Nicholson Baker on the Kindle 3
Say what you will about Nicholson Baker (of Above the Fold fame/infamy). The man can write. Persuasively and well. In the most recent edition of the New Yorker, Baker takes on the Kindle, writing a humorous and thought-provoking first-hand account of his recent purchase of a Kindle 2.
As an author, lover of literature, and a man concerned with the aesthetic qualities of books, Baker provides a detailed review of his experience using the Kindle 2 and Kindle DX. Highlights include:
The lack of contrast on its screen:
“The problem was not that the screen was in black-and-white; if it had really been black-and-white, that would have been fine. The problem was that the screen was gray. And it wasn’t just gray; it was a greenish, sickly gray. A postmortem gray. The resizable typeface, Monotype Caecilia, appeared as a darker gray. Dark gray on paler greenish gray was the palette of the Amazon Kindle.”
An elegant and effective description of the rights you have (and the ones you sign away) to your digital content:
“Here’s what you buy when you buy a Kindle book. You buy the right to display a grouping of words in front of your eyes for your private use with the aid of an electronic display device approved by Amazon. …Kindle books aren’t transferrable. You can’t give them away or lend them or sell them. You can’t print them. They are closed clumps of digital code that only one purchaser can own. A copy of a Kindle book dies with its possessor.”
And a hilarious accounting of the ecological ramifications of the device:
“Yes, it’s made of exotic materials that are shipped all over the world’s oceans; yes, it requires electricity to operate and air-conditioned server farms to feed it; yes, it’s fragile and it duplicates what other machines do; yes, it’s difficult to recycle; yes, it will probably take a last boat ride to a Nigerian landfill in five years. But no tree farms are harvested to make a Kindle book; no ten-ton presses turn, no ink is spilled.”
Ultimately, Baker concludes that while Amazon “is very good at selling things,” it hasn’t yet designed an ebook reader that can truly replace the utility and aesthetic joy of books and newspapers. For books, Baker recommends reading on an iPod Touch or an iPhone over the Kindle.
As a book lover, librarian, and student of art and design, I’m stuck ruminating on Baker’s descriptions of the Kindle’s many failings when it comes to replicating the aesthetic experience of books and newspapers. But I get paid to care about books, to understand and evaluate their properties as both objects and containers for information. Will the average reader care about any of this? Will he or she notice the lack of contrast between creamy paper and crisp, black letters in a beautiful and (readable!) font? What about the lack of typographical design, illustrations, color, or other features? At first, no, they might not. But I think they will eventually.
Beautiful and functional design often has the ability to be transparent if not invisible, especially to those unfamiliar with kerning, gutters, serifs, paper quality, binding methods, or other features of the books that occupy our shelves, coffee tables, and nightstands. But I’m confident that readers will eventually notice they’re being sold an inferior product, and I look forward to widespread demand for higher-quality ebooks and readers. If the Kindle is a terrible device, then the solution isn’t to reject the whole idea of ebooks and machines for reading. Instead, I believe that readers, librarians, book lovers, and everyone else should be making lots of noise about the kind of ebooks and devices we’d like to see–their features, licensing and rights schemes, and overall user experience.
What do you think?