Coady - Who needs books? Reading in the digital age

Published by

The University of Alberta Press

Ring House 2

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E1

www.uap.ualberta.ca

and

Canadian Literature Centre / Centre de littrature canadienne

35 Humanities Centre

University of Alberta

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E5

www.abclc.ca

Copyright 2016 Lynn Coady

Introduction 2016 Paul Kennedy

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Coady, Lynn, 1970, author

Who needs books? : reading in the digital age / Lynn Coady.

(CLC Kreisel lecture series)

Co-published by Canadian Literature Centre / Centre de littrature canadienne

Includes bibliographical references.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 9781772121247 (paperback).ISBN 9781772121209 (EPUB).ISBN 9781772121421 (kindle).ISBN 9781772121438 (PDF)

1. Books and readingTechnological innovationsSocial aspects. 2. Electronic booksSocial aspects. I. Title. II. Series: Henry Kreisel lecture series

First edition, rst printing, 2016.

First electronic edition, 2016.

Copyediting and proofreading by Peter Midgley.

Digital conversion by Transforma Pvt. Ltd.

Cover design by Alan Brownoff.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written consent. Contact the University of Alberta Press for further details.

The University of Alberta Press supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with the copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing University of Alberta Press to continue to publish books for every reader.

The Canadian Literature Centre acknowledges the support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for the CLC Kreisel Lecture delivered by Lynn Coady in April 2015 at the University of Alberta.

The University of Alberta Press gratefully acknowledges the support received for its publishing program from the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Government of Alberta through the Alberta Media Fund.

FOREWORD

The CLC Kreisel Lecture Series

In this event we come together, listen with more than our ears, remove blinders and become part of the celebration, expand our thinking and feeling of inclusion, and build relationships.

CHRISTINE SOKAYMOH FREDERICK

THE FUNDAMENTAL OBJECTIVE of the CLC Kreisel Lecture Series could not have been better summarized. This series realizes most fully the Canadian Literature Centres mission: to bring together authors, readers, students, researchers and teachers in an open, inclusive and critical forum. Kreisel lecturers already include Joseph Boyden, Wayne Johnston, Dany Laferrire, Eden Robinson, Annabel Lyon, Lawrence Hill, Esi Edugyan, Tomson Highway, and here the formidable Lynn Coady. Take the fine points about social oppression, cultural identities and sense of place by Boyden, or Johnstons reflection on the tumultuous encounter of history and fiction. Consider with Laferrire both the pains of exile and the joys of migrancy, or the personal and communal ethics of Aboriginal storytelling that Robinson presents. Antiquity and the present come together through Lyons lecture about the creative process of historical fiction. Hill invokes the need for an informed conversation about book censorship. Highway makes a compelling argument for the liberating joy of knowing other and others languages , including the language of music. In these pages, Lynn Coadys 2015 lecture urges us to assay cultural alarmism about the future of the book in the digital age, and to reflect on what exactly we are afraid of losing, or better yet, of seeing change. Through her nonetheless very grown up and clever Sesame Street analogy, Coady reminds us that our latest monstrous bogeyman, supposedly lowbrow internet culture, is in reality us. She reminds us of our own agency to resist projections of fearful cultural apocalypses that the West has constructed for itself since Gutenbergs printing press ushered in modernity. Coady reminds us of our love, both intellectual and sensual, of books.

The CLC Kreisel Lecture Series confronts questions that concern us all in the specificity of our contemporary experience, whatever our differences. In the spirit of free and honest dialogue, they do so with thoughtfulness and depth as well as humour and elegance, all of which characterize, in one way or another, the nine incredibly talented writers featured so far.

These public lectures set out to honour Professor Henry Kreisels legacy in an annual public forum. Author, University Professor and Officer of the Order of Canada, Henry Kreisel was born in Vienna into a Jewish family in 1922. He left his homeland for England in 1938 and was interned, in Canada, for eighteen months during the Second World War. After studying at the University of Toronto, he began teaching in 1947 at the University of Alberta, and served as Chair of English from 1961 until 1970. He served as Vice-President (Academic) from 1970 to 1975, and was named University Professor in 1975, the highest scholarly award bestowed on its faculty members by the University of Alberta. Professor Kreisel was an inspiring and beloved teacher who taught generations of students to love literature and was one of the first people to bring the experience of the immigrant to modern Canadian literature. He died in Edmonton in 1991. His works include two novels, The Rich Man (1948) and The Betrayal (1964), and a collection of short stories, The Almost Meeting (1981). His internment diary, alongside critical essays on his writing, appears in Another Country: Writings By and About Henry Kreisel (1985).

The generosity of Professor Kreisels teaching at the University of Alberta profoundly inspires the CLC in its public outreach, research pursuits, and continued commitment to the ever-growing richness and diversity of Canadas writings. The Centre embraces Henry Kreisels no less than pioneering focus on the knowledge of ones own literatures. The CLC seeks and fosters a better understanding of a complicated and difficult world, which literature can reimagine and perhaps even transform.

The Canadian Literature Centre was established in 2006, thanks to the leadership gift of the noted Edmontonian bibliophile, Dr. Eric Schloss.

MARIE CARRIRE

Director, Canadian Literature Centre

Edmonton, December 2015

NOTE

. Christine Sokaymoh Frederick, introduction to A Tale of Monstrous Extravagance: Imagining Multilingualism , by Tomson Highway (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press and Canadian Literature Centre, 2015), xiii.

LIMINAIRE

La collection des Confrences Kreisel du CLC

loccasion de cet vnement nous nous runissons, nous coutons avec plus que nos oreilles, nous retirons nos illres et nous nous intgrons la fte, nous enrichissons notre pense et notre sentiment dinclusion, et nous crons des relations.

CHRISTINE SOKAYMOH FREDERICK

ON NE SAURAIT pas mieux synthtiser les objectifs essentiels de la collection des Confrences Kreisel du CLC. Cette collection ralise tout au mieux la mission du Centre de littrature canadienne: celle de runir auteurs, lecteurs, tudiants, chercheurs et professeurs dans un forum ouvert, inclusif et critique. Parmi les confrenciers Kreisel lon peut dj compter Joseph Boyden, Wayne Johnston, Dany Laferrire, Eden Robinson, Annabel Lyon, Lawrence Hill, Esi Edugyan, Tomson Highway, et dsormais la formidable Lynn Coady. Pensons aux fines observations de Boyden sur loppression sociale, les identits culturelles et le lieu; ou la rflexion de Johnston sur la rencontre tumultueuse de lhistoire et la fiction. Tenons compte avec Laferrire des preuves de lexil et des joies de la migrance; ou de lthique personnelle et communautaire du rcit autochtone que nous prsente Robinson. Lantiquit et le prsent se runissent dans la confrence de Lyon au sujet du mode cratif de la fiction historique. Hill plaide le besoin dune conversation informe sur la censure des livres. Highway dfend lapprentissage librateur et heureux dautres langues, de la langue des autres , y compris le langage de la musique. Dans ces pages, la confrence 2015 de Lynn Coady nous incite analyser lalarmisme culturel quant lavenir du livre lre numrique, de rflchir ce que nous craignons de perdre, ou encore, de voir changer. travers de son analogie Sesame Street pourtant bien mre et astucieuse, Coady nous rappelle que notre tout dernier pouvantail monstrueux, la culture internet supposment peu intellectuelle, est, au fait, nousmme. Lauteure nous rappelle notre propre capacit de rsister aux projections daffreuses apocalypses culturelles imagines par lOccident depuis limprimerie de Gutenberg et son inauguration de la modernit. Coady nous rappelle notre amour tant intellectuel que sensuel des livres.