|
Of course page count is always relative and somewhat arbitrary in an ebook, unless based explicitly on a paper edition. But as it stands, Marvin tells us the pages remaining in the chapter, and that calculation must be based on some standard. The same standard, whatever it is, could be used for total pages in book. I believe some epubs do have page numbers in the file, though I'm not an expert on this. And it would always be possible to simply establish an arbitrary standard - I think Cool-er did this (eg, a page is x words/lines long).
The point (or one point) is not, for me at least, some sort of absolute accuracy, but rather to give the reader a frame of reference and an easier way to find things again. Search of course is incredibly helpful, but I think many readers, especially those whose deep internal understanding of books is as collections of paper pages, conceptualize books in a way that makes page numbers important navigation and orientation tools.
|