Mark Mason

The Kindle has changed reading in so many ways. A library in your pocket rather than the hulk of a hardback.1. hulk: 大而笨重的東西；hardback:硬皮書，精裝書。Uniform pixels where once dust motes rose from an ancient page.2. pixel: 像素（計算機或電子設(shè)備屏幕上圖像的最小單元）；mote:〈過時〉微塵，塵埃。But the biggest change,the most fundamental one, is emotional rather than physical. Reading, which used to be the most private of activities, is now an increasingly public one.

The same internet that lets you download a book’s content also lets you upload your reaction to that content. As well as allowing you to mark passages in a book, Kindle’s highlighting feature shows you which passages other readers have marked. What’s more, Amazon ranks the results. Of the 25 most highlighted passages, all but six come from theHunger Gamestrilogy3. Hunger Games trilogy:《饑餓游戲》三部曲，美國小說家蘇珊·柯林斯所著的青少年冒險科幻小說，包括《饑餓游戲》、《燃燒的女孩》與《嘲笑鳥》。. The popularity of the series is a useful reminder to adults who say “I wish children would read more” when what they really mean is“I wish children would read more Dickens.” Much as you might want to, you cannot programme a kid’s imagination.Nor should you try: ifThe Hunger Gamesis going to lead toDavid Copperf i eld, it’ll do so in its own good time.

But discounting the hit trilogy for a moment, it’s interesting to see which other passages are proving popular.At number two in the chart is the opening sentence ofPride and Prejudice(“It is a truth universally acknowledged …”).The same novel gives us, at number seven: “Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.” Vanity, the cynic might suggest,explains some of the Kindle highlighting going on. Someone in Guatemala, for instance, has picked: “Remember that the event horizon is the path in space-time of light that is trying to escape from the black hole” in Stephen Hawking’sA Brief History of Time.4. event horizon: 事件視界，物理學(xué)術(shù)語，是一種時空的區(qū)隔界限，指的是在事件視界以外的觀察者無法利用任何物理方法獲得事件視界以內(nèi)的任何事件的信息，或者受到事件視界以內(nèi)事件的影響，一般位于黑洞周圍；Stephen Hawking: 史蒂芬·霍金（19 — ），英國著名物理學(xué)家，被新聞媒體譽為愛因斯坦之后最杰出的理論物理學(xué)家。

But just as we’ve learned that the presence of that book on someone’s shelf doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve read it, so we can identify and ignore the literary poseurs in the digital world. No need to feel intimidated by the “l(fā)ook at me, I’m so into Proust” merchants.5. Proust: 馬塞爾·普魯斯特（1871—1922），法國意識流作家，代表作是《追憶似水年華》；merchant:〈俚〉熱衷者，入迷者。Concentrate instead on the 4,860 Kindle users who have putHeaven Is for Real(a true account of a young boy’s near-death experience) at number 23 on the chart, speci fically the passage asking:“What is childlike humility? … It’s that precious, fleeting time before we have accumulated enough pride or position to care what other people might think.” That’s a state we could all do with recapturing.

Inevitably Oscar Wilde shows his face, with this fromThe Picture of Dorian Gray: “I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters,and my enemies for their good intellects.” As so often with Wilde, it sounds good but doesn’t really amount to much, so hard-headed rationalists will like seeing Sherlock Holmes six places higher at number 19: “It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”

For writers, data is a large part of all this. Just as newspapers now know how many readers are clicking through to this editorial or that feature, authors can find out exactly which bits of their books are striking chords. And what comments are being added to those highlights. So it is that I encounter a reader of one of my books opining it to be “well nerdy”. He means it as a compliment.

Speaking solely as a reader, though, I’m coming to realise that this new communal approach is what books were always meant to be about from the start. The first and most powerful bond is between author and reader:mind talking to mind. And if you want to keep that bond private, inside your own head, then worry not, the Kindle will let you: simply adjust the settings to stop your highlights being made public.

But much of my childhood was spent nose-deep in books, the stories and facts they offered up driving me deeper into myself, into solitude. Chicken and egg,of course: did I become a loner because I read or read because I was a loner? Impossible to say. All that’s certain is that once the process has started, a love of reading—for all that it’s a crucial and joyous part of maturing—can also nurture a preference for pages over people, for reliable and manageable books rather than that awkward and unpredictable thing known as the real world. Most readers get the balance just right. But in some children it can exacerbate problems.

So if today’s kids have socialising built in to their reading devices as a matter of course, that can only be a good thing. The instinct to share the pleasure a great book has brought you has always been there,though up till now it’s been limited to those people you encounter in “meat space”, the physical world of friendships and parties and (at the formalised end of the spectrum) book clubs.6. meat space: 指現(xiàn)實世界，與虛擬世界相對；spectrum: 范圍。Now, however,you can swap thoughts and compare notes with people you’ve never met.7. swap thoughts: 交換想法；compare notes: 交換意見。此處這兩個詞組都表示“討論、交流彼此的想法”之意。The unifying effect of a great novel or a life-changing non- fiction book, the number of people you can reach, will be magni fied both in numerical terms—sales of the Kindle are well into the millions—and in the variety of those people, positioned as they are all over the globe. You can even, should it be your thing, discuss space-time with people in Guatemala.

“Only connect,” E.M. Forster tells us in Howards End. “Live in fragments no longer.” It’s a passage that, at the time of writing, has been highlighted by 31 Kindle readers.

Kindle以各種各樣的方式改變了我們的閱讀行為。Kindle不是藏在笨重硬書殼中的書頁，搖身變成你口袋里的移動圖書館；它采用了統(tǒng)一的像素，你再也看不到陳舊紙頁上揚起的灰塵。然而，Kindle帶來的最大變化，也是最根本的變化，并不是物理意義上的變化，而是情感上的。閱讀，曾經(jīng)是最私密的行為之一，現(xiàn)在正逐漸走向共享。

在同一個網(wǎng)絡(luò)上，你可以下載一本書，也可以上傳你對這本書的看法。使用Kindle的標(biāo)注功能，你不僅能在書上標(biāo)記段落，還能看到別的讀者都標(biāo)記了哪些段落。這還沒完呢，亞馬遜會對這些被標(biāo)注了的段落進(jìn)行排名。在25段被標(biāo)注次數(shù)最多的段落之中，竟然只有六段不是出自《饑餓游戲》三部曲。該系列大受歡迎的程度足以給大人們一個警誡：當(dāng)他們說“我希望孩子們能多讀一些書”時，他們的意思其實是“我希望孩子們多讀些像狄更斯作品那樣的經(jīng)典”。你無法操控孩子的想象力，盡管你可能很想這么做。你也不應(yīng)該這么做。若是讀《饑餓游戲》能引導(dǎo)孩子們?nèi)プx《大衛(wèi)·科波菲爾》，那也得靜候最佳時機。

Kindle自問世以來就被寄予了無限厚望。亞馬遜掌門人杰夫·貝索斯宣稱，Kindle會對傳統(tǒng)圖書出版和紙質(zhì)閱讀造成極大的沖擊。Kindle內(nèi)置的標(biāo)注功能更是集記錄、分享、社交為一體，打破了“孤燈下的一盞清茶，只可獨啜，傾聽一個遙遠(yuǎn)的靈魂對你一個人的竊竊私語”的傳統(tǒng)閱讀習(xí)慣。 這是福是禍兮？我們留給讀者自己評判吧。

暫且不說這個極具人氣的三部曲，我們來看一看其他哪些段落也經(jīng)常被標(biāo)注出來，結(jié)果耐人尋味。排在第二名的是《傲慢與偏見》的開篇：“這是舉世公認(rèn)的真理……”這本小說還有一句榮登榜上第七位：“傲慢更多是源于我們對自己的看法，而虛榮更多源于我們希望別人怎么看待自己?！庇行嵤兰邓椎娜丝赡軙成溆暗刂赋觯呵∏∈且驗樘摌s，人們才會使用Kindle的標(biāo)注功能。就拿某位危地馬拉的讀者來說吧，他標(biāo)注出了斯蒂芬·霍金的《時間簡史》中的句子：“請記住，事件視界是光試圖從黑洞中逃脫的時空路徑。”

但是，正如我們知道書架上擺著一本書，并不能代表擁有者已經(jīng)讀過這本書了，我們完全能夠辨別并忽視電子閱讀世界中那些裝腔作勢的人。沒必要被那些“快看我快看我，我多么熱愛普魯斯特”的熱衷讀者嚇到。更該好好關(guān)注榜上第23位的《天堂真的存在》（真實記錄了一位小男孩的瀕死體驗）—— 被4,860位Kindle用戶標(biāo)注出來的一段自問自答：“什么是孩童般的謙卑？……那是一段短暫而又珍貴的時光，那時我們還沒有積攢足夠的驕傲和社會地位去在乎他人的看法。”這種人生狀態(tài)值得我們重新體驗。

榜單上當(dāng)然少不了奧斯卡·王爾德的名字，上榜的是《道林·格雷的畫像》中的句子：“我選擇朋友的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)是外表美，選擇知交的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)是人品好，選擇敵人的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)是智商高?！蓖鯛柕碌奈淖殖３Ｈ绱耍犉饋聿诲e，但細(xì)究起來卻什么也沒說，因此頭腦冷靜的理性主義者會更喜歡看到福爾摩斯的話比王爾德靠前六位，排在第19名。入選的句子是：“最犯不得的錯誤就是在得到事實數(shù)據(jù)之前就進(jìn)行假設(shè)。那樣的話，不知不覺之中，你就會扭曲事實來適應(yīng)自己的假設(shè)，而不是改變假設(shè)去適應(yīng)事實?！?/p>

對于作家而言，這一切也與數(shù)據(jù)密切相關(guān)。正如如今的報紙都知道有多少讀者正在點擊這篇社論或那篇專題，作者也可以知道他們作品中的哪處地方最能打動讀者，以及讀者對這些標(biāo)注句子又有什么看法。這正是我如何發(fā)現(xiàn)我的一位讀者曾表示我寫的一本書“書呆子氣十足”。這可是句恭維話。

但僅從讀者的角度出發(fā)，我逐漸意識到，這種共享閱讀的新方式本身就是書籍所存在的初衷。最原始、最強大的紐帶存在于作者和讀者之間：兩個心靈之間的對話。不過，如果你希望保持閱讀的私密性，讓這種紐帶僅存在于你的腦海之中，那你大可不用擔(dān)心，Kindle不會阻礙你：你僅需要調(diào)整設(shè)置，停止共享你的標(biāo)注即可。

我的童年時光多半是埋頭在書中度過的，那些故事和知識反過來又使我鉆進(jìn)更深的自我世界，躲進(jìn)更深的孤獨之中。當(dāng)然，這是一個雞生蛋蛋生雞的問題：我是因為閱讀才會孤獨，還是因為孤獨才會去閱讀？很難說。但可以肯定的是，這個過程一旦開始，對閱讀的熱愛——盡管這是人走向成熟道路上一個重要而歡樂的部分——也會使人沉迷于書頁之中，避免與人直接交流；使人更喜歡可靠且可掌控的書籍，而不是棘手和不可預(yù)知的現(xiàn)實世界。大多數(shù)讀者能恰到好處地平衡二者的關(guān)系，但對于一些孩子而言，這可能會使問題惡化。

因此，若如今孩子理所當(dāng)然地在閱讀設(shè)備中內(nèi)置好了社交功能，這只會有百利而無一害。分享一本好書所帶來的快樂，這一人類本能從未消逝，但在此之前，分享的范圍被局限在現(xiàn)實生活的朋友之間、聚會上和（場合最正式的）讀書俱樂部里。而現(xiàn)在，你可以與一個素未謀面的人討論和交流。一部偉大的小說或改變?nèi)松姆切≌f類作品的影響力，以及你能接觸到的人群，不僅會在數(shù)字上被放大（Kindle的銷售數(shù)字已經(jīng)順利地突破百萬），還會在多樣性上有所增加（Kindle的讀者遍布全球各地）。你甚至能與危地馬拉的讀者交流一下時空問題，若這真是你的興趣所在。

“唯有聯(lián)結(jié)！”E. M. 福斯特在《霍華德莊園》中告訴我們，“再也不要活在孤獨斗室中?！痹诒疚淖珜懼畷r，這句話已經(jīng)被31位Kindle讀者標(biāo)注出來。