Novels Function And The Power

When People Talk About The Death Of The Novel, They Are Speaking Of The Need For The Birth Of Something Different.

We Can Open Up Our Computers And Skype With Someone, And We See Them. It's Like Looking Through A Window. And We Can Surf The Internet Through Our Phones, And It's Like Our Consciousness Is Far Away. Or We Can Step Through A Airplane Door And Be In Another Continent A Few Hours Away. So Technology Feels, To Me, Like The Doors Sort Of Already Exist, At Least Emotionally.

In A World Of Intrusive Technology, We Must Engage In A Kind Of Struggle If We Wish To Sustain Moments Of Solitude. E-reading Opens The Door To Distraction. It Invites Connectivity And Clicking And Purchasing. The Closed Network Of A Printed Book, On The Other Hand, Seems To Offer Greater Serenity. It Harks Back To A Pre-jacked-in Age. Cloth, Paper, Ink: For These Read Helmet, Cuirass, Shield. They Afford A Degree Of Protection And Make Possible A Less Intermediated, Less Fractured Experience. They Guard Our Aloneness. That Is Why I Love Them, And Why I Read Printed Books Still.

For A Combination Of Reasons, And Despite Evident Fondness For American Products And Individuals, My Impression Is That Most Pakistanis Have Extremely Negative Views Of The Us As A Geopolitical Player.

But When You Read A Book, What You See Are Black Squiggles On Pulped Wood Or, Increasingly, Dark Pixels On A Pale Screen. To Transform These Icons Into Characters And Events, You Must Imagine. And When You Imagine, You Create.