What E-Books Can't Do

I just read Alex Knapp's article in Forbes called E-Books Are Superior Tools to Physical Books   http://onforb.es/Ap55SS.   It was referencing a recent article in The Atlantic Monthly by Alan Jacobs, which I haven't read yet. And I probably won't.

My mother was a big reader, a devourer of books. Through good times and bad—and her life had not a small share of drama—books were the one great constant, the things that carried her through. As a twenty-something-year old living in Barranquilla, Colombia, she was a fringe member of a bohemian circle of friends, all writers and artists, who talked about books in cafes and over aguardientes in the kinds of bars young women like my mother, from good families and of a certain social standing, weren't supposed to frequent. She did regardless, so when a young writer from that circle of friends thrust a copy of Mientras Agonizo in her hands (Faulkner was a big a favorite of that group) she promptly complied and read the book (As I Lay Dying for those who don't know spanish). The young writer who gave her the book was several years away from writing his own opus, Cien Años de Soledad —otherwise known as One Hundred Years of Solitude—but my mother knew "Gabo" could always be counted on for a good read.

My mother died nine years ago. She was cremated, and my brother and I scattered her ashes around a tree that we had planted in her honor. There's no tombstone to mark her passing: just the tree that grows taller every year. I kept her clothes for a while, but they didn't fit me and weren't my style, so I saved some to give to my nieces, and kept a precious few, but the rest went to charity, which I think she would have wanted. There were some small mementos in her apartment, knickknacks from family vacations and car trips when I was young, a small sculpture of a mother and child that I remember her buying at the Gertz on Main Street in the 70s.

But really, the only thing that truly remain of hers—that she herself considered precious— are her books. Shelves of books. Old books. Recent books. Her tattered copies of The Little Prince and her beloved Oscar Wilde. The Little World of Don Camilo. Las Uvas de La Ira, which, in case you don't know spanish, is The Grapes of Wrath. The Good Earth. Her worn copy of Mientras Agonizo, which for all I know, could be the same copy Garcia-Marquez had pressed into her hands all those years ago. Pablo Neruda is well-represented, of course—she adored him, though she was surprisingly not that into many of the other great latin american authors that nevertheless fill her shelves: Alejo Carpentier, Mario Vargas Llosa, Guillermo Cabrera Infante. She was passionate about her german authors, though. La Montaña Mágica by Thomas Mann was a particular favorite. Günter Grass. Heinrich Böll, which she read in english. I remember exactly when she had developed her fondness for Böll, by the way, because it happened during my junior year abroad. Her letters to me were so filled with rapturous details about Billiards at Half Past Nine that I was inspired to read it, and when I reported back to her that the book didn't do much for me, she had assured me that someday when I was older I would reread it and my opinion of it would change. 

Shortly before she died, she had told me about a new discovery she had recently made, a book called The Land of Spices by Kate O'Brien. About a year after she died I found it on her bookshelf, and decided to read it. What a thrill when I opened it up and realized that throughout the book, she had underlined the passages she had loved the most. I had forgotten about this habit of my mother's: to underline in pencil the sentences or paragraphs in a book that moved her. So I read The Land of Spices as annotated by my dead mother, who I missed more than words can possibly express, and it was, for a while, like I was having a conversation with her. She spoke to me through these mysterious underlined passages. She whispered confidences. She reached me, briefly, from that place beyond words. We shared secrets. I loved the book and I think I know why she loved it. And this all happened after she died. And now I look at her bookshelves and realize that all these books are similarly annotated, with new conversations yet to be had. One of these days I'll reread Billiards at Half Past Nine, and I've no doubt that her underlined passages will help me get it this time.

So yes, I'm sure the Kindle is infinitely more convenient than a bookshelf of old tattered books, and yes, I know it comes with numerous features that let you highlight text. But it can't replace the conversations I've had with my mother in the years since she died, conversations framed by her paragraphs full of wildly-drawn pencil lines and delirious exclamation points in margins, endpapers emblazoned with her signature, first editions that are coffee-stained or bear the marks of many unpackings, pages dog-eared years ago by her beautiful, living hands.