The Kindle Solution

Reading in a Land that Doesn’t Speak My Language

   A few days ago the mail brought The New Yorker dated June 6 &13, surprisingly fast given Mexico’s usually sluggish mail service. It turned out to be The Fiction Issue. Not my interest; I have hardly read any fiction in many years, not to mention short pieces such as are to be found in the magazine. Am I bragging or complaining? Neither; just stating the facts: I’m a very slow reader, my time is limited, and my interests lie elsewhere.

   But in that issue there was a piece I was really interested in: an extensive review of Arthur Lubow’s biography of Diane Arbus. The review, by Anthony Lane, who had slowed down his usual subject—movies—to the still photography of Diane Arbus. It seemed to be a good account of the book, but the signal effect it had on me, was to want to read Lubow’s extensive volume.

   Of course it would not exactly turn out to be a “volume.” If the couple of stores I know of in Mexico City that sell current books in English were to stock the likes of the Arbus biography they would soon be out of business. The magic solution is Kindle!

   Don’t laugh: yes, magic. On June 6, the Kindle store, accessed via what they call Wireless, listed the book as not available until the 7^th—that is, the next day. So I “pre-ordered” it.  When I checked  on that next day to see whether there was something I had to do, the book turned out to be already there; ministrations on my part were de trop.
   “Kindle” is the operative word here. Think of it, my best—quasi-native—language is English; that’s the language I want to read for entertainment and edification, with an occasional side-trip into German. Kindle, if that’s not already clear, is my salvation. By now, I’ve read at least a couple of dozen books this way. Most of them to be found right “within” that small device, when you press the button for “Home.” Included there are a few “volumes” that I hauled in with the intention of maybe reading them at some point, which may or may not happen. Another bunch is “archived,” ready to be made available whenever I want to call them in.

   I have no idea how many books are available in this way (and I am inclined to think that even the Kindle management doesn’t know), but the number is huge—from classics to the latest. And while I have not explored their store of books in German, the few that I have wanted were  promptly available. For me, an expat surrounded by a language not my own, the only alternative to Kindle is to purchase books from Amazon and have them mailed to me, an expensive and precarious process. For me, Kindle is a life-saving—or at least sanity-saving blessing.

   Some might find the cost of some of the books a bit steep, though in my view, the more expensive texts—never as costly as the printed books themselves—are offset by many others that are downright cheap or cost nothing at all; so I don’t have complaints about pricing.

  But there are some disadvantages, compared to having the book on good old fashioned paper. The biggest of these is the fact that you are not given any information as to what page you are on in the printed version of the book. Accordingly, you cannot tell people where they can find a passage you want them to read. This fact alone prevents the Kindle version of a book from serving a scholarly function. While that fact affects only a minority of potential readers, it is an important and influential one.

   That lack is too bad and could be rectified over time by inserting bracketed page numbers of the printed version into the Kindle text, thus: blah blah blah [174]. The Kindle management has no doubt thought of this and perhaps the cost is too great to add this feature; but it would be a valuable addition.

   The indication of where you are in a book that is actually given is only marginally useful. You are “told”—in imprecise and approximate terms what percentage of the book you have read so far—and that without knowing what percentage yet to be read is text and how much consists of endnotes, appendices, and index. Another minus are the reproductions of pictures: dubious. But perhaps that has been improved since my version of the Kindle, bought quite a few years ago.

   I’ve never been a perfectionist, often ready to settle for what was available in the real world, rather than striving for the perhaps unattainable best. So, by me,as they say in Brooklyn, Kindle is Good.