多媒體閱讀——不能承受之重

Two years ago， I had a very straightforward reading pattern. Every few days， I’d read a book. I would immerse myself in its characters and storylines， swim in its style， snatch up every opportunity throughout the day to return to its enveloping world. Then I would finish it， and start another one.

Things were so simple then.

I wish I could blame it on the Christmas eReader， but my evolution into 1）schizophrenic multimedia literature butterfly started long before it landed in my lap–via iPod and Audible， Twitter and Gutenberg， and brick-like new-writing magazines that take weeks to digest. My reading has taken on a strangely driven， guilty quality， as I try to justify the cost of all those subscriptions and all that hardware by consuming fiction in an unprecedentedly multiplicitous and simultaneous way.Secretly， I long to return to a world in which I had a loving， stable relationship with one paperback at a time.

A day in my life as a literary butterfly starts at 7：30a. m.， with a few select paragraphs from the short story in last weekend’s Sunday papers over a morning cup of tea. By 8：30a. m.， I’m fully plugged into my latest audiobook as I stride to the station. On the tube， it’s the rush to plough through the story and poems in the latest， expensively imported edition of the New Yorker， before next week’s lands on my mat. Throughout the day， I might catch up on a Twitter novel every few minutes， or check out the latest 2）freemium offering from an enterprising new author. Back on the tube， I 3）crack out the eReader， scroll past the 100 free books I haven’t e v e n d i p p e d into， and try to settle into the download I just had to buy to see if it worked. Finally， at bedtime， I open my book—my real， smelly， prefix-free book—and fall asleep， waking six hours later with ink on my face.

A recent study by Stanford University’s Department of Psychology has （in the time-honoured fashion of research） told us something we know all too well： we children of the long tail economy pay the price of unlimited choice with the misery of the always-something-better-out-there syndrome. “Even in contexts where choice can foster freedom， empowerment， and independence”， says the study’s author， Professor Hazel Markus， “it is not an 4）unalloyed good. Choice can also produce a numbing uncertainty， depression， and selfishness.”

As psychologist Barry Schwarz puts it in his brilliant TED Talk on the Paradox of Choice， “there’s no question that some choice is better than none， but there’s some magical amount. I don’t know what it is. I’m pretty confident that we have long since passed the point where options improve our welfare.” And it’s true： I love the fact that I can download some great new author’s self-published PDF onto my screen， that I can carry the electronic Riverside Chaucer wherever I go， that I can access almost any obscure old tome from Amazon marketplace and get 5）the cream of the fictional crop delivered quarterly to my door. But it’s a long time since I experienced the intense pleasure of leisurely browsing； the careful selection and devoted reading of a single text. For me， reading has become a fractured competitive sport.

There is joy in this 6）cornucopia of ways to consume quality literature， but there is also anxiety and loss—I feel like an alcoholic pushed into a permanently stocked bar， and I can’t even taste the 7）merlot because I’m trying to down a 8）tequila and sip a 9）martini at the same time. I’m dying to return to the mono-media of paper and glue. But I’m just not sure that I’m strong enough to resist the lure of that Dickens in my pocket； the new Jim Crace short story nestling in that mega-zine.

兩年前，我的閱讀方式很簡單。花幾天時間讀一本書。我會把自己沉浸在人物和故事情節中，暢游于書的寫作風格中，每天只要有時間，我都會回到那個被封存起來的世界。讀完這本后接著開始讀另一本。

那時候就那么簡單。

我希望我能歸咎于圣誕禮物——電子閱讀器，但早在擁有電子閱讀器前，我就開始變成了一個“精神分裂”的多媒體文學讀者——通過隨身聽、在線聽書網站、推特和古登堡網站，還要花幾個星期來消化磚頭般的新作品雜志。我的閱讀變得多而雜亂，為了試著證明自己在訂閱書籍和購買硬件設備方面的花費物有所值，我以前所未有的多樣化、同步的方式閱讀書籍。其實我心里渴望回到從前的世界，每次只與一本書建立一段充滿愛而穩定的關系。

我這只“文學蝴蝶”的一天從早上七點三十分開始，泡一杯茶，看幾段上周末周日報紙上的短篇故事精選。八點三十分，在趕往車站的路上，我會戴上耳機，聽最新的電子書。在地鐵上，我粗略瀏覽最新一期昂貴的進口版《紐約客》上的故事和詩歌，為了趕在下周新刊到達前看完。這一天里，可能每過幾分鐘我就會查看推特上的小說，或在免費增值網站上查看某位野心勃勃的新作家的作品。搭地鐵回家時，我拿出電子閱讀器，忽略那100本還沒看過的免費書，看看我購買的書下載成功沒有。最后，睡前，我打開書——我那真正的書，有著特殊味道、不帶前綴（e）的書——然后睡著，六個小時后醒來，墨水印在臉上。……