Mirkwood

Kevin Kelly’s recent article titled Scan This Book! seems to have generated a great deal of excitement and resentment in the blogosphere. The article elaborates on the advantages of having a universal digital library by scanning all available documents, a task recently undertaken by Google in collaboration with five major libraries.This week, NYT published John Updike’s response The End of Authorship, a sort of a solitary reader’s rejoinder to the digitization mania. Updike says:

Authors, if I understand present trends, will soon be like surrogate birth mothers, rented wombs in which a seed implanted by high-powered consultants is allowed to ripen and, after nine months, be dropped squalling into the marketplace.

I want very much to agree with Updike’s position, which is that free access to use, mix, simplify, summarize, and snippetize the world’s literature undermines the simple yet magical dialogue between writer and reader. I feel that Kelly is being cavalier and does not really comprehend the intensely personal nature of the reading experience. However, I have to conclude that Kelly is right and that the universal digitization drive is both inevitable and beneficial. People able to afford the conventional paper books can continue to stay away from the electronic book. However, books are often unavailable, for instance, when people cannot afford to buy them, or when a country or community refuses to publish them for politicial reasons. In these cases, it is difficult to argue against the universal library, even though, in its quest to reach wider numbers, it can sometimes degrade the experience of the more privileged solitary reader.

[...] the place, comprehensively seen, looks like some immense hall or temple lighted from above. But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic repose; others, absolutely sheer or nearly so for thousands of feet, advance beyond their companions in thoughtful attitudes giving welcome to storms and calms alike, seemingly conscious, yet heedless of everything going on about them. - John Muir, The Treasures of the Yosemite, 1890.

Tomorrow, after five years in California, I shall make my first journey to Yosemite National Park to see firsthand the famed landscape that I have only seen in photographs - notably the beautiful plates by Ansel Adams. In the course of researching the spots to visit and the order in which to visit them, Google served up this wonderful essay written in The Century Magazine in 1890 by the legendary John Muir. It was through the efforts of Muir and the Sierra Club that Yosemite became a National Park in early twentieth century. Many of my friends - even those unfamiliar with Ansel Adams - have remarked that the Yosemite is a place that is made for photography and that I should prepare to get dozens of pictures. However, I happen to have time constraints as always, and might get one - or possibly two - day(s) in Yosemite before we head south-east to Sequoia National Park. The hope is to get a reasonably wide overview of both parks this time, and then make a more specific trip when the opportunity presents itself again.

EDIT: Added the photograph that we took from Glacier Point near the end of a hard day’s work. Even though one knows that the landscape has been carved by glaciers, the stupendous size of the glacial formation never ceases to amaze. We were all quietly stunned.