.... was that it helped differentiate them from the Jews, who kept (and still keep) their sacred text in the form of a scroll. But some very alert early Christian must also have recognized that the codex was a powerful form of information technology — compact, highly portable and easily concealable. It was also cheap — you could write on both sides of the pages, which saved paper — and it could hold more words than a scroll. The Bible was a long book.
The codex also came with a fringe benefit: It created a very different reading experience. With a codex, for the first time, you could jump to any point in a text instantly, nonlinearly. You could flip back and forth between two pages and even study them both at once. You could cross-check passages and compare them and bookmark them. You could skim if you were bored, and jump back to reread your favorite parts. It was the paper equivalent of random-access memory, and it must have been almost supernaturally empowering. With a scroll you could only trudge through texts the long way, linearly. (Some ancients found temporary fixes for this bug — Suetonius apparently suggested that Julius Caesar created a proto-notebook by stacking sheets of papyrus one on top of another.)
Over the next few centuries the codex rendered the scroll all but obsolete. In his “Confessions,” which dates from the end of the fourth century, St. Augustine famously hears a voice telling him to “pick up and read.” He interprets this as a command from God to pick up the Bible, open it at random and read the first passage he sees. He does so, the scales fall from his eyes and he becomes a Christian. Then he bookmarks the page. You could never do that with a scroll.
Right now we’re avidly road-testing a new format for the book, just as the early Christians did. Over the first quarter of this year e-book sales were up 160 percent. Print sales — codex sales — were down 9 percent. Those are big numbers. But unlike last time it’s not a clear-cut case of a superior technology displacing an inferior one. It’s more complex than that. It’s more about trade-offs.
On the one hand, the e-book is far more compact and portable than the codex, almost absurdly so. E-books are also searchable, and they’re green, or greenish anyway (if you want to give yourself nightmares, look up the ecological cost of building a single Kindle). On the other hand the codex requires no batteries, and no electronic display has yet matched the elegance, clarity and cool matte comfort of a printed page.
That is a lengthy quote from an engaging and thoughtful essay, "From Scroll to Screen", written by Lev Grossman for the New York Times (Sept. 2, 2011). Grossman puts his finger directly on something that I've experienced over the past few months as I've tested, used, and formed a wary like/dislike relationship with my Kindle (a Christmas from "the family"): the unique ability the reader of a traditional book (codex) possesses in jumping to and fro throughout the book, something that so far has not been replicated in any real way on devices such as Kindle. It is, for me, the biggest drawback and most frustrating aspect of the Kindle; it also gives me hope, however, that the physical, traditional book will long be with us, as it possesses several characteristics that really cannot be reproduced or truly replaced by a digital device.
This really came home to me when I made the mistake of buying the first volume of Bruce Waltke's excellent commentary on Proverbs for use on my Kindle, to use in teaching the weekly Bible study I lead at my parish. I quickly realized how much, in using commentaries, Bibles, dictionaries, and various reference works, I jump around—sometimes frenetically—flipping from this section to that section, index to page, page to endnotes, and so forth. With a book, this is easy and natural; I've been doing it for decades, and I've long enjoyed being able to glace through a book quickly or more leisurely, randomly or more systematically, depending on the book and my reason for looking through it.
Not so with the Kindle, which is, as Grossman states, completely linear and therefore noticeably limited:
But so far the great e-book debate has barely touched on the most important feature that the codex introduced: the nonlinear reading that so impressed St. Augustine. If the fable of the scroll and codex has a moral, this is it. We usually associate digital technology with nonlinearity, the forking paths that Web surfers beat through the Internet’s underbrush as they click from link to link. But e-books and nonlinearity don’t turn out to be very compatible. Trying to jump from place to place in a long document like a novel is painfully awkward on an e-reader, like trying to play the piano with numb fingers. You either creep through the book incrementally, page by page, or leap wildly from point to point and search term to search term. It’s no wonder that the rise of e-reading has revived two words for classical-era reading technologies: scroll and tablet. That’s the kind of reading you do in an e-book.
The codex is built for nonlinear reading — not the way a Web surfer does it, aimlessly questing from document to document, but the way a deep reader does it, navigating the network of internal connections that exists within a single rich document like a novel. Indeed, the codex isn’t just another format, it’s the one for which the novel is optimized. The contemporary novel’s dense, layered language took root and grew in the codex, and it demands the kind of navigation that only the codex provides.
Granted, e-book technology is going to change and improve; it will do so, I suspect, constantly in the years to come. But I think this matter of linear and non-linear reading is will long be an issue for many people, including myself. It is related to another issue: with books, I can have several open on the desk/table in front of me, and I can therefore multi-task, so to speak, when researching or studying. Books are amazingly flexible in this regard. In addition, physical books have a certain, dare I say, personality, a singular quality that is more than the sum of their size, paper weight, font, cover, and so forth.
Or, put another way: I like to work and write in a room filled with books. To me, there is something singular and special about walking into a room filled with books, whether a bookstore (preferably used), public library, or (the best) a personal library.
That said, there are some definite pluses to a Kindle. Most of these are fairly obvious:
• The ability to have hundreds of e-books and texts in a single device. Invaluable, obviously, for travel and storage.
• The ability to acquire available e-books immediately, and usually at prices comparable to or less than the cost of a book. A huge plus, without a doubt. However, there are, I believe, certain subtle dangers inherent to such instant gratification, one of them being a failure to really appreciate the value (not simple monetary in nature) of a book. Put another way, it feeds a certain "fast food", hyper-consumerist mentality, in which more and more things become disposable.
• The ability to read samples of books that you might not be able to find right away in the local bookstore or library. I've downloaded many samples, and then have bought the physical book.
• The Kindle is very easy to read, and the text can be sized and leaded according to personal tastes.
• The ability to view Word documents, PDF files, and other personal files on the Kindle. Very helpful.
I'm sure there are more, but those stand out to me at the moment. What do you think?
I love having digitized information, especially the "printed" word; but reading on a screen is not a complete replacement for holding a book. I think it has something physiological to do with the written word being the product of hands: when the hands are physically engaged in the reading, the brain more fully gets the information.
You left out the #1 reason Christians liked the codex:
You can't verse-sling from a scroll.
Posted by: Christian | Tuesday, September 06, 2011 at 07:23 PM
Thanks Carl, you have just saved me a bundle.
Posted by: Stephen Sparrow | Tuesday, September 06, 2011 at 07:28 PM
I like sewn softcovers on acid free paper of very good Catholic books, there is something satisfying about that and then (especially if you don't mark up the text which nobody should do, at least not too much) you can easily give the book to someone else who might benefit from reading it, this is not so with eBooks. Long live the codex!
Posted by: Elizabeth D | Tuesday, September 06, 2011 at 10:25 PM
My family "gifted" me with a Kindle, too, and I find it very useful -- for certain uses.
Emphatically, it is not convenient for a researcher to use when mining primary sources. But it works well for narrative, which of its nature tends to be linear. This is so for fiction, but also some non-fiction. For example, I am reading Morgenson and Rosner's "Reckless Endangerment," which narrates the story of how the financial crisis of the last few years built up. (They get it mostly right.)
And at a moment's notice, I can switch over to read a short story I've downloaded, and even dip into the Summa. But if I have to use the Summa as a source for an article or book chapter, I find that I really have to have the printed volume to work with.
So carry it with you to read in the doctor's waiting room. Set it aside when you are writing. It's a nice little two-door you can run around town in, but don't ask it to haul heavy goods.
Posted by: Louis | Tuesday, September 06, 2011 at 11:51 PM
I bought a Kindle to read the Holy Father's writings.
I have converted to kindle format a substantial number of his writings freely available on the Vatican website.
It's an amazing device for that and I have been able to enjoy reading many of the Holy Father's writings, instead of trying to print 100s of pages.
Posted by: Simon | Wednesday, September 07, 2011 at 09:20 AM
I have to admit, there are benefits of having an e-bible.
At the beginning of this year, I purchased a daily bible, the kind that has the entire thing is divided into daily readings. I'm sorry to admit, it was difficult for me to keep up, and it came to the point where I was approaching 3 months being behind.
But when I recently got a new smartphone, I purchased this wonderful Catholic app named iPieta (available for Android and IPhone). For next to nothing it has writings from multiple saints (including many, if not all, of St. Augustines works) and the Douay-Rheims Bible. I find it's much easier when in prayer to just get the phone out and read a few chapters of the bible and a spiritual work (currently working through Confessions.) I must admit I am grateful for that, if I do nothing else with my smartphone that alone justifies the purchase.
But yes, there is still much dignity in having the book, and to be quite frank, by doing so it will be easier to support local independent bookstores by doing so.
Thanks for the article, good read.
Posted by: Jason Fairfield | Wednesday, September 07, 2011 at 10:24 AM
My love for books began some time in grade school. I still remember the thrill of anticipation I felt holding an unbroken volume of Hardy Boys adventures fresh from the bookstore. And the exhilaration I felt holding one of my father's mustier boyhood treasures, usually one of the Cappy Dick adventures published in the twenties or thirties, or one of Cooper's dust-encrusted Leatherstocking classics that had been fished out of the attic.
I vividly remember -- indeed, I cherish -- the feeling of holding so many, many beloved books. I'm talking about the compact edition of 'Prester John' in junior high, the Puffin edition of 'The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe' in sixth grade, the impressive heft of the Poe compendium with which I whiled away my eighth-grade study halls, the tidy English hardcover edition of 'The Hobbit' that I thought was so thick at the time, and so many more.
By contrast, the ebook devices I've handled seem thin, transparent, tinny -- almost desiccated.
I have nothing but esteem and affection for Mr. Olson's saintly and beautiful wife. Yet I can't help wondering if his gift of Kindle might actually be an ulterior -- yet very understandable -- effort to constrain his print spending.
Just speculating here.
(Please note that my being old might would considered by some a conflict of interest since this is a relatively new technology.)
Posted by: Gregorio | Wednesday, September 07, 2011 at 10:28 AM
I cannot believe no one has posted this yet, could not find the english translation but the subtitles will have to do
Medieval helpdesk
http://youtu.be/pQHX-SjgQvQ
says it all
enjoy
Posted by: The Egyptian | Wednesday, September 07, 2011 at 04:41 PM
I have published two Bibles on the Kindle (Douay-Rheims, Challoner revision, and the Clementine Vulgate).
I made them mainly for devotional reading because of the limitations, and strengths, of the Kindle and associated applications. While one cannot flip around easily, one can search it easily and, more importantly, sync one's progress across many devices. I do not carry my Kindle everywhere, but I carry my phone everywhere. I can start reading a novel, or devotionally speaking, The City of God by St. Augustine or some other such work, and resume my reading at any point during the day regardless of whether I am on my computer (using the Cloud Reader in Chromium), using my Kindle, or using an Android device.
When I study scripture, I study in a book or in a hyperlinked document online. When I read, the Kindle has the advantage because the "book" exists in many places and takes no space and my progress (even notes and bookmarks) are also found in all those manifestations.
That is why I have many books, both in codex and in digital formats.
Many people talk about the "feel" and "psychology" of holding a book. That seems to be a way of saying "I am not used to e-books yet" or "I am stubborn". When reading, we do not really care about the format. In fact, we prefer to not think about it. A good binding is a binding you don't notice when reading. A good paper is a paper which does not distract you by its feel, discolourations, etc. The Kindle device is very easy, in linear reading, to ignore.
Posted by: J. F. O'Neill | Wednesday, September 07, 2011 at 06:22 PM
I love my Nook Color and it has proved to be very advantageous as we are expecting a second child and we had to unload more than half of our book collection to make room. Ebooks are a godsend for people like me who love to read lots of books but simply don't have the shelf space to accomodate them. And let's face it - not ALL books need to be experienced in hand-sewn bindings with acid-free paper.
Posted by: David K. Monroe | Thursday, September 08, 2011 at 06:58 AM
I have a Kindle 3 as well, and I enjoy many of the benefits of digital text, such as keyword searches, etc. But yes, it is frustratingly tedious to use as a study text. I've long since given up on knowing what book, let alone chapter or verse I'm currently reading when I read my eBible. I think an Ignatius Bible app with additional functionality would be much better than simply having the e-text.
Which leads me to another idea. I've thought about having my Kindle blessed as it contains a bible, and numerous other religious texts (and many non-religious as well) but I didn't know how my priest would respond. It IS a bible, in a sense, is it not? Just curious if anyone else has thought about this aspect of life in the digital age?
Posted by: Bill Genereux | Thursday, September 08, 2011 at 01:55 PM
Sp Botticelli's Madonna of the Book is
— historical?
Posted by: Kmbold | Thursday, September 08, 2011 at 09:54 PM
I have had a discussion about this (the electronic device holding a sacred book in a digital form) and my conclusion was that the device was not the same as sacred text.
The key I think is that a scroll, codex, or any other permanent marking makes the marked material part of the book by its nature. If the material goes, the text goes, and the text cannot be exist without the material. However, digital works are electronic codes which are interpreted and displayed. That code can be copied without anything changed or lost. The text exists as electronic switches holding a mutable value which is interpreted by hardware/software to cause a screen to display a certain pattern. So, this would be like if one wrote out the entirety of scriptures in sand on a beach.
For electronic devices like the Kindle, it is an abstraction of the concept of a "book". It is like an old wax board they used for teaching in ancient times. One could easily erase it and write anything on it. It would be like memorising the text. One's physical brain is not considered to be a Bible because the data is stored in neurons temporarily.
I think the digital age reveals the underlying ideals of what a "book" is. It is not what stores it. It is text, but not any particular manifestation of text. The words matter, not what is storing them. Now that we have separated the "book" from the means of storing it, this breaks a few historical expectations, but the idea is the same.
Posted by: J. F. O'Neill | Friday, September 09, 2011 at 06:56 AM