It is said that books are humans’ best friends, where andhow did they come from is a mystery to many. The journey from the stone tablet to electronic tablet is largely unknown, especially the shape shifting nature
of books. Imagine time traveling to 800 BCE and asking for a book and getting a stone thrown at you. Provided that one is still alive, the stone will reveal whether it is a book with inscriptions, or just an angry homo sapiens irritated by literacy. Or perceive asking for a book in 21st century and getting a downloaded file to read or listen from the literacy agnostic computer, but this time at a less danger of losing one’s life! The journey has many facets from the forms the books had to the way they were produced and stored to what was written on them to how they survived so many centuries. Despite periodical censorships, the staying power of books have proven resilient.
On the materials the books are written define their purpose,too. Writing on stone is hard, so is removing it. They serve an excellent source for storing information, mostly accounting facts in limited space. The reader has to come to the book, so the information better be valuable! Compare this with scrolls used in the pre-modern era, where one can write several things from announcements to treasury matters to poetry, but they can easily be destroyed, recall the famous burning of Alexandria library. It was also painstaking to reproduce them, requiring hand written copying. The materials required to produce them, from paper to cloth to animal skin were scarce, too. Hence, the mass production was not the norm until the advent of printing press and mass production of paper.
The books were commissioned by individual owners and private collection reflected wealth and social status. Library system rarely existed, and in the cases when they did, can only be maintained by the state resources. Think about cataloguing the books and searching them without any cover! Bookstore were the place for commissioning the books, similar to walking on a tailor's shop to make clothes.
Literary was the luxury few can afford, so reading the book aloud was the best way to communicate the information. Like politicians and the media persons of today, one had to believe what the speaker said. Fact checking of book contents was possible, but rarely used due to the minor inconvenience of illiteracy (and physical strength to snatch the scroll from the speaker!). Copying was fine, as intellectual property didn't exist back in those days.
Fast forward, the physical books, e-book and audio books seem novel concepts, but in reality, they are combinations of the features evolved through centuries. It is difficult to burn a library today, but the
e-books can do the same removing them or denying access. Romans would be unimpressed by the modern technology of audiobooks, as it was part of their daily life, expect for the fact that voice came from a man rather the computer. Physical books, while changed from scroll to codex format with hardcover, title and table of contents, still have few percentages of population reading them. Transporting them is still a problem; try switching apartments or home!
Irene Vallejo brings to light the journey of books in this must-read book "Papyrus". The anecdotes and storytelling is mesmerizing and calling it is a page-turner would be an understatement. Some content is revealing: Adolf Hitler and Mao Zedong, both were avid readers of books, and also the biggest supporters of censorships. Some is hilarious: the trial went ahead according to the independent judiciary of the time, despite the minor inconvenience of the death of the accused. The book contains endless number of
other book recommendations.
The book belongs to the classics.
