Joe Grant , bless you! I personally love big, fat, thick books. And I’m talking about real books, not ebooks. One of my favorite big, fat, heavy books was G. I. Gurdjieff’s Tales Of Beelzebub As Told To His Grandson. It is over 2,100 pages long. It took me almost an entire week to read — and I read the hardcover. It weighed something like 8 pounds. It was like going to the gym for a week. I actually gained serious muscle tone carrying that book around for a week. It was like engaging with a real-life physical adventure. When I was done reading for the day I actually slept with that book. God, what an exhilarating experience that was!
If I had the choice between going to bed with a big, fat, voluptuous woman or a big, fat, voluptuous book I have to admit that I would pick the book. Why? Because with the book I would actually have the chance of having multiple orgasms — which, for men, is difficult. Some of my favorite books have been those over a thousand pages.
I am, of course, a dinosaur. In today’s world of 140 character attention spans a big, fat book never reaches the minds of today’s internet readers. Everything read must be short, short, short. It it’s not short, it’s not contemporary and it won’t reach a contemporary audience. This is so goddam, fucking sad that it breaks my heart. But, sadly, it is the world we now live in.
Like I said, I’m a dinosaur. I don’t just read with my eyes. I also read with my hands. I’ve got to FEEL the book in addition to reading the words. I’ve got to FEEL the vibrations in addition to the words. This is harder to do with an ebook. With a real book I read it with my hands and solar plexus before I ever open it up to page one. That is a thousand times more difficult to do with an ebook.
With a real book I will put it under my pillow before I ever crack it open and begin to read it. I will sleep on it and read it without my conscious noggin. I will connect with the author on a feeling-tone level and FEEL what they were feeling as they wrote it. I will read it psychically from my solar plexus before I read it from my noggin. I will FEEL the book before I read it.
Okay, I admit it: I’m a weirdo. I’m from a long-ago distant past when humans actually read physical books. And I see what we are losing by transitioning to reading only what is electronic. The youngsters don’t see that because they never lived in a world where people read physical books. To them everything I say is the incoherent blabberings of an old fool.
Sadly, the archaeologists of the future will look back at our time right now and all the physical books we have written will be destroyed by water from the rising sea levels. Nothing will destroy a real book faster than water.
Will the electronic books survive? I guess we’ll see.
But will we be able to FEEL them? Or will they be merely hieroglyphics that the archaeologists try to decipher in order to understand why we fucked up so badly? Why our culture disappeared as quickly and mysteriously as so many other ancient civilizations?
Oh, the power of water! Quick! Give me a big, fat real book before it dissolves into the waters of history which even the fishes won’t eat.
