’s. Those new uses could turn out to be revolutionary. Turning editing over to collective intelligence? Now that’s a revolution.
Have you hacked your Kindle? What new uses could you think for it?
Kindle is incremental at best.
Although I would argue the Kindle allows the delivery of hypertext and other forms of interactive media/text in a book format. So although it’s incremental as a book, it does facilitate the delivery of more evolutionary text technologies.
Another shameful review by someone who does not own a Kindle, and who I doubt has ever really seen one outside of a picture.
Yes, the Kindle does have a culture-shaking effect in that it brings back reading into the main steam, much as the Ipod brough back listening to music to our young people. Since I was born in 1926, I didn’t have the distractions of Ipods, TV, computers as I grew up — not even from a radio which was still a rare item not even sold in stores. So I became an avid reader, haunting our county library, plus we even had good libraries in all our schools, gone today due to lack of funds.
I got my new Kindle on Dec. 4th, and find it to be a fantastic source of wonderful classical books, available even for free from out-of-copyright sources as ebooks on the Internet. I can even upload them directly to my Kindle.
In the old days, members of families usually lived close by, and could share books. Now Amazon-Kindle has brought us together again electronically with their family sharing plan.
I’m very hopeful that the Kindle can spark a reading revolution like the Ipod did for music. While there are good city-county libraries, they cannot keep up with the volume of publications, and literally don’t have anything I want to read anymore. But the Kindle does — and mostly for free.
How is this not a reading revolution?
Charles Wilkes, San Jose, Calif.
Another shameful review by someone who does not own a Kindle, and who I doubt has ever really seen one outside of a picture.
Yes, the Kindle does have a culture-shaking effect in that it brings back reading into the main steam, much as the Ipod brough back listening to music to our young people. Since I was born in 1926, I didn’t have the distractions of Ipods, TV, computers as I grew up — not even from a radio which was still a rare item not even sold in stores. So I became an avid reader, haunting our county library, plus we even had good libraries in all our schools, gone today due to lack of funds.
I got my new Kindle on Dec. 4th, and find it to be a fantastic source of wonderful classical books, available even for free from out-of-copyright sources as ebooks on the Internet. I can even upload them directly to my Kindle.
In the old days, members of families usually lived close by, and could share books. Now Amazon-Kindle has brought us together again electronically with their family sharing plan.
I’m very hopeful that the Kindle can spark a reading revolution like the Ipod did for music. While there are good city-county libraries, they cannot keep up with the volume of publications, and literally don’t have anything I want to read anymore. But the Kindle does — and mostly for free.
How is this not a reading revolution?
Charles Wilkes, San Jose, Calif.
Charles,
Thank you for your thoughtful and detailed comment! However, my article only briefly touched on the cultural impact of the Kindle, noting that it likely will encourage people to read more. However, I fail to see how the Kindle will alter the fundamental characteristics of literature or how people read literature. The only change in characteristics of literature I can see, on second thought, is a possible democratization of distribution because people can “publish” books and receive compensation more easily without going through a traditional publisher. This is from the point of a literature scholar, after all, not a librarian. If it increases reading I think that is wonderful though.
Okay — and thanks for the polite and reasonable response to my original comment. However try this for size when speaking of the IPOD:
“No, quite frankly, I don’t think it will change a damn thing, at least in its original form. You know why? Because there is not really anything new about the IPOD. And really, other than PR hoopla I don’t think it really intends to be anything more–it sets out to be an “electronic music box,” and that’s exactly what it is. It’s a walkman that happens to have an electronic memory”.
But the Ipod DID change the way people — especially young people — listen to but more importantly react to music. And the Kindle is in the process of doing the same thing for reading — just give it the same amount of time that the Ipod has had since announcment.
Personally, I don’t listen to PR — or for that matter overhyped advertisements — I just tune them out or turn them off — they just don’t work for me. But I think I have bought every ebook readerr with a reasonable description, including the Rocket, the Sony, etc. And gave up on all of them — they didn’t work for me — an avid reader since childhood — I was born in 1926 before the age of even radio (they weren’t for sale in stores yet), not to mention TV which I saw for the first time when I returned from serving in World War 2, so I learned to really read instead. But my Kindle is entirely different and should not be looked upon for it’s advertised function. It is much more than that, and obviously unanticipated by Amazon totally.
People who can write as do you, are obviousally literate, and really do read. I suggest you break down and buy a Kindle, use it, find out what about it turns you on that you didn’t expect. Then write about it. I would be very interested in reading what you have to say then.
Charles Wilkes, San Jose, Calif.
Kindle is $400+ commitment. You all can get a sample of mobile connected reading for nothing by using your cell phone as an eReader. The screen is not as large as the dedicated eReaders, but unlike them you can read in the dark. The small size of the phone makes them the ultimate in portability. I have been reading this way for a while with free books packaged up for regular cell phones from http://www.booksinmyphone.com You can install straight to the phone from their mobile site, or via a PC. Maybe the big deal for literature is that you already have what you need in your pocket.
Not to mention that a number of MP3 players are able to read .txt files and will act as a reader.
Kindle’s big selling point is the driving force of Amazon behind it. Kindle is, by no means, an innovation in the world.
It won’t make more people read. It might make people who read read different things.
All those “wonderful classical books, available even for free from out-of-copyright sources as ebooks on the Internet” that Charles talked about? They aren’t dependent upon the Kindle. They were there before the Kindle existed, they’ll be there when and if the Kindle becomes the Segway. And like Avagee (and I) point out, software that can read those files exist outside of the Kindle.