Kith & Kindle

The 21st Century has taken me by the scruff of the neck. Even as I search the charity shops and second-hand stores for a record player with a crank handle and a 78rpm setting, I’ve invested in an Amazon Kindle.

It’s lovely. It’s compact and as slender as Mr Creosote’s ‘wafer thin mint.’ The software is so easy to use even I can operate it without having to call for my wife’s help (she is, incidentally, the technical manager of our little partnership, as well as CEO, treasurer, social secretary, head chef etc etc – I have yet to find my true role but I’m tolerated on the board because I own 50% of the shares).

The Kindle came with a ‘leather’ cover (optional extra). I chose the red so it stands out in a crowd, but the limelight never suits my complexion so I swapped it for Mrs Dodman’s more modest tan version. Sitting in the palm of my hand, with the ‘leather’ cover open, the Kindle feels almost like a real book. It’s a virtual book, a sort of solid textual hologram. If I want, it will even read the story to me, albeit in a voice that comes across the way Prof. Hawkins would sound if he had no idea about English punctuation and word modulation.

My first Amazon download was “The Finkel Question” by Howard Jacobson. The initial chapter is so witty and clever that I shall probably never write again. Who needs mediocrity when excellence can be had for the same price? I’m enjoying the author’s writing immensely.

BUT – I’m not reading a book. I’m reading a lot of dots on what is in reality a computer screen. Although I can pretend it’s a real book, I can’t smell the paper; I can’t turn the cover back and forth to skim quickly to see when it was written. I can’t indulge in little fantasies about he or she whom last held the book, or imagine the true meaning behind the coded message hand-written in blue ink on the frontispiece (I love second-hand books with inscriptions). And it looks very lonely on the book shelf, although it purports to be capable of holding more volumes than Sleaford library.

Worst of all, I dare not fall into a doze lest the thing crashes to the floor. If that occurs (and it does frequently I’m afraid) to a book, I’ll have the inconvenience of finding my place again but at least the spine and cover will be intact. How many times can I drop a Kindle before it takes umbrage and shuts down for ever? Manufacturers should cover such inevitable events under modern-day guarantees, but I bet they don’t.

I searched Kindle Store for books on jazz. The selection is very disappointing and the one or two which could be of interest are priced far too high for my meagre pocket.

So, the upshot is that Kindle will form a vital (but secondary) tool in my literary armoury. That’s a terrible metaphor but read paragraph 4 again. However, it’s like a Citroen C8 compared with the Citroen Dolly 2CV. It has Teutonic-style efficiency, but warmth, charm and character have somehow fallen by the wayside. Kindle will be my new friend, but it will never subvert my 60 years’ or so love affair with printed paper, board and spinal glue.