In the Year 2109: Will Books Be Found in a Museum or a Library?
I recently spoke to the Association of Jewish Librarians of the New York metropolitan area. I did so at the Park East Synagogue, on a gloriously sunny day in Manhattan. Surrounded by glass walls of books, and the occasional sounds of happy children, I knew that I would be with cultured, cultivated people and I therefore decided that I could not just present a standard lecture on The New Anti-Semitism, the title of my 2003 book.
Starving Jews in Nazi ghettoes kept their libraries open; they continued to check books out and bring books back. I decided that I had to talk about books. After a kind introduction by Roz Friedman, President, AJL-NYMA (Association of Jewish Libraries-New York Metropolitan Area), here’s a bit of what I said.
Roz Friedman introducing Phyllis
Thank you so much for inviting me to speak here.
Like you, I love books. I love our sacred Jewish texts and the many splendid commentaries that accompany them, but in truth: all leather-bound, gold-embossed books call out to me. Verily, I am a person of the Book. I read them, I write them, I consume them. I love libraries, their respect for work done in silence and solitude, the quiet solicitousness of librarians, their efficiency and kindness. I love fine writing, great writing, the kind that lasts.
A book lover lives an enchanted life. She is someone who can, in an instant, escape her ordinary life, travel to any country on earth, time-travel to any century; she can enter a peasant’s hut or a king’s bedroom, witness a childbirth, a love affair, a murder, a coronation. A book lover is someone who is never exactly lonely, someone who probably believes that fictional characters are more real, more alive, than “real” people are, and that their stories are as important as the stories of our “real” lives.
If I want to know something about someone, I’ll find out what books they’ve read or are reading. Then, I’ll inquire about their childhoods.
I admit it. I eat books. I possess them. I write in the margins and on the blank front and back pages. I plant my post-its everywhere. Unlike a librarian, I am no longer willing to lend my books out. They are part of my daily life. At any given moment, my writing might require just that book. Also: They are so…”used,” so lovingly battered. How can they unashamedly leave home? In my lifetime, whenever I’ve made a major geographical move, I have been forced to give away books—anywhere from 2,000-10,000 at a given time.
Once, 1000 books of mine were held up at the Khyber Pass—but that’s a story for another day. Actually, I have written about this adventure in one of my books and may expand it into a Memoir. You may find it in my book, The Death of Feminism. What’s Next in the Struggle for Women’s Freedom.
I began reading when I was three years old and began writing when I was eight years old. My first poem was published when I was seventeen years old and my first article when I was twenty three years old. I decided to get a Ph.D and became a professor-psychotherapist (a “Viennese witch-doctor”) in order to support my writing habit.
I’ve been publishing for nearly fifty years now. I’ve published thirteen books and written fifteen. I’ve worked with many major publishing houses. As we all know, many things have really changed. There’s a lot less money lying about. Newspapers are shutting down. Small bookstores are shutting down. The chains rule. Buying online rules. Discounts rule. Even some library branches are shutting down.
But mainly, I fear that books, and the habits of thought that reading shapes, the time it takes to shape such habits of thoughtfulness, may rapidly be going out of style. Technology, youth, and marketplace demands have conspired in the minimization of books as we’ve known them. I fear that one day, our books may reside in museums, not in libraries.
Younger people prefer books on kindle and online. Even in an era of Book Clubs, people in general still prefer quick books, easy books, books with a “point,” especially books by celebrities which are often ghostwritten by ghosts who are not great writers. Books that can be listened to while driving, books that are easy to market, books that “sell,” bestsellers that can be turned into blockbuster movies, videos, small YOUTUBE sensations, maybe even into tee-shirt logos. Some people prefer blogs—some prefer twitter.
I fear that our traditional aesthetic and intellectual standards, both for fact checking and for the quality of writing, has plummeted. Short is now sweet, long is out. Anything goes on the internet. There’s no mediator, no editor, no expert, no grown-up in charge.
We are shortchanging the coming generations by accustoming them to books-as-information, books packaged as entertainment, preferably presented visually–easy for people with a culturally enforced attention deficit disorder, or who multi-task while they read (!)–this is the rapidly incoming fashion. Everyone’s articles can be published online whether or not they have been edited for grammar or accuracy. Is this democracy in action or the triumph of Big Lies and foolish vanity? Clearly, it’s both.
The truth is: I love blogging. I publish three articles a week, every week. Such deadlines demand enormous discipline. I read ten to twenty newspapers and an additional 40-50 articles every day in order to be “up on the news.” I do this because there are moments in history when writers, (who might rather be working on long books), must take a visible, immediate, and ongoing stand against evil and injustice. This is one of those moments. The internet allows me to do so.
What happens when a writer evolves, deepens, or changes her mind about certain things? What happens when a writer: This one, decides to stand up for the Jews, for Israel, for America, for the truth, for the virtues and traditions of Western civilization? What happens when a writer decides to oppose fascism and totalitarianism? And to criticize Islamic gender and religious apartheid and jihad—and will still not surrender her feminist ideals?
Why, all happy Hell breaks loose…
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And then I spoke freely about how ideas matter and about the consequences of sharing ideas with the world. I did a brief reading from The New Anti-Semitism.
Phyllis reading from The New Anti-Semitism.
It is unconscionable that such gentle, educated, Jewish people are still the targets of so much hate. Yes, Jews are also thieves and scoundrels but they are in the minority.
One woman, who turned out not to be a librarian, asked me to comment on the Golden Age in which Jews, Christians, and Muslims all lived together in harmony. I told her that many scholars now strongly dispute this. We had quite a spirited discussion.
The audience
One librarian said that she’d lived in Israel but, after fifteen years, had missed her family in New York and had returned. She admitted that once, she’d had dreams about peace that have been chipped away at, tarnished, even shattered. She asked me what I thought about this.
“Don’t give up your dreams or your ideals, simply allow reality a place at the table. Anyway, Jewish dreams, Jewish ideals belong to a Messianic Age. We’re not there yet. Our job is to take up our places in the great chain of Being, to “love or regard our neighbor as we love and regard ourselves,” to be kind to others, try to do no harm, to do some good on earth, and to walk humbly with God.”
All the rest is commentary.
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The Death of Feminism: What’s Next in the Struggle for Women’s Freedom
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The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It
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9 Comments
1. David Levavi:“…at the Park East Synagogue, on a gloriously sunny day in Manhattan. Surrounded by glass walls of books, and the occasional sounds of happy children…”
My three daughters attended Rabbi Arthur Schneier’s Park East Day School on very generous scholarships. We could not have afforded a Jewish education for them otherwise. The education they received was sufficient to qualify all three for Stuyvesant High School, New York’s premier science school and for outstanding universities thereafter. All three are currently headed for advanced degrees, two in Bible related fields. The third, building on stellar performance in math contests for which she was trained and coached by a brilliant Park East teacher from sixth through eighth grade, is headed for a career in mathematics.
The glorious sunshine you experienced during your visit is the only weather Park East children know.
Jul 15, 2009 - 3:12 pm 2. David Levavi:Reading and writing—communicating in symbols– are the foundation of abstract thinking. I have always believed that the vaunted intelligence of the Jews is not unconnected to the fact that Jewish history begins in Aram Naharaim, (Aram of the Two Rivers, ie. Tigris and Euphrates), the place where writing began not long after writing began.
The people of the book, rich and poor, male and female alike have been continually literate and thinking abstractly far longer than any other people. A voluminous Bible and an extensive liturgy have demanded literacy of Jews of all classes for more than two millennia. Business letters regarding her property by a Jewish woman in hiding from the Romans were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Technology will replace printed, quarto-bound books just as books replaced hand-written parchments. Literacy and numeracy, however, will remain critical skills. The telephone replaced letter writing; film and television buried the American short story and the magazines that carried it. But in a completely unanticipated turn, e-mail and the blogosphere have revived writing among millions of ordinary people.
Blogging is a brand new medium whose broader parameters are not yet defined. For the moment it’s the Wild West of communication. Anybody anywhere can say anything he or she wants to as many people as wish to listen. Good ideas and bad, sane communication or insane—it’s all grist for the electronic mill, archived forever. Governments can’t yet control it and businessmen haven’t yet figured out how to profit from it. But as the last national election demonstrates, its impact is enormous.
For those of us who love books, the passing of this cultural artifact is profoundly saddening. But it will pass and sooner than most people anticipate. American book publishing is mostly in the hands of German publishers. Editorial and design standards are in the sub-basement. The Kindle is merely the crude beginning of a much larger change. The book as we know it is on the way to the boneyard.
But literature, if not the novel, textbook, cookbook and how-to book, will in some new form survive.
Jul 15, 2009 - 6:09 pm 3. Max Friedman:Not only are we the “people of the Book” but we are also the “people of the books.” I’ve never been in a Jewish house that didn’t have a library to die for.
As Harry Golden used to say, “Enjoy, enjoy”.
Jul 15, 2009 - 11:04 pm 4. Norman Simms:Phyllis
A beautiful, thoughtful, very moviong speech and an essay I will treasure.
As someone who not only writes books, but also reviews them, edits them and when possible sees them through the press, I value them as treasures we cannot ever afford to lose.
Though I depend heavily on email and the internet, those electronic media are ephemeral and are valued only insofar as they support my love of books, rèal books, physical books, embodiments of history, language, and culture. Ebooks, kendel, and whatever–fimne as supplements, but not as replacements for the tangible objects, which we can feel, smell, taste and hold lovingly in our hands.
When my son had to go through a conversion process before his marriage, one of the key questions he was asked by the rabbis was: How would someone know your home was Jewish. His answer: It is full of books. That is clearly what they wanted to hear.
When he told me that story, I knew my wife and I had managed to keep alive our ancient tradition for at least one more generation.
My daughter makes books as works of art, some very tiny, some intricate and labyrinthine constructions, some as big as a room through which you can walk. That too is a real and manifest continuation of our Jewish civilization.
Norman
Jul 15, 2009 - 11:11 pm 5. sodacrackers:Phyllis, I am just loving your writing. Thank you so much for it! Books have always kept me sane; they are such a comfort.
Jul 16, 2009 - 4:37 am 6. Greenconsciousness:Norman Simms
Is your daughter’s work on line? Can we view it? I would like to see it.
Phyllis
You touched that soft chord in me again. I am weepy sitting here with my books all around me – people are shocked that my front room is just another room for my books – only an extra chair at the huge table for guests. I also no longer lend books and write all over them, use them, talk with them.
But of all the beauty of this post,this is what I sent to my friends:
“that once, she’d had dreams about peace that have been chipped away at, tarnished, even shattered. She asked me what I thought about this.
“Don’t give up your dreams or your ideals, simply allow reality a place at the table. Anyway, Jewish dreams, Jewish ideals belong to a Messianic Age. We’re not there yet. Our job is to take up our places in the great chain of Being, to “love or regard our neighbor as we love and regard ourselves,” to be kind to others, try to do no harm, to do some good on earth, and to walk humbly with God.””
Jul 16, 2009 - 4:55 am 7. Fern Sidman:Praise and accolades to Dr. Chesler for her finely crafted speech on her adoration of the written word and most importantly on the impact of ideas that emanate from them.
Dr. Chesler touches on the debilitating effects to the mind that the era of “infotainment” has had on an entire generation. As the word implies, it is a hybrid of sorts, a medium that incorporates ostensibly hard news with spuriously researched celebrity gossip and headlines that are redolent of the yellowist of tabloids.
While reading may become a lost art, Dr. Chesler hits the nail on the proverbial head when she speaks of books that are slapped together by ghost writers for the sake of cashing in on the latest celebrity rage or cultural phenomenon. While the internet, Kindle or other quick reads may be sufficient for the MTV generation, I believe that there are those who still hunger for well written books. On that note, I’d like to propose the idea that Dr. Chesler pen a book on Torah concepts. She did, after all, sum up the entire Torah in her last sentence,
Jul 16, 2009 - 3:07 pm 8. Norman Simms:“love or regard our neighbor as we love and regard ourselves,” to be kind to others, try to do no harm, to do some good on earth, and to walk humbly with God.”
Dear Greenconsciousness and any/everyone else who wants to look, my daughter Meliors’s work is visible and onsale through her blog:
Jul 16, 2009 - 3:52 pm 9. BL:http://meliors.blogspot.com/
Forgive me, Phyllis, as I am just catching up on my emails and wanted to thank you for such a thoughtful essay on books, reading,and libraries. Arizona State has just joined a pilot program with Amazon to offer many text books via their Kindle e-book service. A number of blind students have challenged this move. I understand the need to cut down on publishing costs and save paper, but imagining you reading to an audience of libarians from a nondescript, white kindle notebook is horrifing. The picture of you reading from THE NEW ANTISEMITISM is wonderful and conveys that unique feeling of holding a real book in your hands.
Jul 28, 2009 - 11:18 am