Vargas Llosa just won the Nobel Prize for Literature, if any of you are uncertain of who he is.
``I have also seen many people reading e-books while traveling on planes,'' he said. ``And I have to confess that I felt some shudders the other day when I went to a book store on [New York's] Fifth Avenue and I found that the whole first floor was in effect dedicated to promoting e-books. Paper-made books, which in my mind has always been what I have associated with the idea of a book, have been expelled to the upper stories of the book store.
``Paper-made books will survive, but they will probably be condemned to the margins, and at the end of the day they will be on their way to the catacombs,'' Vargas Llosa said. ``Perhaps this marginal book will somehow compensate its lesser audience with greater rigor, greater quality, greater creativity.''
In the future, paper books will be relegated to the craftsman, who will painstakingly produce beautiful books for the wealthy and the collector to accumulate, much as someone might collect Ming vases now. The masses will all read books electronically, and won't need or be able to afford such books. As time goes on, the contents of such books will be less important than the skill of the craftsman to make them, so these books will become symbols only, a way for a (supposedly) educated person to preen about their education and taste.
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I know a lady who makes handcrafted books - nothing inside, or maybe something inside, but nothing you could claim was literature.
She brags on how creative and avaunt guard her work is. When I ask her what good they are, like "what are they FOR?" she rolls her eyes and insults me by commenting to any audience (or even an imaginary audience) "See, this is what I have to put up with!"
I guess it's OK with me if she wants to spend her life making useless things and charging high prices to gullible idiots who don't know any better. And to be fair, she does get commissions for books from folks who use them for advertising and sales and stuff.
You can't even write a journal in them! I suppose if I was somebody rich and famous, I might commission a cool blank book for a diary or something. But it would have to be something that would look cool in the museum that would house all my stuff after I was gone.
But I can't think of anything to write most days - so I guess she will just have to wait for Bill Gates to call.
Ooh - maybe the anointed one will grace her with an order!
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