Member-only story
A Classical Love of Books
And how everything changes
As a Baby Boomer, I was amazed by digital books on Kindle. No matter how many you loaded onto your device, it never got any heavier!
When I expressed that observation to my nephew in 2010, he failed to appreciate the humor in it. I thought that was a shame. I had grown up with a distinct impression of the size and weight of books — the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Oxford English Dictionary, the Complete Works of Shakespeare, The Iliad and the Odyssey, Dante’s Divine Comedy with illustrations by Gustave Dore. Classical literature was “heavy” in more ways than one. Its actual poundage seemed to be a confirmation of its intellectual depth. Its weight and leather binding served to increase its sacredness and to emphasize its profundity.
And now you could fit the entire Library of Congress into a plastic device weighing no more than a box of Skittles.
Of course I understood how the technology was achieved. But I was trying to express something about culture and tradition — something that was already, it seemed, getting lost to human memory.
It is such a convenience ordering digital books on Amazon. But it was such a pleasure and unspeakable privilege of my youth to spend hours rummaging around in old book stores.
