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電子と紙の共生
普通の紙の本を愛してやまない筆者が、最近、電子書籍のリーダーを入手した。
実際に使ってみると、携帯に便利で、目に優しく、経済的とあって、その魅力に屈せざるを得ない。
とはいえ、電子書籍が将来、紙の本という最高のテクノロジーに取って代わることはないだろう。
A happy coexistence
The relationship between me and electronics is one of mutual distrust. I don't love gadgets, and gadgets don't love me, and they have an alarming tendency to break down when I use them. So it's not surprising that I scoffed when I heard of e-readers. Why did I need an e-reader? What could replace or better the experience of reading a book?
Reading books is, of course, about reading words on a page, but there's more to the reading experience than that. Reading books is about going into a bookshop, seeing the books lined waiting on the shelves, and encountering the unexpected. It's about the physical beauty of the book itself: the cover, the texture of the paper, the weight of the book in your hand, the wrinkles in the spine, the dog-eared pages and the wear and tear. It's a record of where you read it and what was happening when you read it: the chocolate brownie stain on page 14, the bloody smear of a squashed mosquito from your trip to Thailand on page 158, the now incomprehensible "note to self'' on page 287, the wavy paper from when you dropped it in the bath, the hastily scrawled phone number on the inside back cover. You lose that intimacy with an e-reader, which seems cold and impersonal by comparison, and which makes the reading experience more ephemeral.
And yet, here I am, now, the owner of an e-reader, and rather begrudgingly I like it.
Practicality was the main draw. I move about a great deal, and praising books is all very fine and noble until you have to cart a ton of them around. But once I started using the e-reader, I was pleasantly surprised. It was easy to use, and easy on the eye. I could adjust the size of the script, which was a great boon as publishers now often economize with microscopic fonts. Also, classics are cheap, and I'm spending less because I buy one book at a time.
So am I a convert? Not entirely. You can't share e-books. Some e-readers come with too many distracting extras. Publishing spats can limit book selection, and there is the constant fear that my e-reader will break or run out of batteries or, heaven forbid, be outmoded. I lament, too, having to forgo life's chief pleasure of reading in a bath on a cold, rainy morning. Happily it's not an either/or situation, and I'm now used to mixing books and e-books.
The e-book may be the future of reading, but it won't ever replace the book. It's comforting that in this day and age, when every few weeks throws up some new fancy device to make our lives both easier and more complicated, that the book, in all its compactness, its portability, its durability and its reliability, remains the most perfect piece of technology in itself.
- coexistence
- 共生
- electronics
- 電子機器
- mutual distrust
- 相互不信
- gadgets
- 機械
- alarming
- 憂慮すべき
- scoffed
- 小ばかにした
- e-readers
- 電子書籍専用端末
- there's more to the reading experience than 〜
- 読書体験には〜以上のものがある
- the unexpected
- 予期せざること
- physical beauty
- 形の美しさ
- texture
- 感触
- wrinkles in the spine
- 本の背にできるしわ
- dog-eared pages
- 端を折ったページ
- wear and tear
- 擦り切れたり破れたりすること
- stain
- 汚れ
- bloody smear
- 血の跡
- squashed
- つぶされた
- note to self
- 自分のためのメモ
- wavy
- しわしわの
- hastily scrawled
- 慌てて走り書きした
- inside back cover
- 裏表紙の内側
- intimacy
- 親密さ
- by comparison
- 比べると
- ephemeral
- はかない
- And yet
- それなのに
- begrudgingly
- しぶしぶ
- Practicality
- 実用性
- draw
- 目玉
- move about
- あちこち動き回る
- easy on the eye
- 目にやさしい
- boon
- 重宝すること
- microscopic fonts
- 非常に小さな文字
- at a time
- 一度に
- convert
- 転向者
- come with 〜
- 〜がついてくる
- distracting extra
- 気を散らす余計なもの
- spats
- 競争
- heaven forbid
- そんなことがあってはならないのだが
- be outmoded
- 時代遅れになる
- lament
- 〜を嘆き悲しむ
- forgo
- 〜をなしで済ます
- either/or
- 二者択一の
- throws up
- 〜を送り出す
- in all 〜
- 〜の点において
- durability
- 耐久性