Translated from Lettres Libres (Spain/Mexico, 11.12.2011)
The Argentinian writer Martin Caprarros is over the moon about his Kindle, “the Robin Hood of books.” Some objects are so complete that we can’t imagine anyone actually inventing them. For thousands of years, steps were the best way of getting from one level to the next. The book is the step of texts: for years it has been the perfect form for storing and spreading the word. But today we have lifts – someone who wants to get to the 38th floor is unlikely to think of taking the stairs first.
“Yet the Kindle has nothing futuristic about it: it is the radical present of the book and that means something. Whereas today a fridge is designed to double up as a TV, a telephone as a camera and a laptop as an ersatz world, the Kindle stubbornly insists on being about reading and nothing else. Any remaining doubts I might have had were recently driven out on a train by a young man serving snacks: with his grubby face, gappy teeth and tousled hair, the boy looked admiringly at my Kindle: ‘Wow, man, a computer. – No, it’s a book. – Oh right (deeply disappointed), a book.’”
Eric Koch’s book, The Weimar Triangle, is available at Indigo-Chapters and in your local bookstore. 
