Business Philosophy. Part I. Or, Why Publish BOOKS in This Day and Age?

Well. Books are essential, even in this day and age--more than that, they are themselves essences. At risk of being effusive, allow me to explain:

The touch and smell of a book. Books found, in mouldy corners, on dusty bookshelves, books discovered in a great-aunt's attic, books seized upon under cover of rain. Books opened, quested, to find--a world anew. There is no electronic equivalent.

Suppose, for one, you went to an open-air flea market. It is quite a gypsy flea-market--summons to mind those medieval portraits of fairs, bright colours encamped near bright colours, wagons, tents, camel-like horses chafing at the bit, dazzled onlookers seeking to buy their copper's worth of ribbon, of silk, of silver. You needn't be a connoisseur. The secret alcoves, containing hidden treasures--an old bird-cage, wrought in gargoyled iron; an ancient lamp, dusty with adventure; a roll-top desk perfect for writing letters of intrigue and experience (' Dear Isidore, Our hearts can no longer contain each other, for our lives have grown too full. Remember me, as I remember you, and above all remember that summer we spent by the sea, in which we discovered that cave, from whence the dread secret has encumbered our lives...).

And a stack of old books, ripe for opening. The world is yours...

Imagine this: a scene in which a child as well as a wizened sage may take pleasure.

Now, imagine a virtual marketplace, filled with the same wares...but in what form? Two-dimensional echoes, devoid of sensory value--no scent, no feel, no sunlight, no sound. The hawkers' cries do not ring out, all moves on a flat screen.

There is simply no comparison.

Books are artifacts.

So it is with books--so it is with literature. Take away the sense and smell and feel of the covers, the bindings, the pages, the ink-pressed characters that enfold to tell a tale, and you are lost. It is not literature, simply information, processed and uniformly packaged. And what mystery in a screen?

Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, or, Things Lost Beneath Beds

Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, or, Things Lost Beneath Beds

I intended to make this blog more than, as mentioned, Yet Another Literary Blog. I intended to begin with a pithy quote from Johnson's Dictionary, a tingling word to excite the senses and stir the mind. The latter intention, it seems, shall have to wait.

Why is it that books disappear beneath beds? There is a sort of piquancy to it, almost--a twist of fate that, if written the right way, could lean towards the tragic...

Nevertheless, we shall see about the first intention. My work takes me to far-off climes and dangerous territories of the imagination. I shall endeavour to explore dark secrets, heroic attempts, fantastic feats of courage and alliteration. There is much to learn in the world of books beyond what is written in the pages; one must go deeper still, to the essence of them, the heat and heart and light of which they are (at centre) composed.

Dr. Johnson will have to wait.