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I admire Franzen's written work for its technical quality. I happened to hate The Corrections, but that's just because I failed to connect with the story, and had a negative reaction to all the characters (that's my loss, I suppose). But I'm kind of surprised to see an obviously intelligent person taking such a reactionary either-or stance.
I have a wall full of books, and have had at least a wall of books for the past two decades. I love them. I bought a Kindle 3 last year. I love that, too.
I respect the notion of permanence, and I also like the rights that I get when a book's content is entombed within a physical artifact (i.e., love used book shops).
But really, newspapers and magazines have always been transitory in nature, and from a literary perspective, 90% of what's on the NYT bestseller list in a given week is a throwaway. I'm pretty sure people aren't storing up "James Patterson"-branded thrillers as literary gold, just like they weren't keeping Jacqueline Susanne or Sidney Sheldon or Arthur Hailey or Danielle Steele or <insert your favorite airport novelist here>. You buy, you read, then off to the thrift store or used book store or church/school/library book sale it goes. Old popular/pulp novelists die off, new ones come up. So if we stop pulping trees to make the book equivalent of a newspaper, is that a bad thing?
I guess I'd be pretty astonished if the book, as a physical thing, vanished any time in the next 50 years (at a minimum). When I start seeing mainstream respected/literary work offered as e-book only, then I'll start thinking the end is nigh. But for now, I kind of like having both around.
And you kids, stay off Franzen's lawn, OK? You're just making him more cranky.
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