What's the Matter with Books?

摘要

The question "what's the matter with books?" may be understood on multiple registers. Taken colloquially, it asks about print technology and its product; such a query usually denotes a worry or concern over something that has perhaps gone wrong, become a problem, or deviated from accepted practices or anticipated outcomes. At the same time, however, the question may also be understood in a more literal and material sense: in this way, it inquires about printing's matter, questioning both the subject matter of print and the materiality of its product. This question, which is traced in many places and in innumerable ways, is perhaps the query most appropriate at this time, in the era that is commonly called "the late age of print." It especially matters when, for example, the computer is purported to replace the printed book as the depository and definition of human knowledge. The question, then, is palpable at this point in time when we read so much about the end of the book, the death of literature, or its remediation in digital form.