Over the last few days--okay, I'll be honest, in the last month--I have become a Amazon Kindle shop-aholic. I can admit it. My favorite thing to do is scour through the countless e-books that Kindle has to offer. There is, unfortunately, a problem with this: many of the books that pop up have yet to be published. At first glance, this isn't bad--it gives people like me, and countless others, the chance to have their work broad-casted across the internet. The problem begins to arise once you begin to read...the grammar is horrendous, the structure of the page even more so; the plot lacks all originality and I barely make it ten pages in before I delete the book off my iPad for good.
Now, before anyone jumps down my back, as I said before: having the chance to show one's work is not the problem, but the lack of professionalism in some of these e-books is. One thing that the author of "The Mappist" loves, is the eloquence and perfection that Mr. Benefideo's work exudes. It is because he takes the time to give his work the attention that it deserves--he spent 15 years on a series of maps and we left with the impression that his work will continue. Granted, I'm not saying that we should spend our entire lives on the development of one book, but when it comes to writing, or publishing, I think the wait is integral. It might just be me, but I think that as the age of e-books continues, we have the chance to make it what we want. Nostalgia aside, it doesn't matter whether the information is being processed on paper or on a digital screen, but time and effort should not be shoved to the back burner for the sake of putting out content that is less than satisfactory.
In addition, I apologize for the rant, but I felt it was necessary if only because I getting a little frustrated about the e-books I stumble across that can't even distinguish "their" and "there." =(
-Maria
"I'm not saying that we should spend our entire lives on the development of one book"
ReplyDelete—Why not? This used to be not so uncommon. And many people, still, dedicate their lives to a single project or theme. (Outsider artists come to mind: those artists who spend their lives working on some gigantic, sprawling, never-ending artwork that is often discovered only after the artist has died.) What would it mean to devote ourselves to single projects, in a digital medium or new media form ? Would this be possible?
Also: "The Mappist" is a short story; the narrator is not the author. And the maps in question are fictitious—perhaps for a reason that is important to our discussion of "The Library of Babel."