OK. I’m all for books.
I’m all for preserving the sanctity of the book, redefining the concept of the book, expanding the role of the book, sharing the book with one and all – heck, even doing away with ‘the book’ as we’ve currently known it for generations. But what the hell is this?
The Institute for the Future of the Book*
The MacArthur Foundation really couldn’t find any other cause to fund? Any other use for its financial support? The Annenberg Center for Communication truly believes this the best way to help humanity communicate? And what the hell is this supposed to mean?
Freed from the traditional print publishing cycles and hierarchies of authority, the Institute values theory and practice equally, conducting its activities as much as possible in the open and in real time.
So they’re implying that the rest of us – you, me and Joe Dupree – were bound to publishers from Gutenberg on? That we haven’t controlled our own reading selections, discussions, habits, and expenses? That they are here to free us from this enslavement? And this?
For discourse to thrive in the digital age, tools are needed that allow ordinary, non-technical people to assemble complex, elegant and durable electronic documents without having to master overly complicated applications or seek the help of programmers.
What the hell! Prior to the advents of computer-aided desktop publishing and print-on-demand technologies, no ‘ordinary, non-technical people’ assembled durable documents, complex and elegant or not! And even now, there’s no certainty of the latter. So they’re implying that humanity is doomed to communication failure if we – the enlightened – do not provide the masses the means to share thoughts. Of course, this totally discounts the social, cultural, and familial preservation methods of storytelling via oral and other methods. Totally assumes that humans today could never relay thought and history and information and simple stories via personal interaction or – heaven forbid! – scratching stick figures out on a stone wall!
Sorry for the rant, but this pissed me off as soon as I saw the Publishers Weekly article citing IFB executive director Bob Stein as “calling for a redefinition of the book.” To be fair, I hold nothing against his argument – sounds reasonable and doable to me. But I had to find out about his institute – and what I found irritated me greatly.
Thoughts?
*I only link to those things I recommend.
No related posts.
The line from the article that got most of my attention was this one:
“fiction writers will be ‘creating a world together with their readers.’ ”
I see two ways to look at this. One is that this is the wave of the future and a good business model. Writers work with potential readers to give the audience what it wants. That makes good sense in a lot of ways.
But the other way to look at it is … well, let’s just say it annoys me to no end whenever someone finds out I write fiction and then they say something like, “Hey! I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you write about !” My response is usually “Hey! Why don’t you go write your own friggin’ book!”
Sorry, but I’ve got more than enough ideas of my own. I’m more than willing to work with editors and publishers, and to listen to ideas from readers. But call it vanity or whatever, I’m not going to just turn around and start writing what others tell me. If I wanted to do that, I’d start writing media-tie-in novels (not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just not my thing).
If readers want to get together a bunch of money and hand it over to me, and I mean a BUNCH of money, then I might go along. But I’m not going to spend months writing and editing a novel that was someone else’s idea(s) and then hope it sells well. I’d rather be unemployed.
Oh, wait …
The other thing this kind of thinking leads to is the tyranny of mediocrity. When anyone can be freed from the need to master a certain amount of technical and artistic knowledge and thus write a book, we’re going to get a lot of crappy books.
What? We already do get a lot of crappy books?
Never mind…