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chairmanbernanke's review against another edition
4.0
Some novel ideas but the essence is that books matter.
danchibnall's review against another edition
3.0
The first 1/3 of this book is beautiful. The author takes his time explaining how books have changed his life and how books impact us on a daily basis. He talks about his idea of "deep time" which is time that we don't know is passing because we are so enmeshed with our books. After the first 1/3 of the book, though, he kind of goes downhill. The next 2/3 of the book are a pretentious and pedantic verbal abuse of electronic technology and high-minded literary criticism. It's interesting and informative, but for the most part I feel like he is giving up on the idea of electronic technology helping us learn and change. Of course I see technology as being a type of demon too, in that it can absorb us into itself and we become part of some horrible cyclic machine that never lets us outside. However, I believe it's important to have a balance of "deep time" and "electronic time" in one's life. Too much of one leaves us blind to the other side of life.
woolfen's review against another edition
5.0
Theory (5 Stars).
Sven Birkerts is the Man. I will spend more time over the next few days writing a tighter review, even striving to find a good quote to sum up his thesis is hard.
Sven Birkerts is the Man. I will spend more time over the next few days writing a tighter review, even striving to find a good quote to sum up his thesis is hard.
mattbutreads's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
His hypothesis of seeing everything through a political framework was very fortuitous, and I think he has a lot of good things to say about our relevance on technology. I think he romanticizes past readership however, and relies on “good ol days” too much. Classics are so few for a reason - because the cream of the crop rises. It’s a worthwhile read, certainly, but there are moments that sound like a pulpit.
lazygal's review against another edition
3.0
This book is almost 20 years old, and despite some clearly dated passages (the clunkiness of the computers... no smartphones or e-readers), the thinking is still pretty prescient. For example, Birkerts talks about multitasking - today we take that for granted (as I type this, I'm also watching the evening news). Is this a good thing? He posits not: we miss that inner voice, the opportunity to hear and think without mediation of some sort.
One question that kept popping to mind was the question of who the readers are. Not of this book, but in general. He opens with an example of a class in short stories he taught that didn't work because the students lacked the ability to focus on anything "dense" (my word, not his), anything that required thought and slow exploration. That's probably true today, but even 30 years ago it wasn't easy to get into Henry James. Ditto 50... 70 years ago. People may have owned James' books, but did they read them (much like people bought Hawking's A Brief History of Time, but it's unlikely many read, much less fully understood it). So is there really something to mourn here?
It's definitely an issue that needs to be revisited every so often: what is the affect of all this interactivity? is it really 'good', or is it somehow changing society in ways we don't like/need/will regret? His comments about literature, and how historical fiction enables modern writers to give their characters more of an inner life also resonated, as I'm seeing more and more YA and MG fiction written in the 80s, where we didn't have cell phones or computers. A growing trend? or will authors come to grips with how to write about today's youth in a way that won't sound as dated as 80s contemporaty fiction does now?
One question that kept popping to mind was the question of who the readers are. Not of this book, but in general. He opens with an example of a class in short stories he taught that didn't work because the students lacked the ability to focus on anything "dense" (my word, not his), anything that required thought and slow exploration. That's probably true today, but even 30 years ago it wasn't easy to get into Henry James. Ditto 50... 70 years ago. People may have owned James' books, but did they read them (much like people bought Hawking's A Brief History of Time, but it's unlikely many read, much less fully understood it). So is there really something to mourn here?
It's definitely an issue that needs to be revisited every so often: what is the affect of all this interactivity? is it really 'good', or is it somehow changing society in ways we don't like/need/will regret? His comments about literature, and how historical fiction enables modern writers to give their characters more of an inner life also resonated, as I'm seeing more and more YA and MG fiction written in the 80s, where we didn't have cell phones or computers. A growing trend? or will authors come to grips with how to write about today's youth in a way that won't sound as dated as 80s contemporaty fiction does now?
amynbell's review against another edition
3.0
I thought I would agree more with this author bemoaning the fate of reading since I see first-hand in teaching American literature how few of my students actually read ... or have ever read a book for that matter. As the author says, it's true that many people in the youngest generations are more comfortable with television, movies, and the internet than they are with a book. It's true that students seem to more often have difficulty understanding literature without being guided through it. I often find myself surprised that students don't know how to use an index or card catalog and depend on google and wikipedia for everything. Sometimes I think technology is making people lazier and causing less people to read. But I think this author has taken these ideas to extremes.
Perhaps the author is more extreme in his views since he's writing in 1994 when the internet, for most of us, was a fairly new concept. Unfortunately, this author comes across as a technophobe who thinks that authors should still be using typewriters and who cannot see that hyperlinks on the computer screen are the same as footnotes, endnotes, and indexes made more user-friendly. He hopes that the world will refuse these new ways of conveying information because it's no longer the static words on a page that he's used to.
Unfortunately, the author chose to see technology as creating a doom and gloom future. He did not use any sort of empirical data to back up his conjectures. I would really like to see someone write a book that includes actual research on these ideas instead of just the fears of a man who feels more comfortable behind the pages of a book than in front of a computer screen.
Perhaps the author is more extreme in his views since he's writing in 1994 when the internet, for most of us, was a fairly new concept. Unfortunately, this author comes across as a technophobe who thinks that authors should still be using typewriters and who cannot see that hyperlinks on the computer screen are the same as footnotes, endnotes, and indexes made more user-friendly. He hopes that the world will refuse these new ways of conveying information because it's no longer the static words on a page that he's used to.
Unfortunately, the author chose to see technology as creating a doom and gloom future. He did not use any sort of empirical data to back up his conjectures. I would really like to see someone write a book that includes actual research on these ideas instead of just the fears of a man who feels more comfortable behind the pages of a book than in front of a computer screen.
djinn_n_juice's review against another edition
1.0
I probably shouldn't even talk about this book considering I didn't read the entire thing...what would VirJohn think? But, I will have the self-restraint to not give it a star rating. Instead, I'll just respond to it.
I've read a few of the most applicable chapters from this book, and have adapted it into a lit review, but I might be missing aspects of Birkerts' argument. However, this is what I've picked up from what I read: Birkerts isn't optimistic about what the internets are going to do to teh litrature! NOT TEH LITRATURE! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Because, you know, once writers can do stuff like randomly link to other texts in the middle of a piece of writing, and redirect you to other texts, the linearity, and to a certain extent, the control of the author is moved increasingly into the hands of the reader. The reading experience is, in Birkerts' opinion, less linear, less challenging (because you can change gears more quickly).
But yo. How many of us read everything straight through? When I'm about halfway through a book, I flip to the end and read the last sentence, and ponder how we'll get to that sentence from here, or what that sentence might reveal. When I'm reading anything academic...like Birkerts' book....I flip around in a self-serving fashion, not especially concerned with taking in everything homeboy says chronologically. THIS IS HOW PEOPLE READ: HOWEVER THEY FLIPPIN WANT TO. So, the distinction Birkerts and many other scholars are making seems entirely superfluous to me.
But, what do I know? I'm such a goddamned anarchist it's not funny. I say, teach the highschoolers Tupac and Snoop Dogg if it can teach them to think critically. Hell, teach them Angelic Upstarts and Cockney Rejects, too. As this website illustrates very clearly, you can think critically about crap, and you can think uncritically about Literature. So, I think of literature as a bit of a myth, generated for simplicity: certain things are worth reading, while others aren't. This makes things much easier for English majors, and it perpetuates the need to print books that are of a higher quality, but don't sell as many copies. Don't get me wrong: this is a good thing. But...where am I going with this. Okay, I was tangenting. Back on topic.
The idea that critical thinking comes from viewing certain forms of art and not others is a myth. Kat proves this with her reviews, as does Keely, as do many other people on goodreads. And, it's this same sort of mentality of valuing the familiar over the unfamiliar that perpetuates the myth that you only learn while reading that which is academically approved. Fuck the academy, and fuck anyone who thinks they can point out what really counts as "literature" and what doesn't.
So, yeah, fuck this Birkerts guy.
I've read a few of the most applicable chapters from this book, and have adapted it into a lit review, but I might be missing aspects of Birkerts' argument. However, this is what I've picked up from what I read: Birkerts isn't optimistic about what the internets are going to do to teh litrature! NOT TEH LITRATURE! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Because, you know, once writers can do stuff like randomly link to other texts in the middle of a piece of writing, and redirect you to other texts, the linearity, and to a certain extent, the control of the author is moved increasingly into the hands of the reader. The reading experience is, in Birkerts' opinion, less linear, less challenging (because you can change gears more quickly).
But yo. How many of us read everything straight through? When I'm about halfway through a book, I flip to the end and read the last sentence, and ponder how we'll get to that sentence from here, or what that sentence might reveal. When I'm reading anything academic...like Birkerts' book....I flip around in a self-serving fashion, not especially concerned with taking in everything homeboy says chronologically. THIS IS HOW PEOPLE READ: HOWEVER THEY FLIPPIN WANT TO. So, the distinction Birkerts and many other scholars are making seems entirely superfluous to me.
But, what do I know? I'm such a goddamned anarchist it's not funny. I say, teach the highschoolers Tupac and Snoop Dogg if it can teach them to think critically. Hell, teach them Angelic Upstarts and Cockney Rejects, too. As this website illustrates very clearly, you can think critically about crap, and you can think uncritically about Literature. So, I think of literature as a bit of a myth, generated for simplicity: certain things are worth reading, while others aren't. This makes things much easier for English majors, and it perpetuates the need to print books that are of a higher quality, but don't sell as many copies. Don't get me wrong: this is a good thing. But...where am I going with this. Okay, I was tangenting. Back on topic.
The idea that critical thinking comes from viewing certain forms of art and not others is a myth. Kat proves this with her reviews, as does Keely, as do many other people on goodreads. And, it's this same sort of mentality of valuing the familiar over the unfamiliar that perpetuates the myth that you only learn while reading that which is academically approved. Fuck the academy, and fuck anyone who thinks they can point out what really counts as "literature" and what doesn't.
So, yeah, fuck this Birkerts guy.
fictionesque's review against another edition
5.0
should be required reading, really. or maybe I just wish everyone FELT compelled to read this.
pilgrimbookstore89's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.25