the future of the book?
Have you ever run your hands along the spines of the books on a shelf and wished that just by touching them, you could absorb everything in them? This has been a common fantasy of mine since I first realized I would never be able to read all the books in the world–in other words, since about the age of five. I don’t think I’d ever bargain away anything important for money or fame, but I might well sign a Faustian agreement for the sake of a glove like the one in Delany’s Stars In My Pockets Like Grains of Sand:
She made a gesture with her chin over her shoulder. “Back there I’ve got a carton of catalog cubes from the Inter-Sector Broadcast Library.” She laid two fingers on his gloved hand. “Thanks to that, you’re tuned into the compressed textual band. Do you know what that means?”
“No.”
She snorted. “What are the four largest geosectors on this world?”
“Abned, Rhyon, Cogonak.” He paused to question why she wanted to know. “And Emenog. . .?”
“. . .You see, in terms of data at hand, right now you’re on a par with the Skahadi Library itself–,” which, when her tongue lifted for the initial sibilant, he had never heard of before, but which, by the time it fell from the final vowel, he knew had been founded in ‘12 in Lower Cogonak, back when it had still been officially a part of Abned, before the Severence Decision of ‘80–which was when the Yellows had won their first major electoral victory. “You’re in touch,” she explained, “at this point, with a good deal more information than I am. . .Anyway, I figured we’d put all that to some use. Like I said, the carton’s filled with catalog cubes–about five hundred of them. They’re not there at random: they’re all texts I’ve wanted to read but never got around to. There’re more than a few in it I’ve discussed in great detail with various people, just as though I had read them. There’re a whole lot that I’ve read the first chapters of and have meant to read the rest for years. And there’re lots I read when I was much too young and have been intending to reread. Oh yes, and there’re about ten or fifteen I’ve read and reread a lot and just like a lot. Anyway. The instructions of the box your glove came in say that I–ordinary mortal that I am–can only absorb texts from the broadcast band at about one every ten minutes. But, as you may have figured out by now, I’m a lazy bitch. It says that if you’ve been through Radical Anxiety Termination, you can absorb them about one every point-thirty-two seconds; that’s without turning your mind into wet sand. You see, what I want to do is talk to somebody who’s read everything I should have read. I want to control such a man, make him lie down in the sand and lick my toes.” She grinned in the dark. “The glove will give you the texts verbatim. On hot, hazy nights, I’ll let you recite choice passages to me so that I can pick and choose. I can always get them myself with the glove later. But I think this way is more useful, more interesting.” She pushed another pedal. “Don’t you?”
–Samuel Delany, Stars In My Pockets Like Grains of Sand