To be blunt, what bollocks. I am astonished by how otherwise intelligent and educated people can so completely mix up Form and Content. A book is coherent (hopefully) collection of text (or pictures). It is not a stitched stack of paper. It's not a roll of animal skin. It's not a slate of glass and aluminium, or a string of bits. A book is a specialized collection of thoughts presented in a package.
To say that a book is not a book if it's not printed on paper is like saying that a film is not a film unless it's projected off a roll of celluloid.
BTW, this was Sendak. I am not surprised he looked like that. Why are old writers always such bitter old cusses? Maybe being a professional writer is really not good for you?
3 comments:
A book is coherent (hopefully) collection of text (or pictures).
So, a website is a book. A blog is a book. A long email message is a book. A wall of graffiti is a book. A heavily tattooed person is a book. An air sickness bag (with printing on it) is a book. Correct?
To say that a book is not a book if it's not printed on paper is like saying that a film is not a film unless it's projected off a roll of celluloid.
A book does not have to be printed on paper to be a book. The material could be papyrus, wooden tablet, animal hide or even plastic. However, it has to be somehow bound as a unit. So, a card file or a folder containing loose sheets is not a book. The key concept implied by the word book is binding.
The word film, on the other hand, specifically refers to the medium: a thin, usually transparent membrane or sheet.
A computer file can not contain a film. A computer file can contain a digitized representation of a motion picture.
I'm sure technically that's all correct. But it really doesn't help me, for in ordinary language, people will say "I saw a film last night," even if it was on DVD. And we all think of an ebook as a book, even if it's not on bound sheets of anything.
So I am at a loss as to what technical definition to use, but it's obvious to me that there must be or should be a definition of "book" which refers to the actual content of the book rather than what medium it happens to be on.
I think language always develop from words referring to physical things, because that's the things we can point to when the language is developed. But then we usually tend to keep those words and transfer them to more abstract concepts.
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