books will never die
Sep. 13th, 2004 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miriam_eThey might not use paper anymore, but written texts have advantages far outweighing all other forms of media. I can't see this ever changing... unless computer-mediated telepathy becomes possible some day (more on that later).
Audio, film, live performance, and machinima (VR fiction) have a lot of advantages, mostly to do with immediacy of experience. When you hear something directly, for example a kookaburra laugh, you know what it really sounds like. A written description normally doesn't convey the actual sound (though there are ways of writing out descriptions of the frequencies, volumes, phases, and timing information that would duplicate that sound if then fed into a computer).
But ordinary words are able to convey things that nothing else can, in ways extremely difficult in other media. Abstract concepts, memories, emotions, and connotations can all be easily related through words. Non-linear time is another thing that text manages effortlessly but which real-time media, by their very nature, don't handle well. There are cinematic techniques that have been developed to make up for this deficiency to some extent, but they are quite difficult to use successfully, and carry great risk of completely baffling and alienating the audience. Text, on the other hand, can play with time easily. It is not unusual to read a story where a character sees or hears something which triggers an avalanching series of memories. The writer might dwell on this for pages taking the reader several minutes to consume, then at the end, all the writer need say is "all this passed through my mind in seconds".
Books are so powerful that we become spellbound by them to the degree where we will read one for days! And when finished, we are often disappointed that it has ended. Perhaps more popular than ever are book series, where a writer might continue the same characters' adventures over many volumes. Even TV series can't capitalise on this level of devotion from their audience. A year's season of a one hour TV show (22 episodes) lasts, in reality less than one day -- about the length of one or two books or maybe even half a large book, depending on how fast a reader you are. Is it any wonder that 2-hour film adaptations of books are always so unsatisfying?
Books will never die. They will continue to flourish while other media also grow.
Audio, film, live performance, and machinima (VR fiction) have a lot of advantages, mostly to do with immediacy of experience. When you hear something directly, for example a kookaburra laugh, you know what it really sounds like. A written description normally doesn't convey the actual sound (though there are ways of writing out descriptions of the frequencies, volumes, phases, and timing information that would duplicate that sound if then fed into a computer).
But ordinary words are able to convey things that nothing else can, in ways extremely difficult in other media. Abstract concepts, memories, emotions, and connotations can all be easily related through words. Non-linear time is another thing that text manages effortlessly but which real-time media, by their very nature, don't handle well. There are cinematic techniques that have been developed to make up for this deficiency to some extent, but they are quite difficult to use successfully, and carry great risk of completely baffling and alienating the audience. Text, on the other hand, can play with time easily. It is not unusual to read a story where a character sees or hears something which triggers an avalanching series of memories. The writer might dwell on this for pages taking the reader several minutes to consume, then at the end, all the writer need say is "all this passed through my mind in seconds".
Books are so powerful that we become spellbound by them to the degree where we will read one for days! And when finished, we are often disappointed that it has ended. Perhaps more popular than ever are book series, where a writer might continue the same characters' adventures over many volumes. Even TV series can't capitalise on this level of devotion from their audience. A year's season of a one hour TV show (22 episodes) lasts, in reality less than one day -- about the length of one or two books or maybe even half a large book, depending on how fast a reader you are. Is it any wonder that 2-hour film adaptations of books are always so unsatisfying?
Books will never die. They will continue to flourish while other media also grow.