Books as Technology: or Leaving Bits of Yourself Laying Around
Columbus, Chris. (Director). (2002). Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets [Film]. Warner Bros. Pictures.
“Well,” said Slughorn, not looking at Riddle but fiddling with the ribbon on top of his box of crystalized pineapple, “well, it can’t hurt to give you an overview, of course. Just so that you understand the term. A Horcrux is the word used for an object in which a person has concealed part of their soul.”
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, (New York: Scholastic, 2004), 497.
Most readers who have ages in the double digits recognize this quote from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series of books, or at the very least the scene from the movie. It appears in a memory preserved magically through yet another magical way of externalizing part of oneself: the pensieve. For people who are NOT fans of fantasy (or possibly Rowling), the difference between the two magical devices is that a Horcrux stores an actual part of the person’s soul created through an act of violence, and a Pensieve is a device that may be used to voluntarily store, share and view memories. The Horcrux is a selfish device to provide for immortality. The Pensieve is a device to preserve memory and understanding.
A Book is sort of both.
A quote that is likely a bit less known is the following:
“All
media
are
extensions
of
some
human
faculty-
psychic
or
physical.”
― Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage
McLuhan develops this notion of “extension” or “externalization” throughout his written work. Simply put, writing is the process of recording our thoughts, feelings, etc. outside of ourselves both individually and corporately. (Interestingly enough, I had to dig through boxes and boxes of books to find these thoughts, once recorded by Marshall McLuhan. I could not find the book.) It is easy enough for most of us to think of DVDs as technology. Moreover, we could describe our collection of DVDs as “a library.” However, it is less obvious to realize that writing and books are actually the same thing. They are a technological means of recording thought, memory, feeling and experience. This technologizing changed both our individual experience through the imposition of the attendant needs of writing (experience of time, linearity, etc.) and our cultural and collective epistemology. We no longer needed to retain important information in the collective long-term memory of the elders of our society (cf. Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Techologizing of the Word).
So what? In Fantasy books, everything is magic. In Science-Fiction books, everything is technology. In our world, a book is sort of both. We share experiences that are external to us and enter the imagination, research, recollection, or experience of another.
So does it make a difference WHO you read? Lately MGB has been reviewing the work of Neil Gaiman (magical realism, his non-fiction, and his children’s literature). In and through all of his writing, the imagery, metaphor, recurring themes, and even his use of language reveal not only his thoughts but also his experiences, values, fears, and failings. In short, his books reveal his soul. As one literary agent (forgive me, I cannot remember your name!) puts it: “writing is a tattoo of your soul.”
Thus the act of writing (especially poetry) may be an act of supreme courage, generosity, and self-sacrifice, or conversely it may be an act of gross arrogance, foolishness and self-aggrandizement. For us, as readers, it is usually not very difficult to sort out who is who, be it fiction or non-fiction, romance or biography, mystery or sci-fi/fantasy.
Whom do you find fascinating? Hemingway? Socrates? Pratchett? What books people YOUR shelves? We’d love to know.
MGB
