Tag Archives: week5

Are Books Alive?!!?

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After reading Borsuk’s chapter two in The Book, I was honestly super intrigued by the way they were discussing the book or codex as a body while describing each and every aspect of it like a body part. I also love how this part of the book transitions into the next sub-chapter which is how we as a society created some sort of intimate connection with this object that is not even alive. These two connect so well with each other since we see the book as a body and it is a clear representation of how we created such a close relationship with books.

Pretty wild to describe the book as body parts because I don’t believe a random bystander who doesn’t read occasionally would look at a book in that way besides it looking like, well, a book. The intimacy of not only looking at a book as a body, but as well writing down notes in the margins which then add another layer of relationship with the book is another telling sign of having a personal relationship with the book. The printing press creating these margins allowed for people to start spending more time with the book and having a personal relationship due to how important they viewed the content. This would then make every copy ever made more and more unique as time went on.

“The early years of printed codex thus mark both an important technological shift (the mechanical reproduction of text) and a philosophical one in terms of how we relate to books”(Borsuk 84).

This line fascinates me so much because it perfectly describes everything that I talked about earlier and of how we as humans have created such a close relationship with something that isn’t literally alive, but we do believe it is alive in one way or another due to how we react to the book since it feels as though we have a conversation with it as we continuously read it. So now it makes me wonder sometimes if our books are truly alive in one way shape or form because usually, we have intimate relationships with entities that are alive and not as much with things that aren’t alive. Our obsession with books is truly something that I never thought of especially when I look back to previous class discussion on how Professor Pressman discusses the fact that we as a society have really fetishized it to such a far degree and so far, that we have ended up tattooing it permanently on our body.

One more thing that I believe adds another layer on top of the intimacy with books is the fact that people back then would pirate books since they weren’t able to have many copies or that it may be too expensive. You have to be obsessed with a certain genre, author or story type to go out of your way to do illegal things to obtain such literature. My only question now is how far have we fetishized this inanimate object and second, how much further are we willing to push that line simply because we love books?

Week 5: Chapter 2

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In Chapter 2, she talks about the book as content rather than just an object. One sentence that immediately stood out to me was the first one: “The Renaissance inaugurated the age of books, at least among the aristocracy, and many of the features we now associate with the codex arose in response to the boom in silent readership.”

I find this so interesting because it shows that silent, private reading is not something obvious or natural. Before, many people read texts out loud, often in groups. When people started reading quietly to themselves, the book had to change too. Things like page numbers, indexes, and even margins became more important, because readers needed ways to navigate on their own. It reminds me of how we now expect search functions and hyperlinks in digital texts. The way we read always influences the way books are made.

Borsuk also explains how books became status symbols in the Renaissance. Rich families had small, decorated prayer books or even books in unusual shapes like hearts. That made me realize that books were never only about information. They also showed something about identity and culture. Today it’s similar. Some of my friends love to buy fancy hardcovers, even though they read mostly online. But I get it, because it always feels different to hold a real book from holding a Kindle or a phone.

What I also found fascinating is how silent reading changed people’s relationship with texts. Reading alone makes the experience more private, almost like a personal conversation with the author. I notice this in my own life too. Reading out loud in class feels very different from reading quietly at home. Silent reading makes me think more, but group reading makes me feel more connected but also nervous.

For me, the main point of Chapter 2 is that content and form cannot be separated. Books adapt to how people read, and at the same time, they change the way people think and learn.