alright, i know it’s been a while since i posted here. there are reasons but i make no excuses or apologies. life is what it is these days and there’s often just no time to put my thoughts into words. so, though this seems like it’s coming out of nowhere, it’s not. it’s just what i’ve taken the time to write for once. there’s more to come, most likely… but no promises.
so, for christmas this year, i received a brand new, shiny kindle fire. it’s a little thing but it touches on several of my passions and, as such, has been one of the best gifts ever.
you see, i’m a bibliophile – a full-on, book lover. all through middle school, high school and college, it would have been very unusual to find me out of arms reach of a novel.
example: i remember one time when i got in trouble at school (confession time, i guess) and was put into in-house suspension (this is like a day-long detention – don’t talk just do your work and when you’re done with that just sit quietly) for something that i honestly can’t remember (but it was probably foolish). for most kids this is excruciating torture – and the humiliation of it was effective for me, i suppose – but, all told, it was honestly pretty great. i, being a smart person, knocked out the entirety of my day’s school work and the evening’s homework in about an hour. i then had to spend the rest of my day “being quiet” which, for me, meant reading. i killed three novels that day. granted, i think they were three fluff-fantasy xanth novels by piers anthony – not exactly heavy reading – but i honestly thought it was a pretty good day on balance. i wish more of my schooling had been like that – go to school, knock out the required work, and then read until they let you go. i’ve almost always found lectures (almost always) to be nearly pointless.
anyway, all that to say i’ve always really loved books.
except that i’ve realized that it’s not really BOOKS that i love… it’s STORIES. i love ‘em in almost all formats though books remain my favorite story format. they’re long and detailed and give space and time for a plot and characters to truly develop and deepen and grow rich and vibrant. but there are other really effective story telling devices out there of course. movies and television being the most popular. the best of the best movies are the ones that are able to distill the essence of a story while managing to still feel rich and full. so often films fail at this and the characters come out feeling thin and the plot flimsy. television has both a harder and an easier time of it – while the individual episodes have a very limited time for the plot to run its course, the characters can develop over entire seasons.
side note:
one of my favorite new storytelling formats though is video games. “video games?” you’re thinking, “you’ve gotta be kidding me. where’s the story in super mario?!” and you’re right – there is no story in super mario. with much respect to mr. miyamoto for his contribution to the industry, the days of zero-plot games are past. if you look at the top 10 video games in the last 5 years, you’ll find that almost ALL of them are story-driven. even the deplorable and much-reviled grand theft auto series is so compelling because of its storyline. it’s a degraded, violent, cesspool of a story, sure. but it’s the story that makes it one of the highest-grossing game franchises in history. there are other, less morally-challenged franchises that are doing as well as GTA and that tell wonderful stories. halo, final fantasy, gears of war, the elder scolls, uncharted, even portal (which is a puzzle game wrapped around a mystery narrative) – all super-successful franchises that have deep and engaging stories and characters. in fact, there is a whole new crop of video game developers out there to whom the story is absolutely paramount. pretty graphics, engaging gameplay, beautiful musical scores – all of these exist for one purpose: to fully immerse you in the STORY that they want to tell.
so, back to the kindle fire. this little device not only tickles my technophile side no end, it’s the ultimate story consumption tool. i read books on it, watch movies and television, listen to music and i can even play simple games on it. it’s seriously amazing to me that, where i used to haul around a minimum of two novels along with an ipod AND a stack of cds, i can just take my little kindle fire.
and it’s enabled me to read so much more than i have in the past couple of years! since i got it at christmas, i’ve read 37 novels/anthologies and 11 novelas – all but two of those were digital. all told, i’ve purchased something like 75-80 books/novelas from amazon… in just about 5 months.
for those who decried the digital revolution as the book-killer, i call bullshit. the book – and storytelling – is alive and strong. it just looks different.
just as the record industry is failing even though music has become ubiquitous and ever more varied and creative, the publishing industry may be hurting, but books are alive and authors are creating amazing stories. it’s the traditional publishing model that’s quickly becoming obsolete.
and i, for one, cheer the change.
