Jonathan Franzen: e-books are damaging society

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

I don't understand what lack of permanence Franzen (or you) is concerned about. I've never once thought to myself after buying an ebook "oh, I hate how the author keeps updating the text as I read it, most irritating." Ya, new digital editions can come out, but how is that different than new versions of a paperback book? Is it just because digital text is easier to revise? But so what? how does that affect the digital edition that you bought before it was revised?

I think the problem with ebooks is that unless the early version has been widely pirated, once the changes have been made that is the only version available. So any future historians will struggle to put them into context if they keep being updated. It will be even worse if it isn't the original writer doing the updating.

Whereas with real books, no matter what happens to them later there is always a permanant copy left behind. So if you wanted to read Enid Blyton with gollywogs instead of goblins, you could still do so.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I think the problem with ebooks is that unless the early version has been widely pirated, once the changes have been made that is the only version available. So any future historians will struggle to put them into context if they keep being updated. It will be even worse if it isn't the original writer doing the updating.

Whereas with real books, no matter what happens to them later there is always a permanant copy left behind. So if you wanted to read Enid Blyton with gollywogs instead of goblins, you could still do so.

Wait, unless the original was widely circulated (bought or pirated), a re-print makes it hard to compare changes?

Again, how is that different from print runs? Lots of times there's a small print run, demand exceeds supply, and the second run changes things.

Heck, I'd say e-books are a BETTER assurance against this than print because (a) the "demand-exceeds-supply" shouldn't happen, meaning that the first run of an ebook can circulate without the limits of a short print run and (b) if they do change things between editions, people with the 1st edition are in a better position to circulate the changes because (c) text comparison tools and (d) instant copying of the book for interested parties.

I'm not seeing the SCARY E-BOOKS REWRITING HISTORY part that I keep hearing about over and over and over...

[latepaul]

Paper is not permanent, it's merely temporary on a longer timescale. And the only reason it's more 'permanent' in that sense to ebooks is that it's been around longer.

Also ebooks as a technology have only been around for at most what 30 years? How many surviving books are there from the first 50 years of paper? Unfair comparison.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by MrReset

Excuse me for disturbing, but ...
who is Jonathan Franzen?

For those of us who enjoy reading literary works, Franzen is an important Amercian writer who won the National Book Award for Fiction, for "The Corrections." (It was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and was short-listed for a number of other important awards.)


Don

[SilverBear]

Originally Posted by latepaul

Paper is not permanent, it's merely temporary on a longer timescale. And the only reason it's more 'permanent' in that sense to ebooks is that it's been around longer.

Amen. As someone who has lived in a moderately humid climate for the past twenty years, I can assure everyone that printed books are not nearly as permanent as I once assumed before I moved here. To paraphrase Matthew chaper 6:
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon paper, where mold and insect doth corrupt, but go ye digital, knowing that while the vessel doth decay, yet shall the spirit abide.
I love the feel and smell and look of good printed books, second to no one. That's hardbound books.

After reading the Telegraph article, it seems to me Mr. Franzen is once again simply trying to promote himself by making a controversial statement. As evidence let me present his stupid and demonstrably false statement:

“The technology I like is the American paperback edition of Freedom. I can spill water on it and it would still work!

Right! Mr. American Technology can tell us all how absolutely waterproof a paperback book is! (Sir: could you possibly only be bloviating in order to advertise an affordable edition of your book "now on sale at bookstores everywhere"? )

Irrational Publicity hound --nothing more.

[Redcard]

I think what Franzen is most afraid of is that he and the "haves" of the publishing industry are losing grip on their control of what people read. In the past, the more expensive it was for ideas to get out, the fewer people could afford to control the ideas that got out.

Now, I can a story with some very subversive ideas, hit a button, and blog about it, and the entire world can have my ideas for $2 a piece.

All his whinging about "permanence" is really just whining about control. They don't have the control. Paperback novels HAVE changed. The version of the Great Gatsby I read in college was actually DIFFERENT from the version I read in high school. Nat Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter has been revised multiple times.

No, when he says it's about "permanence", what he really means is " in my eyes ,THE WRONG people have the ability to change things." The wrong people have control over their own work. The wrong people don't need big companies to justify their ideas anymore.

He's a dying breed. I'm certain buggywhip makers were just the same.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Redcard

I think what Franzen is most afraid of is that he and the "haves" of the publishing industry are losing grip on their control of what people read. In the past, the more expensive it was for ideas to get out, the fewer people could afford to control the ideas that got out.

I agree, and it's one reason why I dislike the nose-turning-up that some people have towards indie authors. Traditional publishing has for years been meddling with messages. Look at the kerfluffle a year or so ago about traditional publishers insisting that certain LBGT characters be changed to hetero. Indie publishing bypasses all that and lets the author tell a story that quite possibly the gatekeepers aren't comfortable with. How can that be a bad thing?

[Redcard]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I agree, and it's one reason why I dislike the nose-turning-up that some people have towards indie authors. Traditional publishing has for years been meddling with messages. Look at the kerfluffle a year or so ago about traditional publishers insisting that certain LBGT characters be changed to hetero. Indie publishing bypasses all that and lets the author tell a story that quite possibly the gatekeepers aren't comfortable with. How can that be a bad thing?

Part of me wishes we would see how much meddling they did, and if it was over a certain measurable percentage, they'd be forced to be credited with some qualifiers. I mean that way, we could see if we're reading "The Corrections: A novel, by J. Franzen" or "The Corrections: A Novel, by J. Franzen and the Corporation Known As Picador Publishing."

[Sydney's Mom]

I shouldn't comment, as I am not familiar with his work, but that crack about Obama was ignorant. But I guess he would rather Obama read nucular proliferation treadies as 3 am.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I completely agree. When I look at an e-book file, I don't know what some overzealous person might have changed. E.g., when I download a book from the MR library, I can't tell what grammar, punctuation, or spelling might have changed. I can't tell if the uploader might have used a euphemism for an objectionable word. I have no reference point unless there is a printed copy of the book to refer to. If we reach a point when there is no printed copy, where are we? The digital file can be constantly in flux.

It's the same as a Web page that can be endlessly edited and updated.

People here have sometimes mentioned how they "correct" the e-books they buy--they "fix" the punctuation and the spelling to their liking. I find it extremely unsettling.

I would hope that most texts are sent through multiple rounds of editing before they are released to the general public. Everything has always been in flux, that is just the nature of things.

If you'd like a reference point for your texts there's digital signatures (an end to anonymity) I suppose.

[Redcard]

Plus, Giggleton, and Catlady..

I was finding errors in paperback books all through high school and college. These are errors that in some cases the author made, and in some cases got inserted when the publisher was revising the novel. (Yes, it may surprise you to know this, but once you sign the contract, they often CAN revise and change your novel.)

Those errors, if grammatical, or spelling.. should we change them, or not? Are they the author's? Or are they the publisher's? Did the author intend for that sentence to be there? Or not?

You'll never likely know, as most contracts bar authors from ever releasing pre-production work. But the error may or may not be corrected in the next printing, in which case, you probably wouldn't know anyway

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by Catlady

People here have sometimes mentioned how they "correct" the e-books they buy--they "fix" the punctuation and the spelling to their liking. I find it extremely unsettling.

There are some books I have downloaded from Smashwords where the text renders like this:

Shoul
d
she go to the store to buy some bread? Let me ask your mother if I can go to the comer (sic) store and I' l
phone you back.

sometimes in different font spans and header tags all in the same paragraph.

I'd find reading whole books like that "unsettling." Some books, even bought ebooks have been made as such using OCR, and the rendering of the actual text has been abysmal. I've bought and borrowed e-books and read them along side the printed book and recommend anyone who wants a good laugh, to do the same. It's almost like reading that "funny autocorrect" website.

I borrowed "One for the money" in e-book format and read it at the same time as the printed book. there were 17 instances of the word "corner" being rendered as "comer", among other laughable unedited OCR.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I think the problem with ebooks is that unless the early version has been widely pirated, once the changes have been made that is the only version available. So any future historians will struggle to put them into context if they keep being updated. It will be even worse if it isn't the original writer doing the updating.

Suddently, I'm getting a mental image of George Lucas' neck, for some reason, and hearing an evil laugh in my head.

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Whereas with real books, no matter what happens to them later there is always a permanant copy left behind. So if you wanted to read Enid Blyton with gollywogs instead of goblins, you could still do so.

Even without stripping DRM, no edits that any author or publisher makes will ever change my downloaded copy of the books I buy (because I don't buy from places where that might be an issue). B&N ebooks, for instance, are trivially easy to download, and equally easy to transfer to different devices.

[QuantumIguana]

We have paper books that are centuries old. We have difficulty reading digital files that are just a few decades old.

[Redcard]

Not exactly right. We have paper books that are centuries old, yes, but they have to be restored for the most part. Most of them were not made with archival ink and paper, so had retouches done on them every 50-100 years. They've been rebound more than a few times. In some cases, the paper has been completely replaced in them. And of all that, there are still a small percentage of books from centuries old. They were taken care of. They were the property of the rich.

Now, I have books from 1960 that were bought in a bookstore. They're yellowed. The ink is actually flaking off the pages. I've got some pulp from 1950s that are literally crumbling. Your average book that you buy now from a book store won't make it 50 years, the quality of the paper is so poor.

I have files from back when The Lion King came out, and a bunch of my friends and I were writing fanfiction (okay, okay, I know.) They're .txt files. They've not changed ONE SINGLE BIT (pun intended) in almost two decades. You can open them and read them, just the same exact spacing and everything as I penned them in 1994. And, provided that the storage media stays safe and I copy it to the new media, this will be this way for decades. Millenia.

Add to this, that storage size gets bigger and physical storage size gets smaller, and soon we will have the ability to put all of the written words of mankind onto a CD sized disc.

The problem you have reading digital files a few decades old is similar to the problem we have reading books a few decades old. Materials degrade.

Which is easier to do, with regards to passing material on? Producing paper, producing ink, copying the words to the paper from the source, binding the material into a book..

Or typing "cp /source/story.txt /dest/story.txt"