The End of Books

The End of Books

Robert Coover

Novels on floppy disk?  Hypertext fiction?  Reading?  These all seem like humble concepts now that we've had the technology around for almost 20 years now. It may be possible that hypertext cannibalized its self.  Technologically it created an almost unlimited potential for new forms and experiences. Realistically, it was simply too much for people to handle.  We read one online news article or blog post today and by the time we're finished we have a queue of 4 tabs open to new sites with supplementary information on the topic.  Pick any subject on Wikipedia and you can spend hours or days following the wiki trail to gain a working knowledge of it, not counting the outside references.  Most of us at one time or another have jumped into that pool and remained there to see just how deep it goes. What we find is overwhelming.  Subsequently we turn in at 3:30 am get up for work 5 hours later, and shuffle into the office disheveled and disoriented.  Risk getting called into the boss's office because you wanted to learn everything about jellyfish?  We've tested this technology and it's extremely volatile.

Years of study can be devoted to the development and use of hypertext and reading on the computer... and they should.  If the proponents of hypertext are correct there were 3 great literary innovations in the history of human kind: written word, moveable type, and hypertext.  Hypertext is not the only aspect of literature and computers that needs to be studied.  The physiology of reading from electronic screens and the new tendency to skim everything instead of buckling down in a chair and hanging on every work are important subjects.  Whatever we learn we should not be so quick to throw the paperback out the window.  New resistance to it on the grounds of deforestation is ludicrous.  First, trees are renewable, and properly managed we will never have a shortage of trees or paper, secondly the existing paper stock  can be recycled into new paper.  It's all just a lame excuse to sell more apps.