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Judging books by their covers: An examination of

books as auratic objects in a digital era.

Nicola Rodger, B. Communication (Professional Communication)

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Honours of

Bachelor of Communication

Supervisor Dr. Linda Daley

Design and Social Context Portfolio, RMIT

October 2008

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Contents

Summary……………………………………………………. 3

Statement of authorship………………………………… 4

Acknowledgment………………………………………… 5

Introduction

Prologue…………………………………………………….. 6

Chapter 1

The future and the past of the

book………………………………………………………….. 13

Chapter 2

Contextualising the book through space, ritual and

design………………………………………………………… 23

Chapter 3

Some cultural consequences of reinventing the

book………………………………………………………….. 47

Conclusion

Epilogue……………………………………………………... 54

Bibliography…………………………………………………. 58

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Summary

Affection for the book has prompted me to examine why we are so

attracted to its paper form. This work is also a search for terms that

explain this attraction. I explore why books matter enough for us to want

them to be matter.

In the digital era, the role and the future of the book is said to be either

facing an uncertain future or a certain future of demise. Our desire to

interact with the sensual properties of books, however, could inspire their

continued production.

This desire could in turn stem from the book’s ‘auratic’ qualities, an idea

which Walter Benjamin elaborates in his essay The Work of Art in the Age

of Mechanical Reproduction. I reinterpret Benjamin’s definition of ‘aura’

in recognition of our ability to create and consume texts without ever

turning them into physical objects. This is an affordance of recent digital

technologies.

Furthermore, I explore the concepts of space, patina, ritual and value to

discover that each individual book is capable of absorbing (and

reflecting) its interactions with human bodies and environments. A book’s

unique biography makes it a unique object.

Material culture is a recurring framework, helping me to explore (and to

justify an exploration of) books as objects in our everyday lives. The books

with which we surround ourselves are said to speak volumes about us as

owners but we should also realise that such covers reveal more about

the book itself that just a title.

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Statement of authorship

This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award

of any other degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution, and that,

to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously

published or written by another person, except where due reference is

made in the text of this thesis.

Nicola Rodger

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr Linda Daley for being so generous

with her time. She began supervising me long before it was officially

required and my thesis is much stronger for her continued guidance and

concern. Together we came up with a topic and ways of thinking that

has sustained my interest and passion to its final word.

Thank you to the labsome class members, who provided interesting

perspective and helped give me a social environment to discuss the

broader points of my project. My particular gratitude goes to Linda Wall

and labsome coordinator Adrian Miles.

Thank you to my sister, Samantha, for her support through the last and

most intense few months of the thesis. Her quiet assistance may have

gone un-remarked but was not unnoticed.

Thank you to my parents, for fostering in me my own love of books.

My final and warmest thank you to Nicolas Walker. My work is sharper

and my mind saner for his wit, wisdom and unreserved friendship. Merci

infiniment.

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JUDGING BOOKS BY THEIR COVERS:

An examination of books as auratic objects in a digital era

INTRODUCTION: Prologue

As all things digital are increasingly embraced and integrated into our daily lives, what

prompts us to hold on to more traditional technologies? This thesis examines what

perpetuates interest in and attachment to the tangible paper form of the book in a digital

era. As techniques of the digital book become fine tuned, will there continue to be a

place for paper books in our daily lives? Our everyday lives are filled with physical

objects. Material culture offers a framework with which to investigate such objects and

their roles within both historical and spatial contexts. By concerning myself with the

meanings books can acquire as objects, separate to their role as containers of ideas, I

broaden the discussion from the literal advantages of the digital book to one that also

pays heed to the (often sentimental) attachment people have to books within their spaces.

Some useful points of reference for my project have been Judy Attfield’s Wild Things

(2000), Brenda Danet’s Books, Letters, Documents (1997), and Chaim Noy’s 2008

essay Mediation Materialized: The Semiotics of a Visitor Book at an Israeli

Commemoration Site. All of these works, in their varying ways, use material culture as

a means of examining their subject matter and all study books as objects at some point

in their work. These works are also relatively contemporary, and reflect changing

approaches to cultural studies. By highlighting the effective use of material culture

studies in these works, I will show that it is also an appropriate framework for my own

project. I begin with Attfield, because her work is the broadest: encompassing a

rejection of technological determinism and adopting similar ideas to those defined in

Walter Benjamin’s (1936) ‘aura’. Danet, meanwhile, explicitly examines paper textual

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documents in a digital era. Finally, Noy’s work demonstrates the impact of space upon a

book.

Judy Attfield’s Wild Things (2000) examines some ephemeral objects of our everyday

lives in an attempt to explain why people feel that objects can display the owner’s

individuality. Examining the symbolism of an object could be likened to Attfield’s call

to ‘open up some ways of thinking about the meaningfulness of things in the context of

everyday life’ (2000, xiii). Her project discusses how mechanically (re)produced objects

contribute towards making the world ‘a human place’ (2000: 1). Her project is relevant

because she too, is interested in ‘the physical object in all its materiality … design,

making, distributing, consuming, using, discarding, recycling …’ (2000: 3). Attfield

frequently uses the same terms as Benjamin to describe objects, indicating more than a

superficial alignment of material culture with his auratic theories.

Attfield also neatly demonstrates why and how the study of material culture links so

strongly to a multi-faceted model of technology as put forward by Raymond Williams

(1989), and the more recent work of Stephen Riggins (1994). This is done by grounding

her work in ‘how things have gone through all these stages as part of the mediation

process between people and the physical world at different stages in their biographies’

(2000: 3). The use of the term biography here is quite interesting, implying animation of

previously inanimate objects, and I will return later to discuss its significance.

Attfield synthesises the ideas of material culture with a rejection of technological

determinism. Neither material culture nor technological non-determinism assumes an

object’s inherent significance or role. Both refer back constantly to the object’s context,

whether historical and/or spatial, to discover this. Following Friedrich Nietzsche (1910),

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both approaches reject the notion of a fixed point of origin that can be returned to, to

provide definitive answers.

Secondly, the goals of Danet’s Books, Letters, Documents (1997) are similar to my own

examination of the materiality of books. Danet examines ‘the nature of our lived

experience of texts as taken in by all the senses’ (1997:6); that is, the phenomenological

impact of books as we experience them in our everyday life. Her aim is to explore how

computer technology may be eroding these sensual experiences with the page.

Interestingly, Danet chose books as one of her objects of inquiry because she deems

them an ‘obvious symbol of print culture’ (1997: 7). The context I am emphasising is

not so much that of production as consumption. By doing so, I recognise that objects

continue to assume different roles throughout their biography; their meaning is not fixed

at the moment of production. An object’s significance can only be understood by

observing the way people use that object to construct meanings around themselves

(Miller, 1998). Despite this difference between production and consumption, the useful

commonalities of her project to mine remain.

Thirdly, Noy’s Mediation Materialized (2008), investigates how the particular

materiality of a guestbook and its placement within a commemoration site affects its

patterns of use. Thus the book is thoroughly examined in the context of its consumption

(which, in the exceptional case of a guest book, is also a part of its productive context).

Furthermore, Noy strenuously sets aside the content of the book in his analysis for a

separate project. At times he deems it necessary to refer to the content, but this is done

more to ponder the impact of inscription. Noy uses Jacques Derrida’s (1987) argument

that ‘meaning does not lie solely in the text, if at all’ (2008: 191). His project is about

the book’s physicality, its spatial context and how these elements affect people’s

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engagement with the book as an object. Attfield, Danet and Noy, in their similar

(although also different) ways set a precedent for examining the book as an object that

has a social biography made meaningful by the experiences of the book-as-object at the

various sites of its consumption.

Recent debate has argued for cultural studies to be more holistic in its analysis of

artefacts (Appadurai, 1986: Attfield, 2000; Miller, 1998). Material culture studies are

therefore a combination of many different disciplines, including design, anthropology,

epistemology and ethnography. In Why Some Things Matter (1998) Daniel Miller points

out that the term ‘matter’ in his book’s title was a very deliberate choice of word.

Paraphrasing Simmel (1968), Miller says ‘… human values do not exist other than

through their objectification in cultural terms’ (in Miller, 1998: 19). Thus a further aim

of my project is to investigate what values the material form of the book may represent.

Conversely, I am also seeking to investigate what it is about the material book that

makes it a valuable object.

It is important to realise in resisting the digitisation of the book that the contemporary

book is already a form of technology. Putting batteries and a screen together does not

suddenly make books ‘technology’; they already are. To explain this idea more fully, I

refer to the work of Williams (1989) and Riggins (1994). According to Williams,

technology does not exist on its own, nor is there anything innate about technology that

forces certain use patterns. Technology begins as a technique or set of knowledges.

Experimentation and investment produces a technical invention. From there,

engineering, further investment, marketing and design turn it into a fully-fledged form

of technology. This third stage is accompanied by advertising, skills training, marketing

and involves much more than just the invention. In the first chapter, a history of the

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book will demonstrate how it has undergone these three stages, repeatedly, to become

the technological paper object we recognise today.

Similar to Williams, Riggins is critical of historians who analyse material objects

outside the context of ‘human intentions’ (1994: 29). Such analysis renders material

things ‘passive’ vehicles (1994: 111, 112, 210), subject to the constant motions of

society. Riggins suggests that it is much more useful to consider the symbiotic and

constantly shifting relationship between things and people. Paul Graves-Brown’s

Matter, Materiality and Modern Culture (2000) extends this idea, describing objects as

gaining lives of their own, ‘animated by their passage through the lives of people’

(2000: 5). Thus the biography of the book’s owners also becomes the biography of the

book itself. Not only are books an example of this technological and social symbiosis,

they also gain animation through this exchange. Furthermore, the ability of the book to

become animated through its biography can contribute significantly to its value, either

economically or sentimentally.

The idea that the book is already a technological form gaining meaning from its social

context and relationships is central to this project. Williams’s rejection of technical

determinism supports a study of technology that takes into account the surrounding life

of the object. Igor Kopytoff (1968) comments that, ‘biographies of things can make

salient what might otherwise remain obscure’ (cited in Appadurai, 1986: 67). Two

aspects of this claim are intriguing − the importance (once again) of studying ‘things’ in

context to gain fuller insight into their significance and also the idea of an object having

a biography. If an inanimate object like the book can gain a chronology through its

social history, beyond its own historical trajectory of being a published work, it goes

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some way towards supporting that an object can have presence, charisma or again, in

Benjamin’s terms, ‘aura’ (1936).

Recent works in material culture also stress the importance of studying objects within

culture, instead of separate to culture (Attfield, 2000; Graves-Brown, 2000; Miller, 1998

Noy, 2008). This distinction is important to material culture projects because to study an

object out of context can sometimes invite criticisms of fetishism. Many theorists within

material culture explicitly seek to circumvent accusations of fetishising their objects of

inquiry. An object of fetish is defined as ‘something, especially an inanimate object, that

is believed in certain cultures to be the embodiment or habitation of a spirit or magical

powers’ (Collins Australian Dictionary, 2003). At first, the term fetish would appear to

aptly describe the relationship between the book and my examination of its sensuality

and physical properties. However to fetishise something is in fact to remove the object

from its typical or everyday context, the very obverse of a material culture approach to

the book. Leora Anderson says, ‘the everyday is sensual, bodily, emotional and

intellectual’ (1996: 3). The book is all of these elements, and this thesis addresses each

element in turn.

This thesis has been divided into three broad sections. I begin with an exploration a

perceived threat to paper books, the e-reader.1 The e-reader is positioned at the juncture

of two technological genealogies: books and computers. The analogue technology of the

paper book has been merged with the elements of computers that are most suited to

mimicking the convenience of conventional books. From here I trace the book from its

earliest form of the clay tablet through to the familiar codex form of today: words

inscribed on paper, binocular in its layout, and pages that are glued or stitched at the

1 E-readers are digital hardware on which to read electronic text. E-books are software, programs that are read via e-readers. I do not use the term e-reader to describe those that read e-books.

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spine. This will show the book as a changing technological object. Chapter two

discusses the spatial context of books and examines Walter Benjamin’s (1936) idea of

aura, including a detailed examination of typical (and ever shifting) book rituals. This

establishes how meaning can occur through the consumption of books. Consuming the

book includes everything we do with a book, not just reading it. All of these other

processes often hollow books of their content. This separation of form and function

transforms books into objet d’art and speaks of their representational capacity. In

chapter three, I further explore this relationship between culture and object, examining

how print culture may impact on the book.

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CHAPTER ONE: The Future and the Past of the Book

The Digital Paradigm

As we enter the twenty-first century our lives seem increasingly given over to the

digital: digital clocks, televisions, radios, music players, cameras, recorders, cash

registers, watering systems ... the proliferation continues. Books appear to be one of the

last bastions of analogue technology, yet even they are becoming digital. My thesis

examines why there might be resistance to this process of literary digitisation and how

the paper book will respond to it. It seems pertinent, however, to begin this discussion

with an examination of what the paper book is responding to. The Amazon Kindle is

one of the latest examples of e-reader technology. Many of its defining features are

shared with other e-readers, thus it is sufficient to discuss just one example of this

digital book technology.

The Amazon Kindle

The Kindle is slim, white, rectangular, light (300 grams) and smaller in dimensions than

the average paperback novel. Two-thirds of the device is devoted to the screen, the

remaining third is a miniature QWERTY keyboard. Its screen shows just one page at a

time, instead of the typical double-page spread of the codex book. This encourages a

shift from two-handed reading to one-handed reading. It is light enough to be read one-

handed, with the thumb on a large side button to ‘turn’ the page.

The Kindle utilises advances in electronic ink technology, giving the screen a paper-like

appearance. The lack of backlighting means two things for its user: one, the screen is

viewable in full sunlight, and two, the battery capacity is increased. Increasing the

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battery capacity and the efficiency of the Kindle has made it significantly lighter than

previous e-readers. As Livewire reviewer Charles Wright (2008: 22) describes its

advantages, a battery that lasts 8,000 page turns means War and Peace six times over.

These advances suggest that the latest e-readers will have more success than their

counterparts of eight years ago.

It appears as though the Kindle’s aim is to turn a book into a computer, instead of a

computer into a book. The social implication of this distinction is that instead of trying

to convert people’s use patterns so that we read when and where we would ordinarily

use a computer (e.g. read a book at our computer table) we use a computer when we

would ordinarily read a book (e.g. use the Kindle to do some reading in bed). The birth

of e-books was widely heralded eight years ago (2008: 23), but flaws quickly occurred

in all stages of Williams’s technological model: the machines were heavy, the

marketing was ineffective and booksellers failed to change their tactics for the change in

medium (Wright, 2008). The traditional technology of the paper book prevailed.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, is aware that the book in its codex form remains quite

competitive technology to e-readers. ‘The physical book is so highly evolved and so

elegantly suited to its purpose that it’s hard to improve on’ (Rose, 2007). Bezos and his

engineers isolated what they viewed as the key feature of the codex book form: it

disappears as you read it. The conventional technique of a book is so well designed that

it allows the reader to focus on its content, on the words and images. This feature is

described by Elizabeth Edwards and Janice Hart as ‘material transparency’ (2004: 6).

Although their work concerns photographic objects, I think this term is equally

applicable to the book. Material transparency, therefore, became Amazon’s key design

goal.

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While there are objections from many quarters over e-readers,2 Bezos makes an

interesting point when he says, ‘it makes no sense that printing on dead trees is the final

evolution of books’ (Rose, 2007). To place a Williamsesque critique over Bezos’

comment, there is nothing inherently wrong with dead trees being the final evolution of

the book. The reason why it makes no sense is because the society that surrounds the

technology of the book is changing. In a digital era, the paper book frequently no longer

represents or accomplishes what it once did.

There are other features, however, that a book certainly does not possess that the Kindle

does. Bezos concedes: ‘We can’t out-book the book. We have to look for things that we

can do with this technology that you could never do with a paper book instead of trying

to duplicate every last feature’ (Rose, 2007). Some of these digital features include: the

ability to stretch text, allowing for note taking within the text; ‘dog-earing’ pages; and

highlighting and searching the text for key words and phrases. Some of these features

can literally be performed in a codex book, but require more time, energy and breach

the taboo that comes with deliberately and permanently marking books. Publishers are

also trying to make the digital book experience more pleasurable for readers whose

reading habits are closely related to the codex print book. One publisher added a

chronology of Jane Austen’s life, some recipes and historical notes to its e-book Pride

and Prejudice (Wright, 2008: 23). Such additions are made in an attempt to make up for

various shortcomings of the digital book when compared with the paper form.3 As

Wright notes, the consumer must be compensated for giving up the tactile familiarity of

the printed page (2008: 23).

2 ‘The traditionalist recoil from digitisation is easy to understand. Nightmarish images of barren libraries and deserted bookshops fill booklovers everywhere with dread’ (Eastwood, 2008). 3 Educational publishing companies such as Norton have been adding such features for years, however such additions can often make the paper book heavier and more cumbersome. This is not a problem for the digital book.

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Are such additions and features enough to convince book readers to convert? In a large

number of cases, the answer will be yes. The following history of the book will

demonstrate that many of the factors in the evolution of the book are reoccurring. Just as

the ability to write did not make speaking redundant (Ong, 1982), nor photographs

make paintings obsolete, I argue that neither will the proliferation of digital books sound

the death knell of the paper book.4

From Clay to Wood Pulp: a brief history of the changing forms and publication

methods of the book

This summation of book history could also be described as a genealogy of the book

which means a historical approach that is not simply a chronology of the book’s

physical form, but also includes some of the surrounding institutional practices and

physical infrastructures of the book in relation to its evolution. Removed from societal

patterns of use, there is no inevitable path that the book has, or indeed will, follow.

Michel Foucault (1977), who prefers the term genealogy to history, calls for a gathering

of ‘erudite knowledge and local memories’ (in Seidman, 1994: 42) in the construction

of a genealogy so that such knowledge can be used to inform future decisions. Even

returning to the very first form of the book will not provide answers about an ultimate

origin; such a task is not the aim of a genealogy. There is no single point of origin, just a

merging of societal, political, institutional, personal and environmental factors. Thus a

historical account of the book with an eye on the book’s future must pay heed to all of

these concerns. Foucault’s genealogical method is consistent with Williams’s

understanding of communication technologies and this project’s rejection of

4 In Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris (Hunchback of Notre Dame), the Archdeacon Claude Frollo asked himself whether the Bible would destroy the Church: ‘Ceci tuera cela?’ (Will this murder that?)

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technological determinism. Foucault’s approach to history could even be described as a

rejection of historical determinism.

One of the most notable features of the modern book is the ease with which we can

transport it. This tradition of writing that can be moved from location to location began

with clay tablets. While the clay was soft, it was inscribed and then fired at a high

temperature to preserve the text and protect the clay from melting. The wax tablet

followed the clay tablet; allowing for writing to be erased and the tablet reused. Wax

tablets were a popular device with students and bookkeepers because of their reusable

nature (Febvre and Martin, 1976; O’Donnell, 1998; Steinberg, 1979). According to

book historian James O’Donnell, ‘… writing began on stone, but became a useful

vehicle for the dissemination of information only when the technology of the papyrus

scroll … was perfected’ (1998: 50).

Papyrus is produced by removing moisture from the inside of papyrus reeds and

pressing them together. Despite its elegance, the form of the scroll required a method of

use that was cumbersome (O’Donnell, 1998: 50). I have noted above that this project

eschews a technologically determinist perspective of inherent technological

shortcomings. There is no problem, per se, in a clay tablet being heavy or a papyrus

scroll being unwieldy. It is in fact the human patterns of use that place limitations on the

technique. Thus papyrus appeared to fall out of favour not so much because of its

materiality, but because a hiatus formed between the society-preferred patterns of use

and the use patterns dictated by the technology itself. Using scrolls was a difficult

process to master and meant that information was accessed in a decidedly linear

manner. Compared with the scroll, the book in the codex form as we know it today can

hold much greater amounts of more varied information within each unit.

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Medieval vellum (animal hide) manuscripts were grand feats of discipline: the

manuscript industry began largely with monks at monasteries copying out important

pious texts. The significant amount of effort and financial outlay required restricted

their ubiquity. Any privately owned manuscripts belonged to the extremely wealthy and

were sometimes bought as a status symbol. In 1403, the Duc de Berry had a staff of

artists under his patronage to whom he would turn for luxury manuscripts. He also

added to his deluxe collection from ‘commercial’ booksellers (Febvre and Martin 1986:

25). The existence of commercial booksellers would indicate that while the book market

was exclusive, book collecting is not a recent phenomenon.

The manuscript is the bridge between the first forms of writing and the mass-produced

book as we know it today. The increasing ease with which texts could be used by those

typically unfamiliar with them (as opposed to a lawyer, for example, who typically

memorised their seminal texts) was a crucial stage in the book’s development as an

object. The book’s role in the dispersion of knowledge depended upon the reader being

able to access information in a non-linear manner. In 1475, the title page was one of the

first things to change about a book’s format. One of the reasons why Febvre and Martin

are so interested in each part of the changing book’s form is because of the role it

played in indicating a shift in thought patterns and use processes. Books initially began

on the very first page, which unfortunately meant that this text was vulnerable to

disintegration. In response, printers started the text on the inside page and left the front

blank, or printed a short title on it (1986: 84).

Similarly, page numbers, one of the most useful reference tools of any book, did not

become typical until the beginning of the sixteenth century. This in turn changed the

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way books were used and the way information could be accessed. This could be either a

factor in, or in response to, greater public readership. Regardless, it is around the mid-

sixteenth century that smaller, more portable texts started becoming commonplace. The

miniaturisation of texts made them more difficult to read than large, folio format books.

The smaller books were also harder to cross-reference. For this reason, the scholastic

world still preferred the large, unwieldy folios up until the end of the seventeenth

century (1986: 86). This division in the book trade demonstrates the different use

practices of these groups.

The techniques of book binding and ornate cover decoration were casualties of the

proliferation of books. A combination of factors caused this, including a change in the

way books were displayed. No longer were books displayed with their covers featured,

either on a desk, table or bookstand. Instead they were stored on shelves, upright,

pushed together and with their spines outward. Reading became a more popular past

time. People wanted a more portable device, and the intricate leather bindings added to

a book’s weight and expense. Ultimately, books needed to be faster and cheaper to

produce to keep up with growing demand.

In the nineteenth century, one of the most significant changes to occur within the book

publishing industry was the continuing change in book binding practices. Changes to

bookbindings caused a revolution in terms of book prices and the lower prices increased

accessibility. Collecting ones own library truly took hold. Up until the 1820s, books still

arrived to the customer in the same way books had left medieval scriptoriums: in loose

sheets. Thus either the bookseller or the buyer had to bind the books themselves

between card boards covered with leather (Steinberg, 1979: 281). According to

Steinberg,

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Aldus Manutius was the first to sell his popular classics in standard covers; and the plain Aldine bindings, much admired today, must have struck his more fastidious contemporaries as shoddy fabrics unworthy of a gentleman’s library (1979: 281) .

But perhaps that was the point − they were not really destined for a gentleman’s library,

they were destined for the workingman’s shelf. In 1905, the publishers J.M Dent and

Ernest Rhys were considered to be attempting a revolutionary task by creating a hardy

library of ‘great’ books ‘affordable by the common man’ (Anderson, 2008). They called

their collection Everyman’s Library.

A final reason why books became cheaper, and could be printed at a greater rate, was a

change in papermaking materials − by the end of the 1850s, wood pulp instead of cotton

had become the main ingredient in paper (Steinberg, 1979: 282). Bodley Head became

one of the first publishers to produce ‘quality’ paperback literature cheaply and in doing

so created a brand that continues to market its association with literature: Penguin

Books (Penguin poster, 2008.) Cheap books existed prior to 1935, however there was

often an unfortunate correlation between the cheap quality of the materials and the

content within (2008).

The new Penguin book series…makes quite a revolutionary advance in book values. For sixpence you get…some of the best of modern authors, attractively bound and well presented (Red Bricks, 1936 cited on Penguin poster, 2008).

Books in this Penguin collection were the same price as a packet of cigarettes, and could

be purchased at most of the same locations such as chemists, train kiosks and

supermarkets (2008). Penguin has recently re-released some of these distinctive orange-

and-white books and added modern literature to the collection. Despite inflation, the

price of these books is still comparable to the price of a packet of cigarettes.

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While books remained expensive and exclusive, there seemed a direct correlation

between the quality of the materials and the quality of the content. As Susan Stewart

says, the book as both idea and object are difficult to separate, they are ‘meaning and

materiality at once’ (1993: 31). When collections like Penguin’s emerged they formed a

disjunction between form and content: the quality of the form no longer matched the

quality of the content.

In the digital era, this design and price cycle may begin again. With an increasing

number of books becoming digital, the books that remain in paper form will have

greater emphasis placed upon what they possess that electronic books do not. Design

and how to make the most of the physicality of the book will feature in that. As such,

the publishing stage of many books will arguably be returned to the artistic sector:

designers and artists will feature more heavily and prominently in the production of

books. This echoes the path of the book prior to the printing press:

So long as the production of books remained within the artisanal sector, a wide range of the population was denied access to them … before mass production, form and content presented an illusion of wholeness (Stewart, 1993: 34).

The increased artistry of books will once again push up the price in paper book

production, thus re-establishing the paper book’s exclusivity. By closing the gap

between form and content, the symbolism of such books could well increase also.

Examples of this artistry can already be seen, such as the latest cookbook from

Australian chef Maggie Beer. The covers are wrapped in padded fabric and embroidered

with a leafy tree that wraps around the entire tome. One book reviewer described it as a

‘tapestry’, so rich and heavy are the threads (Sullivan, 2008: 30). The cover materials

and intricate design pushed the price of the book up to $125 (2008:30).

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The expense of such artistic books will not, however, deter everyone from buying and

enjoying them. Their artistry is one of their defining features, an indulgence of the paper

form. Such books may well become a greater novelty, and some of the luxury medieval

books featured earlier in the book history demonstrate that despite prohibitive costs

books were collected anyway. History also shows that once quality content can be

provided cheaply, it begins to be adapted by an ever-widening audience. The Kindle

could well provide such an opportunity for even cheaper, quality content.

Befitting my genealogical approach to books, a discussion of surrounding social mores

and traditions (rituals) is essential. An exploration of spaces that surround the book’s

consumption offers this social, spatial context. Books are frequently consumed in

private social (spatial) spheres, such as the home. Until relatively recently these private

spaces were often considered unworthy subjects of study being the domain of women

and therefore frivolous (Attfield, 2004). Material culture, however, holds none of these

preconceptions and in fact understands that the consumption of an object will frequently

offer greater insight into society and individuals than examining the production of

objects (2004). To repeat Kopytoff’s (1968) term, the history was the book’s

genealogical ‘biography’, its life. We now turn to an exploration of the spaces in which

books live.

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CHAPTER TWO: Contextualising the book through space, ritual and design

Bordering spaces

A Foucauldian eschewal of historical determinism includes consideration of what

surrounds the book’s consumption. This offers greater insight into the past and,

importantly, the future of the book. Quite simply, what surrounds us when we consume

the book is space. What surrounds the book even when it is not being used, is space.

The influence of space upon books and upon the consumption of books changes

according to each spatial context.

The notion of space is highly dependent on how one defines borders, because it is the

borders that effectively delineate space. Space is conceptually nothing and everything

until borders are formed, thus creating a bordered space or place. Lyn Carter (2008)

defines a border as both denoting the physicality of a line or edge, as well as offering a

more metaphorical limit or definitional category. Most pertinent for my project is her

layered understanding of a border as defining ‘physical infrastructures, institutional

practices and socially constructed meanings that Soja (2005) suggests, are life’s spatial

regulators’ (Carter, 2008: 7). This definition of a border echoes Williams’s multifaceted

concept of technology as being much more than just the technique. To explain this in

relation to my project, it is the ‘social regulators’ that shape the form the book has taken

(and will continue to take), how we are expected to interact with the book, what the

book symbolises in our lives, even suggesting what is a socially acceptable way to

display our books. A literal definition would conclude that regulations that take place

within space constitute ‘spatial regulation.’ Such a definition, however, does not take

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into account that regulators can in fact act as borders to create and define space where

no physical borders are present.

Each individual book is also a bordered space unto itself. Consider Stewart’s comment:

‘… the book offers a concrete physical textuality, an ‘all-at-onceness’ of boundaries’

(1993:8) and Benedict Anderson: ‘each book has its own eremitic self-sufficiency’

(1991: 34). Here, Anderson refers to the idea that each book is a ‘distinct, self-contained

object’ (1991: 34), beginning at a front cover and ending at a back cover. He

differentiates the book from other early industrial commodities as ‘the first modern-

style mass-produced industrial commodity’ (1991:34). Unlike other commodities, it

makes no sense to go into a bookstore and ask for ‘two kilos of Shakespeare please’, the

same way we can ask for two kilos of beef. We must buy books in the units in which

they are already packaged (bordered).5 The ever-changing components in a book’s

‘package’ can also be described by Williams’s model of technology; it is reflective of

society’s usage patterns, preferences and changing aesthetics.

The name of the global American bookstore, Borders, then, is all too relevant to this

discussion. The space of the shop itself is physically bordered by walls. The behaviour

of customers within that space is delineated by the sectioning of the bookshelves,

roping-off of the registers, opening and closing hours, among others. What is deemed

acceptable consumer behaviour in a bookshop has changed over time both as a cause

and a result of evolving ‘physical infrastructures [and] institutional practices’ (Carter,

2008: 7). Armchairs and intra-bookshop cafes, for example, now make it acceptable to

browse at a very leisurely pace and for food and drink to be consumed in close

proximity to (unpurchased) books. Such a change is once again both a cause of and in

5 Increasingly, however, we are also encouraged to purchase our beef and other consumables in pre-packaged quantities.

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response to what is deemed appropriate behaviour around books and appropriate

behaviour within a commercial space. One notable shift in marketing techniques in this

example is making customers ‘feel at home’ and encouraging them to exhibit habits

typically performed only in private social spaces, such as relaxing in an armchair

undisturbed. We are invited to begin our process of consuming the book well before we

have, in fact, purchased it. Thus the space within borders affects both the way the book

holder interacts with the book and directly upon the book itself.

Space also impacts upon perceptions of the book. Following Riggins (1990), ‘the

amount of space separating objects is relevant to their meaning’ (1990: 356). For

Riggins, the number and amount of objects within a domestic space (such as a living

room) is indicative of the owner’s personality, social attitudes and values. For example,

to display a book, alone, on a coffee table is to give that particular book prominence. To

place that same book on a shelf with many other books removes the prominence of that

individual book, but the significant devotion of ‘dwelling space’ (1990: 356) to the

storage of books more generally gives books as objects importance.

Rituals of book consumption, although much changed, continue and take place across a

vast array of different locations. This depends on so many factors, such as the purpose

of the book, the lifestyle of the reader, the location of the publisher or the state of the

book. For example, an acknowledged delicate and rare text will only be read under

correct lighting with gloves, be placed on a table and will most likely be housed at an

institution of some kind such as a museum.

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Patina

For some books, such as the museum text above, demonstration of the book’s fallibility

lessens its economic value. The paper (or indeed, vellum) book is vulnerable to its

environment. The very nature of a book, designed to be touched and physically engaged

with, ultimately results in its disintegration. For some books, however, this outward

manifestation of the book’s biography increases their value. My personal affection for a

book increases with these signs that the book has lived with others before me. Edwards

and Hart describe these signs as ‘the scars of use’ (2004: 12). I argue that the term

‘scars’ has specifically ugly and negative connotations. Such signs of age could better

be described as patina, a term that allows for such marks to be considered beautiful.

Beauty is one of Benjamin’s criteria of aura, and is addressed in detail shortly.

A patina can be deliberately cultivated, through the addition of bookplates, inscriptions,

and dog-earing, for example. Or it can be a less deliberate, more organic process of

coffee-spills, mildew and baking powder. When books are ours, we are free to

encourage this patina. When they are not, we are expected to be vigilant to any

deliberate signs of use. Perhaps this explains Virginia Woolf’s affection for old books:

‘Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast

flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the

library lack’ (New Penguin Dictionary of Quotations, 1997). Here, ‘charm’ is

synonymous with patina.

In contrast with the paper form of the book, the Kindle is designed to rebuff such

physical traces of use. Its materiality is meant to protect the Kindle from coffee-spills

and crayon-scribble. This impermeability means the Kindle does not lend itself to

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acquiring patina. Arguably, patina of the Kindle can be cultivated, becoming a

personalised object in much the same way mobile phones have − with stickers,

Swarovski crystals, tiny hanging toys, ringtones, different colours − but this process

occurs to the object of the Kindle, not the e-books themselves. Thus while the physical

object, the Kindle, may become a loved object, it is important to remember that such

affection is transferred to the Kindle not to the text. The Kindle clearly separates form

and function (same machine, different content) in a way the bordered paper book does

not.

It has been seen that book spaces are important to consider in a material culture study of

books because they help to understand the context of the book’s consumption as an

object. The book exists within a space, indeed, a number of different spaces throughout

its life, and each space will add to the book, whether it is simply another stage in its

social biography, or an addition to the physical patina of the book, perhaps even adding

to the book metaphysically by imbuing it with the energy of that space. Edwards and

Hart describe objects being taken into religious spaces becoming ‘invested with

sanctity’ (2001: 13). A more contemporary example is that of a book belonging to a

celebrity which could undoubtedly be sold for much more than a brand new copy. Just

for having lived in the same space, it would be seen by some to have increased in value.

Its value would increase again if it showed a patina from being read by the famous

owner, from having come into contact with their body. Patina could also be described as

‘the marks of its history as an object’ (2001: 12).

The impact of bodies upon books is not the only way in which an object’s patina is

created. The space in which the book awaits its next use also causes changes to the

book. The dust that gathers day after day on the pages of a closed (or open) book will

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first nibble at any gilding before eventually eating away at the paper. Sunlight that falls

in a particular pattern everyday across the spines will fade the colours accordingly. Any

moisture in the room will be absorbed by the books, and circles of mildew will blossom

across the pages. All of these changes will affect how the book feels in the hand, how

the pages fall open, what the book sounds like when it is flicked through then shut, and

how the book smells. Second hand bookstores and undisturbed library shelves all have a

peculiar, musty, smell to them, a combination of all of these events multiplied out

hundreds of thousands of times. That smell is an olfactory reminder of the bodies and

spaces that have come into contact with the books and left their indelible marks all over

them.

One of the senses not engaged by the book is that of taste. Only the books of extremely

young children are waterproofed or built to withstand sucking. Beyond that, it is

culturally inappropriate and gastronomically unpleasant to lick or eat a book. The

relatively modern trend of the book café then, is either an ironic play or an attempt to

distort this boundary. This would come as no surprise to Francis Bacon, a sixteenth-

century philosopher who metaphorically suggested, ‘Some books are to be tasted, others

to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested’ (New Penguin Dictionary of

quotations 2006: 54). The book café simultaneously indulges and reinforces the

significance of the book. A recent Melbourne foodguide, Top 5 (Atkinson, 2008),

profiles eateries and divides them up according to ‘top 5 steakhouses’ or ‘top 5

butchers’ or ‘top 5 sushi bars.’ Such an idea is not new, but their categories of ‘Bookish

Bites’ and ‘Bookshop Cafes’, are. Mr Tulk is one of the featured ‘Bookish Bites.’ It is

the adjunct café at the State Library of Victoria and is named after its first librarian.

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Earlier, I noted that a space can add physically and metaphysically to a book.

Conversely, books can add both physically and metaphysically to a space. One of Mr

Tulk’s main features is a wall of old books that surrounds a changing display of art. The

books are stacked with their spines towards the wall and their pages facing outwards.

This makes the content of the books in effect anonymous. Their content disappears from

consideration of their place in the café to become the generic book rather than a book

about certain ideas and written by a particular author. The books are on display to make

a statement about books as objects, not about the content of the books. The collection of

books at Mr Tulk is obviously not intended to be read. It is an unusual design decision,

one that subverts the typical conventions of a library where the spines are displayed

outwards. Despite this, Mr Tulk is very much a café about books that are consumed by

its patrons. For example, soup of the day and cups of coffee are served with a book page

between the bowl or cup and saucer. The marketing methods and cheap production of

books such as the Penguins described earlier encourage the view that a book may

literally be consumed.

Sometimes this page doily is torn out of a book; sometimes it is a photocopy of a page

torn out of a book. Once again, however, the purpose of the book page is not to be read

but to reinforce the bookish nature of the café as a place where books’ contents are

consumed, but emphasised through the book as an object. This bookish nature refers not

only to the location of the library café6 but also to its regular bookish clients. Mr Tulk is

directly opposite RMIT, and within a short distance of Melbourne University and

Australian Catholic University. Both students and academics alike frequent the café.

Often, of course, it is not for an academic purpose. Nevertheless, many of the customers

there who are not studying are on a study break from the State Library or a

6 Within a grand nineteenth-century state library, which is a prominent research precinct and will soon house a centre for writing and ideas.

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neighbouring university. The ‘spatial regulation’ (Carter, 2008) of Mr Tulk encourages

engagement with and consumption of textual forms (of which the book is a featured

manifestation).

Aura: the book’s ‘x’ factor explained

Books are interesting objects to apply historian and theorist Walter Benjamin’s theory

of aura to, because he was specifically referring to works of art created by hand as

auratic and the detrimental impact of the camera (still and moving images) on art. For

Benjamin, ‘that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the

work of art’ (1936). I have reinterpreted his theory for a digital era − a largely

unforeseeable concept for Benjamin. The digital era has shifted the parameters of

existence. It is now possible for something to exist in time without any physical spatial

manifestation. The digital book is one such example.

The ability for a book to exist without being physically manifested has changed what it

is to be a book that is physically manifested. It is significant here to consider Edwards

and Hart’s comment that ‘even in the digital age, when the materiality … evaporates

into a series of electronic pulses, the desire for the material object remains’ (2004: 14).

Even mechanically reproduced objects can be considered auratic because there is a new

continuum of mattering, and instead of beginning with the hand made and ending in the

mechanically reproduced, it now ends in not mattering at all. The powerful ‘desire’ to

interact with the material, and the technology that enables us not to, means that those

things that are matter, that do become tangible, are, in this new digital paradigm,

auratic. Benjamin develops the idea of aura in his essay, The Work of Art in the Age of

Mechanical Reproduction (1936). According to Stephen Dobson’s review of

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Benjamin’s work, aura is what causes ‘a sense of wonder’ (2007: 239) in the beholder,

and also the sense of the object returning the observer’s gaze. The idea of aura is

abstract and complex. To explain it fully, I will break it down into its parts as described

by Benjamin. I have distilled a specific list of qualities that Benjamin considers an

object must possess to emanate aura: an auratic object must be beautiful, authentic,

reciprocal, and part of a ritual (1936).

As mentioned before and frequently referred to by my term patina, books develop marks

of usage throughout their lives. Danet also notes how such marks can contribute to a

book’s unique, auratic presence:

Like all objects, texts have their own aura, including the physical changes that particular copies or exemplars may have undergone, over time − the crumpled pages, faded bindings, print of handwriting, fingerprints, smudges and so on − and the history of the hands that have touched them’ (Danet, 1997: 9).

The book’s ability to absorb its history (both literally and in a more metaphoric sense)

can be linked to many of Benjamin’s criteria for aura. Such marks are in fact noted by

Benjamin as ‘testimony to the history which it has experienced’ (1936: 26). Reciprocity,

authenticity and in many cases beauty are all a result of the explicit, and at times

mysterious, social biography of each individual book. Almost without exception, all the

books in my personal library are just one copy of a book that exists in the thousands, if

not millions. What makes my books unique and distinct from every other copy of the

same books are the traces they bear by virtue of being mine and of living their life with

me. Many of them in fact have a life longer than mine, and their history is borne out

over their pages.

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Authenticity

For Benjamin the auratic object has to be an original, with either none or very few

copies of it in existence. Even if the copy never comes into contact with the original,

‘the quality of [the original’s] presence is always depreciated’ (1936: 28). Benjamin’s

authenticity is provable through traces of ownership, certificates of authenticity and/or

valuations. Exclusivity is a quality that goes hand-in-hand with authenticity. After all,

for an original to exist, the object must exist in a finite quantity.7 The hunt for the first

edition of books is a literal exemplification of this desire not only for an authentic

object, but for the rarest form of the authentic object. A first edition of Harry Potter

commands a much higher price than the same book brand new but in its tenth reprint

from a bookstore. And while that tenth reprint is technically an authentic, lawfully

published edition of the novel, its lower value is almost directly proportional to its

availability. Perhaps this new criterion for the valuing of books is a result of their mass

production. Where once any book was a rare and precious thing, books can now be

reproduced at such a rate that their value as a book (for the sheer fact of being a book) is

not as high as it once was. New criteria are required to hold the book up to. One of these

new criteria might be that once books begin their social biography, the book becomes a

unique object; it is the only one of its kind to have a particular set of experiences. This

is illustrated by its unique patina, a patterns of marks and inscriptions (whether

deliberate or acquired in a more organic fashion) that only it possesses.

Authentic objects are often deemed more valuable than reproduced or fake objects.

What is it about authenticity that warrants this distinction? Authenticity, as I broadly

7 According to the Collins Australia Dictionary finite is: ‘bounded in magnitude or spatial or temporal extent’ or ‘limited or restricted in nature’. Both of these definitions are pertinent to this project because of their linguistic link between the finite and spatially regulated potential of printed books versus the infinite potential of electronic books and their lack of physical bordering.

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define it for this thesis, is the existence of objects in a finite quantity. It is the finite

nature of books that increases their value beyond the sum of their paper and ink. It is

worth examining the term value, here, to specify that while value is an economic term, it

is not an objective quality.

Appadurai notes (1986) that, as value is not a set and inherent component of an object, it

changes with shifts in historical and social contexts. This explains why Appadurai

considers a commodity ‘a thoroughly socialized thing’ (1986: 6). Edwards and Hart also

explain that, ‘by existing in time and space, objects exist in social and cultural

experience’ (2004: 1). At different times, in different spaces, objects will be awarded

different roles, and hence different values. An object’s position in social and cultural

experience is what helps to determine the strength of people’s desire to possess it and

the object’s resistance to possession (Simmel, 1978).

‘Value, for Simmel, is never an inherent property of objects, but it is a judgment made

about them as subjects’ (Appadurai, 1986: 3). This definition can be extrapolated to

define value as highly subjective, instead of objective. The value of objects cannot be

intrinsic, predetermined or static. There is nothing inherently valuable about any book,

certainly not by virtue of being a book. Simmel, as mentioned above and cited in

Appadurai, defines value as a measure of an object’s resistance to possession. Therefore

an object that is difficult to acquire is considered valuable and/or valued. An object’s

value is normally determined through an ‘economic exchange’ (Appadurai, 1986: 3).

This exchange makes value a reciprocal arrangement − each party must decide how

valuable what the other party possesses is. ‘That is, one’s desire for an object is fulfilled

by the sacrifice of some other object, which is the focus of the desire of another’ (1986:

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3). What I possess, and would like to offer the holder of a book in return for their book,

is only deemed valuable economically if it resists someone else’s possession.

I note here that I am not directly correlating authenticity with value. The reason why

these two factors cannot be hitched together is that authenticity is objective, whereas

value is subjective. The authentic object can still be valued, even if it is not

economically valuable. A discussion of value remains relevant at this juncture, however,

because authenticity frequently does determine economic value. The term sentimental

value is often used to describe value possessed by an object that might be outside the

economic sphere of valuing. All books existing in a finite quantity can be authentic, but

not all are valued, economically or otherwise.

Beauty

Benjamin tightly links the uniqueness of art with tradition: ‘it is significant that the

existence of the work of art with reference to its aura is never entirely separated from its

ritual function’ (1936: 10). He believes this to be the case even in secularised societies,

no longer tied intrinsically to ritual, describing the secular ritual as the ‘cult of beauty’

(1936: 10). Thus art must be beautiful to serve its secularised ritualistic function.

Beauty is a highly subjective quality. This, however, does not detract from its

contribution towards aura, which could be equally subjective. A beautiful thing is

enjoyable, aesthetically pleasing, easy on the eye. The Collins Australian Dictionary

defines beauty as: ‘the combination of all the qualities of a person or thing that delight

the senses and please the mind.’ The intriguing point of that definition is that beauty

becomes an intellectual and sensory quality. Something that pleases the mind and the

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body. Although this distinction may ultimately be unimportant; Fiona Candlin (2008)

paraphrases philosopher John Locke (1979-1989) saying, ‘… touch simultaneously

opens up other, imaginative, speculative and emotional ways of knowing material

objects’ (2008: 277). Thus our tactile interactions with the book could well be what

causes us to think of them as beautiful objects.

This ability to physically engage with the book could be more crucial than we realise.

Etienne Condillac (1982) extrapolates Locke and suggests that touch in fact enables

‘desire and a love of objects’ (paraphrased by Candlin, 2008: 287 emphasis my own). It

is possible that we will never fall in love with the intangible, digital book in the way we

have with its paper counterpart. The lack of a physical form results, quite literally, in

de-bordering of the book. ‘As a consequence of the processes of disembodiment, in the

digital era this aura of texts is now being eroded’ (Danet, 1997: 9). Danet’s referral to

disembodiment echoes Susan Stewart’s (1993) thoughts that handwriting and marks of

physical interaction offer the book the speed of the body. Benjamin makes a similar

point, that film enabled action to be captured at a speed faster than either the naked eye

observed or the hand could draw (1936: 24). If the speed of the body is removed, so are

the traces of tactile interaction, and thus our ability to perceive the object as beautiful.

These marks of the body notify the next user of the book that another has been in

contact with that book, that the scribbles, sweat, tears, snot and coffee spills of all the

previous users are responsible for that particular book’s patina. It is possible that

Danet’s term ‘eroded’ is a misnomer. Aura is not being eroded from physical texts that

have already come into existence − those tea stains and dog-eared pages will not

suddenly disappear from books in which they already appear. Aura will not, however,

have a chance to form around digital texts that never physically come into being,

because they have no capacity for physical beauty.

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The film, Definitely, Maybe (Universal Pictures, 2007), highlights the role of the body

in the process of inscription and the role of inscription in creating a unique textual

object. One of the three female protagonists has a personality quirk: she collects editions

of the book Jane Eyre. A copy was given to her as a young girl by her father shortly

before he died, and he had written a poem on the inside cover. Years later she discovers

the book missing, and she begins collecting Jane Eyre in her quest to recover his

inscribed copy. She desired it because it was one of the last things to come into contact

with his body. As Stewart says, ‘… writing leaves its trace, a trace beyond the life of the

body. Thus … writing promises immortality, or at least the immortality of the material

world in contrast to the mortality of the body’ (1993: 32). The girl continues her search

into adulthood, when she meets the male protagonist. He too, begins combing second-

hand bookstores looking for the copy. By the time he finds it, however, he is estranged

from the girl and keeps it for himself because it is the only thing he has of hers that has

come into contact with her body, inhabited her space.8 Thus not only the inscription, but

also the social biography of the book increases its value and beauty. This example

demonstrates how a book may acquire sentimental value separate to its economic value,

as discussed earlier.

Reciprocity

Benjamin says, ‘even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one

element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it

happens to be’ (1936: 5). An existence is space is crucial to an object’s ability to return

the observer’s gaze. For example, a picture of a book on your Kindle screen cannot

8 He does, eventually, give the precious copy of Jane Eyre back to the girl.

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return your gaze because it does not exist in space (although the Kindle itself could

arguably return it). A book on your shelf, however, not only exists in time and space, it

exists in time and space with you. Cooper (1996: 148) links the quality of what he calls

‘spatio-temporal singularity’ of the object to both reciprocity and authenticity. Thus I

interpret reciprocity to be an object’s exclusive and concurrent existence in space and

time. I understand this quality to be the ability of the object to return your gaze. For that,

an object must have presence. That is to say, must exist in time, and more importantly,

space.

Almost without exception, the perceived advantages of e-books are derivative of its

non-existence in space. E-books are environmentally friendly, because they do not have

to be printed and transported to you. They are cheaper because a hypothetically infinite

number of the e-books exist (and, in accordance with value as defined earlier, an infinite

number of copies makes them easier to possess by lowering their resistance to

possession). E-books are less prone to the ravages of their environment they are not

physically fallible. The presence (i.e. existence in space and time) of paper books makes

them matter, both literally and figuratively because following Miller, only matter

matters.

I propose that one of the reasons why reciprocity is important to us as people is because

reciprocity is the physical and emotional manifestation of ‘mattering’. Poet George

Sand said, ‘there is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved’ (n.d). This

reciprocal arrangement is important, and the sense of touch enables the subject of the

touch to respond back by providing texture and resistance.

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I have addressed the future of the digital book, and indeed demonstrated its merits,

seeking to avoid accusations of being sentimentalist about the paper book. It is

impossible (and moreover, undesirable) to avoid such accusations entirely, because the

book is tangible and tangibility encourages emotion. According to Stewart: ‘Of all the

senses, touch is most linked to emotion and feeling’ (1994: 31). Touch is the first sense

to be developed and the last sense to fade with age (Field, 2001). Tiffany Field says

that, ‘a child’s first emotional bonds are built from physical contact, laying the

foundation for further emotional and intellectual development’ (2001: 9). This could

explain Stewart’s description of touch as the sense most linked to emotion. There are

many terms that use tactile descriptors for mental states of being: your words have

touched me deeply, she has a soft touch, he is a soft touch, he was a bit touchy, what a

softy, to be hard core. The plethora of such idioms helps to explain why ‘touch’ is the

longest entry in the Oxford English Dictionary (Montagu cited in Field, 2001: 76). This

extrapolation illustrates the intricate nature of Benjamin’s ‘aura’, with each criterion

required to help explain another.

Ritual

Benjamin uses the term ritual in a grandiose sense, implying the involvement of an

object in a ceremony that is either ‘religious’ or ‘magical’ (1936: 20). Books can be,

however are not always, linked to the magical or religious. I believe the application of

Benjamin’s term is still relevant, however, because I redefine ritual more broadly as the

ceremony with which the production and consumption processes are performed. Earlier

in this paper, I addressed a history of the book-making process. This project is also

concerned with the rituals of consumption. A book be produced only once, but it can be

consumed over and over again. I use the term consume, and not read, because the actual

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reading of the book is only one of a number of consumption rituals. Books are gifted,

exchanged, covered, borrowed, stored, stacked, sold, swapped, shared, thumbed,

browsed, bought, thrown, packed, crammed, dog eared, displayed, dusted, written on,

propped, wedged, wrapped, arranged, alphabetised, embossed … a lot more happens in

the life of a book than simply being read.

The fact that much more happens in the life of a book than simply being read points to

both its beauty and the multitude of roles it plays in our lives. Books are gifted as

academic prizes and graduation gifts because they are considered beautiful, significant,

hardy objects, worthy of representing extraordinary achievement.9 Hardcover books are

more frequently gifted than paperbacks, indicating that the book-giver expects that the

book will fulfill multiple purposes. It is expected the book will be displayed in a manner

commensurate with its value. To return to Riggins (1990), the display of the book on a

coffee table would give such a book its intended prominence and the book will act as a

symbol of intellectual prowess. Such a book is neither made nor given just to be read

and then discarded (unlike the Penguins). For example, many schools emboss the cover

of the book with a regal, metallic, school emblem. At the very least a bookplate is

pasted overleaf, indicating what achievement the book is recognising, the date, who it is

for and who it is from. The truth about what happens to these books, however, is often a

different story.

Book rituals vary widely. Phil Day (2006) describes the reverence with which an

antique book is displayed. Old books are often treated with great care due to their aged

fragility, however the religious text Day visited had always been a precious object:

‘from the beginning it was surrounded with rituals in which only those closest to God

9 It could be noted that there is some irony in a beautiful, sensuous object being privileged for its external appearance in order to reward an achievement of the mind.

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were invited to participate’ (2006: 35). Writer Melanie Ostell describes another ritual

that is heartening in its banality, a ritual that no doubt takes place in millions of homes

the world over. ‘I recall the bliss: cushiony and warm in bed, shiny red-faced from the

bath, and taken on a marvelous journey as my mother read to me’ (Ostell, 2006: 27).

Ostell’s recollection is an example of how, through ritual, the process of book reading

becomes so much more. In this instance, the child cannot read the book herself but

depends upon her mother to read for her. A very young child is often invited to look at

the pictures and turn the pages, but not to do the reading. Despite not being able to read

the book, a child can express delight and a personal affinity for books. This is, of

course, because books are not just about their content and being read; everything else

that occurs to a book is just as important to its biography, if not more so, than the mere

act of reading.

Another reason why my essay is especially concerned with the rituals of consumption is

because the process of consuming the book is still highly tactile and personal. Not only

this but there is a much larger group of book consumers than book producers. Therefore

the consumption of books is subject to more ‘spatial regulators’ (Carter, 2008: 7) which

results in a slower rate of change. The mechanical reproduction of books is yet to take

away the auratic and sensual pleasures of reading. It could also be argued that the

mechanical reproduction of books has taken away much of the aura of book production.

Once manuscripts were individually produced, ritualised works of art, each one copied

out labouriosly by hand and involving a host of artisans and expensive materials. The

digitisation of the process means fewer hands (sometimes none) touch the book during

its production. Benjamin would describe this as ‘desacrilising’ (1936: 7), that is to say

deritualising, the production process.

41

Solitary Reading

Once the book stabilised into the familiar, paper codex form we know today the rituals

surrounding reading became vastly different to the rituals surrounding the reading of

clay tablets or papyrus scrolls. One such shift was from a shared reading aloud to a

silent, personal reading of a text. Silent reading marked books as an individual pursuit,

even if silently read in a group, such as at a library or families reading together at home.

When silent reading became a private practice, one pursued in a private space, alone, it

became the cause of even greater anxiety. The private nature of solitary reading was not

the only cause of consternation; it was just as much about the characteristically

unproductive task of reading for leisure. Concerned groups included the clergy, doctors

and moral puritans. The Church was concerned about reading material leading their

congregation astray with wild thoughts − either to perform immoral acts or be led into

another church (Eisenstein, 1980). Doctors were concerned about the physical (as

opposed to metaphysical) conditions brought on by reading. They suggested that private

reading led to all kinds of ills from eyestrain to heart murmurs to masturbatory disorders

(Laqueur, 2003). Moral puritans were concerned about all of the above. Women, it

seemed, were especially at risk. Their perceived weaker minds and constitutions were

deemed less able to fend off the ill-effects of the book and reading (Schlain, 1998). For

others, it was not only the content that was of concern – but also the book itself. Lady

Gough’s Etiquette Guide, (1863) was even concerned about the effects the books had on

other books. Lady Gough’s perfect hostess was beseeched to separate male and female

authors on her shelves, unless the authors were married! (cited in Fletcher, 2000: 110).

Unproductive tasks, tasks that are performed for their sheer enjoyment, continue to

perturb many members of society. Leisure reading falls into this category. Many other

42

solitary activities are also ultimately unproductive; watching television, flipping

magazines, and playing computer games are some contemporary examples. It is very

difficult to quantify in economic terms the benefit and perceived value such tasks offer.

As such, this could explain the unease surrounding them. Cooking and knitting,

meanwhile, might be two examples of a quantifiably productive leisure activity. All of

the aforementioned (unproductive) pursuits have been frowned upon to some degree (by

parents, teachers, priests, sociologists, psychiatrists, among others) for both their

solitary and obsolete nature. An eighteenth century journal, Critical Review, attempted

to separate out good reading from bad reading. According to Critical Review, ‘When a

farmer’s daughter sits down to read a novel she misspends her time’ (cited in Laqueur,

2003: 321). One of the key words here is ‘novel.’ Were she to be earnestly reading a

cookery tome, I doubt the same activity would have even been of note.

Historian Thomas Laqueur’s, Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation (2003)

draws parallels between the histories of masturbation and solitary reading. It is pertinent

to note some of Laqueur’s findings because his research highlights the changing social

attitudes towards masturbation and its spatial regulation. Privacy, secrecy, self-

absorption, freedom from social constraint and engagement of the imagination are

hallmarks of both solitary reading and masturbation (Laqueur, 2003: 314). Both acts are

viewed as unproductive and performed purely for pleasure. The pursuit of pleasure is

frequently deemed a vice: potentially addictive and therefore dangerous. Laqueur

recounts that historically, anyone suffering from a masturbatory disorder (who was

often institutionalised) was prohibited from reading because both practices were

believed to be addictive and that one very often led to the other (2003: 327). As Laqueur

notes: ‘The book and the hand, they excite the same spot’ (2003: 327). Reading in

shared spaces was viewed as a partial solution to the conundrum of solitary reading and

43

one method of controlling the imagination. While not deemed an entirely satisfactory

solution, this compromise satisfied many because in public: ‘… reality at least had a

toehold’ (2003: 320). If we carry this thought through to its extreme conclusion, even if

one were reading arousing literary material in the public space, cultural norms would

generally prohibit masturbation in that space.

The ultimately unproductive nature of reading for pleasure continues to cause debate

among many, even if it has become more of an underlying, somewhat accepted taboo.

There are still many circumstances in which reading for pleasure is negatively viewed.

An article in the Weekend Australian (Stephen Matchett, 12-13/4/2008) examines the

declining numbers of young people reading for pleasure. This article is accompanied by

a cartoon of an older couple in bed; the woman asks the man ‘are you reading for

pleasure again?’ The man, wearing a purple sheath over his head, declares, ‘It’s ok, I’m

wearing a condom.’ The blatant parallel, here, is that reading for pleasure is in the same

category as un-reproductive sex. (The condom would seem to imply sex with another as

opposed to masturbation.) Matchett laments leisure time being lost to so many other

forms of media entertainment, including computer games, DVDs and television. To

combat this, it seems as though pro-reading groups are caught up in promoting reading

based purely on its socio-economic benefits: ‘… defenders of the book will make their

stand under the banner of functional literacy alone’ (2008: 39). Matchett’s issue with

this is that so many of the benefits of reading for pleasure are unquantifiable. For him,

‘readers who wallow in the pleasures of the text have a power to create their own

universe of ideas and emotions infinitely larger and more varied … [than those that

don’t]’ (2008:39). Arguably what Matchett (and below, Sorensen) is describing are the

benefits of engaging with the book’s aura. The book engages our sense of touch, which

in turn creates a reciprocal experience: ‘… reciprocity [is] found in all tactile

44

experiences’ (Stewart, 1999: 31). Thus while earlier I discuss the impact of bodies upon

books, the book’s own physical presence and resistance to the force we exert upon it

means that books can also impact upon bodies.

Contemporary writer Rosemary Sorensen also ponders the social nuances of reading for

pleasure, asking whether we can read novels before midday without ‘feeling louche and

lazy’ (Sorensen, 2006: 61). She likens it to drinking wine, watching television and

eating chocolate at culturally inappropriate times: ‘[Is it] Not quite the done thing and

bad for you?’ Contrary to those who condemn reading novels as unproductive and

hazardous, Sorensen promotes reading as a wonderful, healthy habit, good for the brain,

soul and heart. ‘Not just reading anything, mind, but reading writing that sets in motions

the ability we have to engage and create, from so little, so much’ (Sorensen, 2006: 64).

Thus for Sorensen, the book plays a crucial part in igniting the creative mind. Daniel

Miller (1987, cited in Edwards and Hart, 2004: 4) in fact explicitly reinforces such an

opinion by describing objects as ‘important bridges between mental and physical

worlds.’ As Noy did, this thesis sets aside the content of books in its analysis of them as

objects. It is extremely difficult, however, to entirely separate out form from function,

appearance from purpose in the unique case of the book. Miller’s comment, however,

can refer not just to the bridge between the story (mental) within the book (physical),

but also what the book as an object (physical) represents (mental). The following

section questions what the form (and presence) of the book might represent.

Books as objets d’art: the hollowing out of the book

Books as objets d’art, as design objects, present a rare opportunity to examine the

significance of the book’s physicality, what the form of the book might represent

45

separate from its content. This desire to retain the book in a tangible form (even if it

cannot be read) indicates that books have significant symbolic value. Indeed, books are

twice as likely as any other object to be associated with the embodiment of ideals

(Danet, 1997: 10). Author John Steinbeck said ‘I have lost all sense of home, having

moved about so much. It means to me now − only that place where books are kept’

(Dictionary of American Quotations 1997). He is not alone; some of the emigrants

within Danet’s study expressed similar romantic sentiments. It has been demonstrated

before in my discussion of the bookish café Mr Tulk that books are part of a symbiotic

exchange between space and meaning. This section examines what books might bring to

such an exchange.

One example of books as objets d’art is in a Saturday supplement to The Age

newspaper, The Good Weekend (Morton, 21/6/2008: 48). One of the regular features is

an interior designer discussing how to re-create the feel of the room in the photograph.

A recently featured room is a white, attic space, described as a ‘girl’s own space’ (2008:

48).10 One of the objects featuring in the design advice (as opposed to within the

photograph of the room) is a stack of ten paperback books tied together with string.11

The spines of the books are quite uniform (although of varying widths), indicating they

emerged from the same publishing house. Each book is in a different state of disrepair,

with parts of the paper from the spines flaking off and suffering discolouration. The

decrepit state of the books (patina), combined with the string tying all the books shut

indicates that the books are not intended to be read. Thus the question, if the books are

not there to be read, but are objects of design, what is it that their bookishness brings to

10 It is interesting to note the direct association of an intimate, peaceful space with the feminine. 11 The string tying the book shut could indicate a continued desire to protect ‘girls’ from the dangers of actually reading. A more masculine display of books may emphasise a book’s functionality as textual objects to be mentally engaged with.

46

the space? Philosopher Cicero suggested books ‘give that house a soul’ (New Penguin

Dictionary of Quotations 2006).

Another book-as-design-object example appeared just weeks later in the same section of

the newspaper. This time the space is described by the columnist as ‘glamourous’ and

‘fancy-schmancy’ (Morton, 12/7/2008: 48) and books are present in the photographed

room. They are large books, typical of the hardback, coffee-table books discussed

earlier, stacked on the floor in the corner making a pile about one metre tall. Within the

text of the article is the following advice: ‘be prepared to spend your leftover money on

books. Only beautiful books are allowed − and I mean beautiful. Cover imagery and

spines are like mini artworks in this scheme …’ (2008: 48). To that end, the three books

featured in the design advice are actually fake, black and white, porcelain books.

Intriguingly, they mimic in style books of the eighteenth and nineteenth century − the

books are embellished with raised cover and spine details. These fake books are,

however, actually vases. There is, of course, some artistic irony in making books

perform a task that no real book can physically perform without being ruined, that is, to

hold water.12 In this instance, the fake books remain in the appropriate spatial context

(to be placed on a mantelpiece, table or even bookcase), thus avoiding accusations of

fetishisation. The same could be said of books as music boxes, or books with discrete

compartments cut out of the pages − these objects remain in typical ‘bookish’ spaces.

Even at the café Mr Tulk, with an art display that uses books, the books have not

technically left the confines of the library. As for serving coffee on loose pages, that too

is entirely within the context of the scholar who absently places coffee rings and tea

stains over class readings and essay print outs.

12 Books have been used before to press and dry flowers, thus flowers are not necessarily an entirely new addition to the pages of a book.

47

The book is popularly believed to symbolise intellect and all of intellect’s trappings

(e.g. power, money, status.) Scott Lash and John Urry (1994) describe objects as one of

two types of signs: either possessing primarily cognitive content or primarily aesthetic

content. Crucially, they deem it possible for aestheticisation to occur during production

or consumption (1994: 4). Thus while books may be produced with cognitive content,

unless they are being consumed in ways that bring forth this content they become

aestheticised and thus metaphorically emptied. This is a rejection of technological

determinism, because it holds the community of people that surround the books

responsible for the success of the technology. Unfortunately, many owners fail to

realise that books as objets d’art (including actual books that are not read, simply

displayed) have effectively been hollowed out.

CHAPTER THREE: Some cultural consequences of reinventing the book

Out Booking the Book

From the books of the past to the digital book of the future, their form has caused much

debate. Historians have been heralding the start of the digital era and the end of the print

era for years yet they have been doing so in print form (Bell, 2007; Eaves, 2002;

Loizeaux and Fraistate, 2002; Woodgar; 2002). This is not without its irony, something

that is openly acknowledged by the writers. Their complaint is that while books are

certainly on the brink of a major change and the digital era is truly about to come into its

own in ways never imagined, the auxiliary techniques and social infrastructures are not

there. This is because social and technical infrastructures do not happen immediately or

spontaneously. This means that if the above authors were to have published their books

solely in a digital format, their audience would have been severely restricted.

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Digital books (e-books) and electronic book readers (e-readers) appear to make a lot of

fiscal, environmental and educational sense. I argue that many of the reasons why books

have historically changed format will be the very same justifications we use to continue

changing their form, until e-books and e-readers are ubiquitous. These reasons include

preservation of the text, distribution costs, rapidly expanding audience, reprint/ reediting

costs and probably a relatively new concern, environmental effects.

Consider the following statement from Febvre and Martin about book binding in the

fifteenth century:

Since binding was heavy and expensive and transport costs were high, books were sent in unbound sheets from one town to the next in barrels. [The buyer could] … have it bound to his taste later (1976: 105).

It sounds strikingly familiar to contemporary concerns surrounding rising petrol prices,

air-freight and postal costs. Digital books would allow for readers to circumvent the

printing process and expense. If readers so choose, they can have it printed (and bound)

at their own expense. An early device to allow for this is now being rolled out in

bookshops across Britain, USA and Australia. One model is called the Espresso Book

Machine; some have nicknamed it the ATM for books (Brooks 2008: 9). Electronic

books take this idea of saving on transport costs to a whole new level. No longer are we

looking at the expense of transferring solid atoms, instead it is just electronic bits.

The cost of commodities continue rise. Water, land and energy consumption are key

factors in the cost of book production, as are labour costs. All of these factors are

driving up the price of books. The e-book, however, requires fewer resources than its

paper counterpart, frequently resulting in a cheaper, more accessible product. Second,

third and sixteenth editions of schoolbooks, recipe books, reference manuals,

49

encyclopedias are published faster than ever before. These subsequent editions require

disposal of the earlier books and that an entire new text is purchased and re-distributed.

Being able to digitally alter a text, to add an appendix or, for example, remove Pluto

from the list of planets in our Solar System is just one of the many advantages to

electronic books.

Environmentally, e-books appear to make sense. With water and arable land becoming

scarcer and more expensive, and trees becoming ever more important to the health of

the globe, it doesn’t seem very ‘green’ to continue printing books (and other reading

materials.) Some books have a bigger environmental impact than others. To air-freight a

one-kilo book can create up to ten kilos of greenhouse gases, added to this is the cost of

delivery and indeed the cost of picking up excess books if they don’t sell. Wright goes

so far as to describe investing in an e-reader (to read e-books) as ‘meeting one’s debt to

the planet’ (2008: 23).

The potential audience of book consumers continues to rise with the increase in literacy

rates. Developing countries are increasingly making some form of schooling

compulsory. For those developing nations that already have compulsory schooling, the

number of girls being allowed to attend and a higher school-leaving age are both

causing attendance rates to rise. This means that the size of the reading public is

increasing on an almost daily basis. Literacy rates are important to any country:

America, Japan, Zimbabwe or Fiji. Literacy rates are used by the United Nations to rank

countries; they are an important marker of social development, personal liberty and the

potential for economic growth. The United Nations (2008) credit literacy as contributing

to higher wages (thus increasing overall economic growth), improved productivity,

better health and reducing poverty and crime. With so much effort being put into

50

improving the skills of the world’s 770 million illiterate, the demand for reading

material will surely only increase.

Such an increase mimics the path of history. Febvre and Martin (1976: 217) note that

the rapid growth of schools, colleges, and other educational institutions in the sixteenth

century created a parallel growth in the publishing industry in direct demand to both the

sheer number of books required for the schooling process and the legacy this education

bequeathed upon those it schooled: a desire to read books.

Many of the above factors (faster, cheaper, more environmental, increased reading

public, etc.) are an extension of the affordances of a print culture. Cultural acceptance of

the printed word has acorded these techniques a prominent place in history and its

affects have been vast. I now move to discuss some of the ramifications of print culture.

The Affordances of a Print Culture

A historical perspective of print culture proves that there is no one interest capable of

directing and forming the book. Individuals and groups have and continue to try and

shape the book purely for their own interests, but ultimately the complete book

technology (as opposed to book technique) depends upon a whole multitude of factors

outside the control of any one group. Although up until now I have focused on the

physical manifestation of the book and physical spaces surrounding the book I have

noted that these are dependant on social spheres and applications. The social uses of

books are largely connected with the role print has been given in our culture. It is our

cultural framework that privileged the printed word, that was ready, willing and able to

51

privilege print. This section is intended to show that print culture is the social context of

the book.

The non-linear organisation of knowledge13 and the collapse of space and time are

arguably the two key features of print culture, a legacy that digital technologies continue

to extend. Communication historians including Elizabeth Eisenstein (1980) and Simon

Cooper (1996) have reflected at length on the impact of non-linear knowledge

organisation. Meanwhile, theorists from Marshall McLuhan to Benjamin have written

about the spatio-temporal changes that continue to result from modern technology. The

book is central to a discussion of both topics. As a form of technology integral to both

phenomena, and one that has remained largely unchanged for hundreds of years, the

book is a most unique object.

Non-linearity and the time-space collapse are relevant to my discussion of books

because they are also the two advantages of the digital book. Indeed, every advantage of

the e-book is because it has so completely collapsed time and space that it is no longer

physically manifested in space. E-books are lighter, cheaper, smaller, more

environmentally sustainable and transportable because they do not face any of the

material limitations of the paper book.

Cooper paraphrases Benjamin when he describes the ‘modern desire of the masses’

(1996: 149) as wanting to ‘shrink the spatio-temporal frame through which we

understand the world (1996: 149)’. But perhaps this is just a culmination of the

space/time collapse that began occurring when humans began writing on transportable

13 Hypertext is a popular term used to describe this ability to access a text from any direction using tools such as glossaries, contents pages, indexes and in the case of digital texts, search-engine functions. See Schreibman and Siemens, 2007 for a discussion of hypertextuality in digital literature.

52

surfaces. Increasingly, things and ideas are being brought together closer and faster.

Lash and Urry discuss the ‘advent of the ‘three-minute culture’’ (1994: 16). They link

this to a broader concern about the human condition: ‘… this acceleration which

simultaneously distances social relationships as it compresses time and space is leading

to an emptying out of both subjects and objects’ (1994: 31). Using the logic of Lash and

Urry, I can link the collapse of space and time with the hollowing out of the book and

their proliferation as objet d’art.

As noted in Chapter two, books are frequently representative of knowledge. This is not

always dependant upon their titles; books as objects, largely irrespective of their

content, seem to symbolize knowledge. This could be related to one of the earliest

removals of the book from religious contexts: the first encyclopedia.

The earliest encyclopedia proved popular with the masses, who, according to Steinberg,

had not really been much concerned with the external world until the sixteenth century.

[T]he Catholicon was a popular encyclopedia, and with its publication Gutenberg pointed the way towards a main achievement of the art of printing, namely the spread of knowledge’ (1979: 18).

The Catholicon solidified knowledge − it made knowledge matter. As Susan Stewart

remarks, ‘written verbal art unfolds in time and space; the book offers a concrete

physical textuality … (1993: 8).’ One of the consequences of this concrete textuality,

the ability to lay ideas side-by-side, has played a significant role not only in the

advancement of science, but also of mathematics and philosophy. It also changed the

way knowledge is stored; no longer does knowledge have to be prioritised in the mind

chronologically, instead knowledge can be mentally and physically shuffled, re-

arranged and reorganised.

53

Historian Walter Ong holds writing in great esteem: ‘Writing, in the ordinary sense, was

and is the most momentous of all human technological inventions … it transforms

speech and thought as well’ (1982: 85). The ability to technically reproduce writing en

mass also had enormous ramifications. Historians have documented the printing press’

contribution towards so much, from the continued rise of the culture of the individual,

modern authorship, nationalism, to the rise and decline of the Church.

O’Donnell, exemplifies Williams’ theory in his following observation: ‘…[writing]

became a useful vehicle for the dissemination of information only when the technology

of the papyrus roll … was perfected’ (1998: 50). Paul Hirst and Penny Woolley also

reject a determinist view of communication technology. They say, ‘there are no

automatic and general effects of printing or any other technology, no effects

independent of social relations and organised system of beliefs’ (1982: 42). For Hirst

and Woolley, the role of written language and the technical reproduction of language

via the printing press are significant for their role in enabling the development of new

human capacities, such as the ability to critically compare information.

The proliferation of books, and their popularity as design objects, indicates a desire to

continue to solidify knowledge, even in the face of digital advances that mean we don’t

have to. So often, it is now unnecessary to make knowledge matter. Furthermore it’s

now socially stigmatized to turn our digital information into matter by printing it out.

But the symbology of the book and our affection for its physical manifestation remains.

The aforementioned debate about the effects of digital technologies may trumpet their

success and domination over other textual (and visual) mediums, however following

Miller (1998), what we say matters and what we actually make matter are two different

things. Digital technologies may offer us the ability to completely collapse space and

54

time, however we persist in making books matter. This indicates the important and

valued social role they continue to play.

CONCLUSION: Epilogue of the book

The central theme of this thesis has been to examine what perpetuates interest in and

attachment to the tangible paper form of the book in a digital era. I have gathered a

number of terms to articulate and consider this affection and its symbiotic relationship

between the book’s uses and forms. Thus this thesis has acknowledged and explored

some social implications of and to the book. To reference Williams once more, the

technology of the book has, and will continue, to evolve in response to our feelings on

the book, how we use books, the role that we give books. It has been demonstrated that

how an invention is used by society is more important than the actual invention itself. In

other words, there is nothing inevitable, absolute, universal or causal about the

relationship between the book and its social applications and use patterns.

While this thesis has been partitioned into three, broad sections (genealogy, materiality

and print culture), in many ways this is only an artificial delineation. The terms such as

‘aura’, ‘patina’, ‘objet d’art’, ‘ritual’ etc. in fact describe the interactive relationship

between the book as object and the physical infrastructures, social rituals, institutional

practices and socially constructed meanings that surround it. There is constant interplay

between all of these factors, suggesting once again that to search for a single point of

origin (or indeed a single, definitive future) is futile.

Digital technology has radically altered the continuum of mattering. In many instances

(but not all), I have argued that the book will not survive in anything like the paper-form

55

we are used to. While this school of thought provokes nostalgia, dismay and even

outrage among some bibliophiles, I reflect on the pragmatic words of James Grieve:

During the Nineteenth Dynasty, did literate Egyptians fret about the eminent death of papyrus? Or in 198 BC, about the dying out of the Rosetta Stones? Much of the discussion on the future of books seems to miss the point (2006: 25).

The place, meaning and uses of books within our lives will undoubtedly change. The

book’s form has already undergone so many fundamental changes; few would describe

all these changes as gratuitous and detrimental. Many would describe such changes as

inevitable, but this view removes human agency from history. This thesis has

demonstrated repeatedly that it is impossible to entirely remove human agency from an

object’s physical and cultural evolution.

It is in fact the human element of this relationship between people and technology that

perpetuates a longing for material forms. While I have rejected a technologically

determinist viewpoint, I do believe that there is something about the physical

composition of people that yearns for sensual, bodily experiences. It is this urge that

encourages us to search out tangible engagement with objects. It could be these very

sensory experiences with books that cause us to perceive books as beautiful objects.

Furthermore, these interactions with books are what contribute to a book’s patina,

indicating its path through history, through the lives of others. The unique life of each

book adds to its value, whether economic, sentimental or otherwise. The combination of

these qualities, of authenticity (uniqueness), beauty, reciprocity and ritual can be

described as the book’s auratic qualities: what gives the book aura.

Each book, through living with others and participating in each individual’s rituals of

consumption within their spaces, gains a biography of its own. It is this biography of the

book, and an acknowledgement of each book as a unique object, that allows that book to

56

be part of a reciprocal exchange with its holder. This is what will ensure that books as

physical objects endure. The age of the paper book is not over yet.

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