The Sensuality of Books

I have at best a cynical reaction to reading devices such as Amazon’s Kindle as seen above. I can understand the advantages of such technology for people who have a handicap for which these devices are a boon. My mother is one such person and she would enjoy the ability to read her beloved books again. For everyone else, however, I mourn the loss of the sensory and tactile enjoyment of holding an actual book with pages in your hand. I didn’t have this reaction to books on tape or later, CD-ROM because I could see some universal advantage in that both for people who may have a handicap preventing traditional reading and for people who would like this as entertainment while driving over long distances. Obviously, not the time to hold a book in your hands.

Beyond the hopefully entertaining story held within, the sensual nature of books is one of the reasons I enjoy reading so much. I love the smell of new books fresh from Borders, Powell’s, Books-A-Million or Barnes and Noble. I love the smell of old books from small, independent stores that buy and resell old books, a great resource to find tomes that have long since been out of print to public or school libraries. I even enjoy the smell of magazines, even those without all the parfum and cologne samplers stuck inside and of course, newspapers. The feel of the paper as I turn the page, even the glossies. I can remember what I read better from an actual paper page than from a webpage, even as I blog like crazy and read international newspapers online. But I still keep a traditional diary and buying a newspaper a couple times a week. I would love to have parchment, a fountain pen or a quill and ink to write with. This from a member of the MTV generation.

I recall an episode of one of my absolutely favorite, geek fangirl shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The librarian Rupert Giles, who I consider very handsome and fuels some of my more erotic dreams, had a conversation about the difference between computers and paper print with the school’s gorgeous computer science teacher Jenny Calendar. Mr. Giles was very adamant against using computers as a research source and really did not want anything to do with them at all. Ms. Calendar asked him why he was so bothered by them and he told her because of their smell. She replies that computers do not smell. He agreed, saying:

I know. Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower, or a…a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell musty and…and…and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is a – it, uh, it has no…no texture, no…no context. It’s..it’s there and then it’s gone. If it’s to last, then…then the getting of knowledge should be, uh, tangible, it should be, um, smelly.

Amazon Kindle and others of its generation don’t smell and for me the reading done on it will be fleeting. I’m saddened by the idea that in less than five years time, most likely, major newspapers will cease to exist outside of their online forms. In another twenty years, if we really do establish a nationwide broadband system, even small town newspapers will be digitized. I am not opposed to the development of technology, I’m not that much of a Luddite, but to quote Giles again, I don’t have the “knee-jerk assumption that just because something is new, it’s better”. I think society on the whole has this reaction of new=better and quite honestly it doesn’t always.

The scent of the printed word, be it musty or fresh, tells its own story. Especially in libraries and vintage bookstores where the books have been borrowed, bought, sold, and have the smell of life. Yellowed pages, the random fingerprint or two, pages dog-eared, passages underlined or highlighted, comments written in the margins…even if the information or the story the book holds is boring or out of date or whatever, its less than pristine status is far more exciting. That book has probably had more of a life, and has traveled more places than the average person. The book has been appreciated for sure.