Connections

When Dante addressed his readers, O tu che leggi…O you who read, he wrote to a very limited readership– only the wealthy had the time and leisure for an education. And at that, the language the literate did read was Latin. Dante wrote the Commedia in the Italian vernacular.   According to Erich Auerbach, it wasn’t until Dante’s time that ordinary language in medieval Europe had an alphabet. The door creaked open to modern literacy.

As importantly, Dante established a relationship between the author and the reader by speaking directly to the reader—for the first time according to Professor Auerbach. The distance between poet and reader diminished accordingly while the literary world expanded, both organic and large in reach. Even so, it was slow going as all copies of the Commedia are in manuscript until 1472. But still, the connection was made between the author and a growing readership.

There were approximately 140 years between the writing of the Commedia and Gutenberg’s invention of moveable type. The printing press distanced the writer from his readers—and not only by adding middlemen.  To get to the point (and jump ahead 540 years or so), now we have ebooks and their corollaries, ezines, which are a huge step in the direction of providing books that are easy to distribute and save. The devices, I’m told, aren’t even that expensive, so many people living in small quarters are able to download a lot of books, thereby maintaining a shelfless library. The medium is always changing–reducing size and increasing readership through faster distribution. Several library shelves fit into a small plastic box. The writer disconnects from the reader while the reader connects to the internet. And now the synapse between writer and reader widens—more readers, but a greater degree of separation. It’s almost a respiratory process, if I may mix my metaphors.

More and more digitized poetry, stories and art are available to a general public because almost everyone has access to a computer. I had considered the material in ezines to be ephemeral just because they are so intangible, so unmolecular. Flash fiction is just that “Flash!” and it’s gone—excited electrons are always in a hurry. Yes, the artwork is often saved in “archives.” “Archive” is an analog way of saying “back in the stacks.” You have to be looking in the right place with the right criteria and a functioning search engine to find these electrons now frozen in space and time. A new poem or story rapidly takes the place of the old –old here meaning a week or so old.

But the results are the same whether the reader has a book or an electronic device—you still have to look for anything no longer current no matter what type of search engine you use. So, it boils down to the writer’s and reader’s connection preferences:

1.  Choice of media: Last year I wrote to Ravenna Third Place books (on their Facebook page of course).  My point was that real books are organic and have visceral connections with other ways of thinking and living.  They are, usually anyway, created from organic materials.  The word “book” comes from the Old English which comes in turn from the use of beech wood sticks on which to inscribe runes.  The Latin word, liber as well as the Greek word, biblos, means book, and they both are likewise etymologically related to ancient words for the inner bark of trees and papyrus. We have thousands of years of connection with organic books and only a few years with plastic machines. I prefer turning the leaves of the book and leafing through its pages.  Granted, ebook manufacturers have made the machine as book-like as possible—i.e. I’m told that you can read it in daylight and you need a book light to read at night—nice touch at verisimilitude.

On the other hand I looked online for TS Eliot’s first American publication of “The Wasteland” in “The Dial” (November, 1922). A quick search failed to find it—I don’t think that issue has been digitized. But I do have and cherish a copy of that issue on my shelves within easy fondle. In the same issue are Ezra Pound, WB Yeats, Brancusi and Pablo Picasso. Individually, those artists’ works can be found on the internet, but nowhere do I find them all in one place except my 89 year old brown paper copy. Touching that page of history is not going to happen on a plastic screen.

2.  Speed:  there is the undeniable fact that ezines can reach a big public in a big hurry. One editor of this zine told me that in a couple of months they had just over 4,000 unique hits and over 28,000 pageviews (whatever they are), on this site. The average time on the site is about 3 minutes. So, there are many readers on the run who have 3 minutes to spare. Some people can read a lot in 3 minutes, but I’m only good for a quick scan of a story or poem in that amount of time. I probably ratchet up the average time spent a couple of notches.

3.  Meeting in the middle: Just last year Timothy Green, editor of “Rattle,” wrote to “Poetry” magazine’s editors the following: “Your 30,000 subscribers is proof that there will always be a place for poetry as a physical object, and that digital media can enhance the experience at the same time as it expands readership.” The separation between art and artist is still large while the connection between literature and its readership approaches immediacy. Getting people to read, even in 3 minute bites, or 1 megabyte at a sit, is the important issue.

For art on the go, emedia is the quick way to go both for reader and for writer. I do appreciate the speed of electronics in reaching a public, but on the other hand I also prefer a physical page with real ink on it when I settle in for a serious read. I can read a short poem or story on-line with emphasis here on “short”. But, speaking of the very limited audience that started this essay, I cannot imagine reading “Ulysses” digitally—unless, of course, there are hyper-links to Gifford & Seidman’s “Ulysses Annotated.”