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Future of the Book
Environmentalists rejoice: technology and the advent of the Internet age decrease our need for paper. Consequently, however, as MP3s replaced albums, so, too, will the infinite information of cyberspace render physical books archaic and unnecessary. We are obsessed with the speed of accessibility; technology ensures that this is near-limitless. Therefore, no longer will we pursue the slow, yet mentally active process of reading a book, but rather succumb to passivity and mental hibernation that modern media allows. Fahrenheit 451 is a futuristic novel that involves the destruction of books. The books are burned; the times forget the leisure—the art—of the literature. Instead, clandestine, personal libraries continue to exist outside of the government’s—outside of technology’s—radar. Likewise, in our culture, books may become trendy fads in the underground of subculture, sanctuaries for bibliophiles, and, most importantly, as valued and musical as vintage albums. Reading is an active experience. One creates the story from what the text presents; to reread a book is to revisit a personal place. However, modern society does not have the time to imagine. Instead, we are confronted by attention-grabbing media which require no thought: their interactivity is passive. Television streams visual and audile information too quickly to question, while sentences can be reread and analyzed. To conform to our visual ephemeral culture, books must become shorter and more graphic; accordingly, the immense success and popularization of visual and textual hybrid-media, such as comic books and graphic novels, will only continue to escalate. A character in Fahrenheit 451 criticizes the sensationalism of entertainment: “Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending.” (Bradbury 54). Modern society seems to “cut to the chase,” so to speak: modern society craves, to the exclusion of the slower books, the stimulation and sensory overload or high that a “quick camera” provides. Modern media will push books out of the cultural foreground. Due to the pervasiveness of virtual space, literature will be available via the Internet and, consequently, publishers will stop printing manual books. Thus, a subculture of book purists and collectors will become the primary audience of the printed book. In Fahrenheit 451 one such bibliophile chooses to die for her books, which forces the protagonist to reconsider his society: “There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there.” (Bradbury 51). There is perhaps no nobler sacrifice than one for the preservation of culture, history, and the mysterious power of literature; the “something” is imagination itself. Regardless of the future of the printed book, the magic of the text will continue to burn brightly within the minds of readers. -Tom Aycock |