Literature and the Web » sony e-reader

One More Tale of Genji…

MSW — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:24:02 +0000

… by Murasaki Shikibu, tranlated by Royall Tyler, this time. I have the full Waley translation and the Seidensticker. I used to turn up my nose at abridged versions, but I got in the mood again– a damp gray summer early evening on the back screened porch, and I just wanted to dip, and to taste Genji on the Kindle. The translation is good, with the poems laid out in a very readable way. So many sleeves made sopping wet– I mean dew covered, and during Genji’s exile, soaked by waves of salt water. Such a different ethos, all the fathers and mothers trying to give their well-brought up accomplished daughters to the emperor or other high status men as concubines. Then with political machinations, raising the daughter’s status to possible Empress Mother and the power of the family as well. And then there’s how Genji essentially kidnaps and the little girl and eventually has sex with her and continues to keep her and make her his ideal woman, even while continuing his other affairs, although never failing in attention to the many women he loves and does not abandon them. As always, a fascinating excursion into an alternative reality. Dim, all those curtains and blinds, sex enhanced by handwriting.

And yes, it works on the Kindle, the grayness of the screen matches the weather, the spray of mountain waterfalls, the night time creeping in bedrooms, the dawn when you send you love note. And as to the lower classes–the people who clean the latrines and actually dye the fabrics and cook the meals and empty the chamberpots– they apparently do not exist at all.

Smashing a book

MSW — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 20:37:16 +0000

I’m working on an experiment with a Hamilton Stone Editions version of one of my books. Using a site called Smashwords , I’m rather painstakingly turning a word processed manuscript (already published in hard copy) into a format that Smashwords will then run through some software called The Meatgrinder, and spew out the other end several versions readable by Kindle, the Nook, and more. Everything from EPUB to .pdf.

There is no charge upfront, and the service is not exclusive, as best I can read their information. The publisher/writer gets back a little if anyone buys/downloads a book. On the other hand, you don’t own the files in the specially formatted versions.

So the experiment is, does this work? Is it worth the labor (my favorite phrase: Is the Game Worth the Candle?), and will anyone conceivably buy the books?

If anyone has any experience with Smashwords, please let me know! Most of their books appear to be self-published single book deals, lots of science fiction and other genre, but more and more small publishers seem to be using it. This is, in my mind, a stop gap, something to do while things sort themselves out.

But I want our books available to read once I buy an e-reader!

Poetry Books online: The Perfection of Mozart’s Third Eye

MSW — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:46:44 +0000

Chalk Editions is doing poetry online– you download the books of poems that they publish, or read them online. They have an interesting statement of their reason for doing this here– they aren’t thrilled with the coming crash of physical books, but are determined to move forward. As an example of what they do, see Halvard Johnson’s latest collection of poems, The Perfection of Mozart’s Third Eye and Other Sonnets at Scribd.com– we’re considering at our cooperative press Hamilton Stone Editions how to get into the e-book market, so I’m going to look again at Scribd.com.

Do Monks Dream of Parchment?

MSW — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:05:43 +0000

A friend told me last night that she had tried reading a blog of dense literary criticism, and finally gave up. Then she ran across the same material in book form, and loved it. Of course it is possible that the writer cut and polished before the book was published. But long blocks of dense prose– novels, criticism– may be just too much for the eye to deal with in the flickering ambiance of the screen.

We agreed that poetry works well on the web– for example, I know a poet who sends a poem “by someone else” once a week or so to his email list. Sometimes it’s a famous poet, sometimes not, but it’s always a single poem. Flash fiction works well on the screen.

And the word on the street is that reading e-paper (the Kindle, Sony e-readers, etc.) is just like reading tree-pulp paper.

After the Gutenberg Revolution, did monks and priests have nostalgic dreams about the flow of illuminating ink over the crisp surface of parchment?

Note: Here’s the latest from the Authors’ Guild on the Google book scan issue.