I
was giddy at the idea of an e-reader -- all those stories dozing behind the
sleek screen of that slender tablet. Books on demand. Books that won’t tear or
wrinkle. Books whose spines don’t split, whose pages never fall out in chunks
as if the story has developed mange. Endless variety, and virtually nothing to
carry.
For
an obsessive, lifelong
reader, it seemed like the answer to everything.
When
I received a Kindle for Christmas, I was thrilled. I immediately began
downloading stuff I’d been meaning for ages to get my hands on. Christopher
Hitchens’ musings on death as his approached; a posthumous collection by
Vonnegut; that devastating, hilarious essay by David Foster Wallace about the
surreality of life on a cruise ship; everything David Rakoff ever penned
(what’s with me and doomed men, anyway?).
Oh,
I read and read. And for a while, I did love my Kindle. I was infatuated. He
was so pretty, so glib, so light, so quick with the words – the infinite,
beautiful words. He even defined the ones I didn’t know! Just press the word,
and up bounced its explanation. Miraculous.
But
soon I started to notice things.
When
I would try to lie on my side, for instance, he would flip the text, toggling
it so that I could no longer read. He was only trying to help. But it annoyed
me.
When
my hand would stray accidentally to the screen, the page would spring to life –
icons, arrows, options everywhere. My Kindle was so responsive. So incredibly,
infuriatingly responsive.
I
started to realize I felt lost without the physicality of the book. No pages to
flip, no map of the story that my eyes could walk through. Just the vaguely
glowing screen, just the flat text behind the glass.
And
how do I know how much of my book remains unread without a fat stack of pages
behind my bookmark? Well, a little number in the corner tells me I’m 86 percent
of the way through. Great. Now I have numbers mucking up my wordfest. Worse
yet, percentages, which I especially hate. And oh, PLEASE stop telling me you
need to be charged. Such a buzzkill.
My
Kindle even cost me the pleasure of a great read shared. I would tell a friend
about an astonishing book, and finish by saying lamely, “I wish I could lend it
to you, but it’s in my Kindle.”
I
stayed with my Kindle, though. It seemed like the right thing to do. I
persisted. I bought more titles. I read on, learning not to lie on my side, not
to let my hand drift to the screen, trying to ignore the infernal percentages
and whiny low battery warnings.
Until
the night I was reading “The Book Thief,” the story by Markus Zusak of a young
girl growing up in World War II-era Germany. It’s a tale narrated by Death, who
watches the girl and ponders her fate as he goes about his grim work in that
blighted time and place.
One
day, the girl and her friend leave bread on the road where they know the
starving, tortured Jews will find it as their Nazi captors march them toward
Dachau. The horrific parade shambles past while the children watch anxiously
from the trees. A lurching, skeletal man sees the bread, stoops to snatch it
up, gnaws urgently. As more men follow suit, the scowling Nazi guard realizes
something is amiss and turns viciously to device not responding.
Device
not responding. Device not responding. Device not responding.
“Mommy,
why are you yelling at your Kindle?”
And
that, dear reader, was the end.
