I like this analysis, and the idea of the book as fetish object makes sense to me. I tend to prefer thinking of books as having a symbolic function (an object that points to the human labor that created it, the tradition of the genre, etc…) At the same time, the difference between a symbol and a fetish object can be slippery. Symbols can be abstract enough that they also need to find some grounding in material reality, and when they do it’s easy enough to turn them into a fetish.
Books as external brain makes sense to me also in the sense that one's library is a more complex fetish-object than a single book is; like a book-temple, a conglomeration, an arrangement of sets of ideas... You might not even open the books you own very often, but looking at their spines helps you to think, & to remember what the fuck you're on about... I say this as someone whose library has been packed away in boxes for a year, making it much harder to think.
I'd say fingering(?) braille is the same as eye-reading, as it's interpreting the text word-by-word on one's own at a self-set pace, allowing the reader to struggle through difficult bits and re-read particularly nice parts, rather than submit to the pronunciation and pace of another reader. Broadly agree with the book fetishism; some people are far too precious about the physical objects (I say as someone with a lot of books I won't get rid of).
No matter how advanced or educated you are as a reader, the reading 'voice' in your head is usually your own, but doing a dodgy Russian or Oirish accent. Audio books change that, introducing subtleties and interpretations that you might have missed and doing accents better than you. OK, me.
Reading the physical book and then listening to the audiobook often opens up new insights into the text. Sometimes the difficulty of the physical text is removed by the audiobook- Gaddis's JR is a case in point, hard to read but an absolute hoot when read aloud by someone who gets the voices right. I've never reread The Third Policeman again after hearing Jim Norton's version of Flann O'Brien's disturbing comedy masterpiece. His Joyce readings are similarly wonderful. And don't get me started on Eduardo Ballerini reading absolutely anything at all...
I mainly listen to nonfiction now. I spend 2.5 hours a day on public transportation and listening to a cardboard reading of quality print journalism still beats most podcasts. With non-fiction I’m mainly trying to learn something and I can still accomplish that over uninspired voice work. There are a handful of fiction readings that have stood out over the years. Elliot Gould doing Raymond Chandler. Mia Barron reading Eve Babitz. Michael Kramer’s reading of Don Winslow’s Savages. And I enjoyed Sam Lipsyte’s reading of his comic mystery No One Left to Come Looking for You. For most fiction, though, I prefer the voice in my head.
Totally agree. I posted the other day (re bookshelf fetishists) that all those books have their backs to you. The point is the inside. I also listen to audiobooks more than I read these days.
Books go far beyond reading, there is so much you can do with them. You can stack them up high to block that drafty window.. Even better, in a pinch, they're a handy substitute for firewood. You can throw a book (preferably one with some heft) at the TV whenever a talking head says something particularly stupid. Door stoppers, of course, And you can use them to make impromptu bookshelves. Toilet paper is not recommended, but we recall stories of scarcity from the Covid crisis...
On the topic of books being fetish objects, something I've noticed about book fetishizers is that it seems to always be novels and novellas that they treat as sacred. I can't recall a time where I've seen someone give a play or a collection of short stories or poetry the reverence that is given to novels and novellas as fetish objects; I've certainly never seen that reverence given to nonfiction.
I'm sure that the people who got worked up over a stranger on the internet breaking his copy of Infinite Jest in half would say that they would also be upset if someone were to do that to an anthology or a piece of nonfiction. I'm even inclined to believe that they would be upset, or at least perform being upset, but I'm struggling to imagine getting the same kind of reaction as you would get for breaking or destroying a novel or novella. I'm sure that this is because of a combination of what the kinds of people who fetishize books value and novels and novellas being a more familiar form of literature for many, but it's still odd to me.
I'm not addressing all the pro-audiobook comments that are always brought out (some people's brains work differently, some people listen while they're doing other things like driving or working, etc. ), and it's no skin off my back if some people always prefer listening to reading, or only do it on Tuesdays, or during their commute to work, or only books that are assigned for their high school English class, or whatever. I came in here to point out that not everyone uses or relates to books the same way, and I think the reading we do as researchers, learners, and writers, is fundamentally different from passive consumption of "content."
Back in ye olde days when bards, adventurers, and grandmas told tales to listeners in oral cultures, there was rich relational context to the experience of listening. Hearing an audiobook has a little context, especially if it's read by the author or by a very good voice actor, but it's a far cry from sitting around a fire with a live storyteller and a hot beverage.
You could say the same for printed/digital books too, but the experience of interacting with them has additional dimentions.
Pro-audiobook arguments seem to assume linear and very passive use of the text. It's possible to stop and repeat a section of the recording, but audiobook listeners presumably aren't skipping around, reading footnotes, looking up references contained in footnotes or bibliographies, or going back to the text to find the one bit that they want to cite in a project they're working on. For the most part, they are consuming and not engaging, at least until they pull away from the recording and start to reflect or discuss what they've heard.
There's also the fact that a fast reader can process text at least 10x faster with their eyes than with their ears. That may not be an advantage in engaging with poetry or the best sort of literary fiction, but it sure is for those of us who are trying to gain familiarity with a large body of research in a manageable amount of time. For many fast readers, hearing an audiobook read, even at double speed is not "easier" but is as maddening as watching paint dry.
I agree with this, and I think the caveat about books with specific formatting is the only real counterpoint. If you somehow listen to an audiobook of House of Leaves, you haven’t read House of Leaves.
I like this analysis, and the idea of the book as fetish object makes sense to me. I tend to prefer thinking of books as having a symbolic function (an object that points to the human labor that created it, the tradition of the genre, etc…) At the same time, the difference between a symbol and a fetish object can be slippery. Symbols can be abstract enough that they also need to find some grounding in material reality, and when they do it’s easy enough to turn them into a fetish.
Books as external brain makes sense to me also in the sense that one's library is a more complex fetish-object than a single book is; like a book-temple, a conglomeration, an arrangement of sets of ideas... You might not even open the books you own very often, but looking at their spines helps you to think, & to remember what the fuck you're on about... I say this as someone whose library has been packed away in boxes for a year, making it much harder to think.
I'd say fingering(?) braille is the same as eye-reading, as it's interpreting the text word-by-word on one's own at a self-set pace, allowing the reader to struggle through difficult bits and re-read particularly nice parts, rather than submit to the pronunciation and pace of another reader. Broadly agree with the book fetishism; some people are far too precious about the physical objects (I say as someone with a lot of books I won't get rid of).
No matter how advanced or educated you are as a reader, the reading 'voice' in your head is usually your own, but doing a dodgy Russian or Oirish accent. Audio books change that, introducing subtleties and interpretations that you might have missed and doing accents better than you. OK, me.
Reading the physical book and then listening to the audiobook often opens up new insights into the text. Sometimes the difficulty of the physical text is removed by the audiobook- Gaddis's JR is a case in point, hard to read but an absolute hoot when read aloud by someone who gets the voices right. I've never reread The Third Policeman again after hearing Jim Norton's version of Flann O'Brien's disturbing comedy masterpiece. His Joyce readings are similarly wonderful. And don't get me started on Eduardo Ballerini reading absolutely anything at all...
I mainly listen to nonfiction now. I spend 2.5 hours a day on public transportation and listening to a cardboard reading of quality print journalism still beats most podcasts. With non-fiction I’m mainly trying to learn something and I can still accomplish that over uninspired voice work. There are a handful of fiction readings that have stood out over the years. Elliot Gould doing Raymond Chandler. Mia Barron reading Eve Babitz. Michael Kramer’s reading of Don Winslow’s Savages. And I enjoyed Sam Lipsyte’s reading of his comic mystery No One Left to Come Looking for You. For most fiction, though, I prefer the voice in my head.
Totally agree. I posted the other day (re bookshelf fetishists) that all those books have their backs to you. The point is the inside. I also listen to audiobooks more than I read these days.
Books go far beyond reading, there is so much you can do with them. You can stack them up high to block that drafty window.. Even better, in a pinch, they're a handy substitute for firewood. You can throw a book (preferably one with some heft) at the TV whenever a talking head says something particularly stupid. Door stoppers, of course, And you can use them to make impromptu bookshelves. Toilet paper is not recommended, but we recall stories of scarcity from the Covid crisis...
On the topic of books being fetish objects, something I've noticed about book fetishizers is that it seems to always be novels and novellas that they treat as sacred. I can't recall a time where I've seen someone give a play or a collection of short stories or poetry the reverence that is given to novels and novellas as fetish objects; I've certainly never seen that reverence given to nonfiction.
I'm sure that the people who got worked up over a stranger on the internet breaking his copy of Infinite Jest in half would say that they would also be upset if someone were to do that to an anthology or a piece of nonfiction. I'm even inclined to believe that they would be upset, or at least perform being upset, but I'm struggling to imagine getting the same kind of reaction as you would get for breaking or destroying a novel or novella. I'm sure that this is because of a combination of what the kinds of people who fetishize books value and novels and novellas being a more familiar form of literature for many, but it's still odd to me.
I'm not addressing all the pro-audiobook comments that are always brought out (some people's brains work differently, some people listen while they're doing other things like driving or working, etc. ), and it's no skin off my back if some people always prefer listening to reading, or only do it on Tuesdays, or during their commute to work, or only books that are assigned for their high school English class, or whatever. I came in here to point out that not everyone uses or relates to books the same way, and I think the reading we do as researchers, learners, and writers, is fundamentally different from passive consumption of "content."
Back in ye olde days when bards, adventurers, and grandmas told tales to listeners in oral cultures, there was rich relational context to the experience of listening. Hearing an audiobook has a little context, especially if it's read by the author or by a very good voice actor, but it's a far cry from sitting around a fire with a live storyteller and a hot beverage.
You could say the same for printed/digital books too, but the experience of interacting with them has additional dimentions.
Pro-audiobook arguments seem to assume linear and very passive use of the text. It's possible to stop and repeat a section of the recording, but audiobook listeners presumably aren't skipping around, reading footnotes, looking up references contained in footnotes or bibliographies, or going back to the text to find the one bit that they want to cite in a project they're working on. For the most part, they are consuming and not engaging, at least until they pull away from the recording and start to reflect or discuss what they've heard.
There's also the fact that a fast reader can process text at least 10x faster with their eyes than with their ears. That may not be an advantage in engaging with poetry or the best sort of literary fiction, but it sure is for those of us who are trying to gain familiarity with a large body of research in a manageable amount of time. For many fast readers, hearing an audiobook read, even at double speed is not "easier" but is as maddening as watching paint dry.
I agree with this, and I think the caveat about books with specific formatting is the only real counterpoint. If you somehow listen to an audiobook of House of Leaves, you haven’t read House of Leaves.