You’re Never Alone with a Kindle

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: 大而笨重的东西；hardback:硬皮书，精装书。Uniform pixels where once dust motes rose from an ancient page.2. pixel: 像素（计算机或电子设备屏幕上图像的最小单元）；mote:〈过时〉微尘，尘埃。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:《饥饿游戏》三部曲，美国小说家苏珊·柯林斯所著的青少年冒险科幻小说，包括《饥饿游戏》、《燃烧的女孩》与《嘲笑鸟》。. 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: 事件视界，物理学术语，是一种时空的区隔界限，指的是在事件视界以外的观察者无法利用任何物理方法获得事件视界以内的任何事件的信息，或者受到事件视界以内事件的影响，一般位于黑洞周围；Stephen Hawking: 史蒂芬·霍金（19 — ），英国著名物理学家，被新闻媒体誉为爱因斯坦之后最杰出的理论物理学家。

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 “look at me, I’m so into Proust” merchants.5. Proust: 马塞尔·普鲁斯特（1871—1922），法国意识流作家，代表作是《追忆似水年华》；merchant:〈俚〉热衷者，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: 指现实世界，与虚拟世界相对；spectrum: 范围。Now, however,you can swap thoughts and compare notes with people you’ve never met.7. swap thoughts: 交换想法；compare notes: 交换意见。此处这两个词组都表示“讨论、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以各种各样的方式改变了我们的阅读行为。Kindle不是藏在笨重硬书壳中的书页，摇身变成你口袋里的移动图书馆；它采用了统一的像素，你再也看不到陈旧纸页上扬起的灰尘。然而，Kindle带来的最大变化，也是最根本的变化，并不是物理意义上的变化，而是情感上的。阅读，曾经是最私密的行为之一，现在正逐渐走向共享。

在同一个网络上，你可以下载一本书，也可以上传你对这本书的看法。使用Kindle的标注功能，你不仅能在书上标记段落，还能看到别的读者都标记了哪些段落。这还没完呢，亚马逊会对这些被标注了的段落进行排名。在25段被标注次数最多的段落之中，竟然只有六段不是出自《饥饿游戏》三部曲。该系列大受欢迎的程度足以给大人们一个警诫：当他们说“我希望孩子们能多读一些书”时，他们的意思其实是“我希望孩子们多读些像狄更斯作品那样的经典”。你无法操控孩子的想象力，尽管你可能很想这么做。你也不应该这么做。若是读《饥饿游戏》能引导孩子们去读《大卫·科波菲尔》，那也得静候最佳时机。

Kindle自问世以来就被寄予了无限厚望。亚马逊掌门人杰夫·贝索斯宣称，Kindle会对传统图书出版和纸质阅读造成极大的冲击。Kindle内置的标注功能更是集记录、分享、社交为一体，打破了“孤灯下的一盏清茶，只可独啜，倾听一个遥远的灵魂对你一个人的窃窃私语”的传统阅读习惯。 这是福是祸兮？我们留给读者自己评判吧。

暂且不说这个极具人气的三部曲，我们来看一看其他哪些段落也经常被标注出来，结果耐人寻味。排在第二名的是《傲慢与偏见》的开篇：“这是举世公认的真理……”这本小说还有一句荣登榜上第七位：“傲慢更多是源于我们对自己的看法，而虚荣更多源于我们希望别人怎么看待自己。”有些愤世嫉俗的人可能会含沙射影地指出：恰恰是因为虚荣，人们才会使用Kindle的标注功能。就拿某位危地马拉的读者来说吧，他标注出了斯蒂芬·霍金的《时间简史》中的句子：“请记住，事件视界是光试图从黑洞中逃脱的时空路径。”

但是，正如我们知道书架上摆着一本书，并不能代表拥有者已经读过这本书了，我们完全能够辨别并忽视电子阅读世界中那些装腔作势的人。没必要被那些“快看我快看我，我多么热爱普鲁斯特”的热衷读者吓到。更该好好关注榜上第23位的《天堂真的存在》（真实记录了一位小男孩的濒死体验）—— 被4,860位Kindle用户标注出来的一段自问自答：“什么是孩童般的谦卑？……那是一段短暂而又珍贵的时光，那时我们还没有积攒足够的骄傲和社会地位去在乎他人的看法。”这种人生状态值得我们重新体验。

榜单上当然少不了奥斯卡·王尔德的名字，上榜的是《道林·格雷的画像》中的句子：“我选择朋友的标准是外表美，选择知交的标准是人品好，选择敌人的标准是智商高。”王尔德的文字常常如此，听起来不错，但细究起来却什么也没说，因此头脑冷静的理性主义者会更喜欢看到福尔摩斯的话比王尔德靠前六位，排在第19名。入选的句子是：“最犯不得的错误就是在得到事实数据之前就进行假设。那样的话，不知不觉之中，你就会扭曲事实来适应自己的假设，而不是改变假设去适应事实。”

对于作家而言，这一切也与数据密切相关。正如如今的报纸都知道有多少读者正在点击这篇社论或那篇专题，作者也可以知道他们作品中的哪处地方最能打动读者，以及读者对这些标注句子又有什么看法。这正是我如何发现我的一位读者曾表示我写的一本书“书呆子气十足”。这可是句恭维话。

但仅从读者的角度出发，我逐渐意识到，这种共享阅读的新方式本身就是书籍所存在的初衷。最原始、最强大的纽带存在于作者和读者之间：两个心灵之间的对话。不过，如果你希望保持阅读的私密性，让这种纽带仅存在于你的脑海之中，那你大可不用担心，Kindle不会阻碍你：你仅需要调整设置，停止共享你的标注即可。

我的童年时光多半是埋头在书中度过的，那些故事和知识反过来又使我钻进更深的自我世界，躲进更深的孤独之中。当然，这是一个鸡生蛋蛋生鸡的问题：我是因为阅读才会孤独，还是因为孤独才会去阅读？很难说。但可以肯定的是，这个过程一旦开始，对阅读的热爱——尽管这是人走向成熟道路上一个重要而欢乐的部分——也会使人沉迷于书页之中，避免与人直接交流；使人更喜欢可靠且可掌控的书籍，而不是棘手和不可预知的现实世界。大多数读者能恰到好处地平衡二者的关系，但对于一些孩子而言，这可能会使问题恶化。

因此，若如今孩子理所当然地在阅读设备中内置好了社交功能，这只会有百利而无一害。分享一本好书所带来的快乐，这一人类本能从未消逝，但在此之前，分享的范围被局限在现实生活的朋友之间、聚会上和（场合最正式的）读书俱乐部里。而现在，你可以与一个素未谋面的人讨论和交流。一部伟大的小说或改变人生的非小说类作品的影响力，以及你能接触到的人群，不仅会在数字上被放大（Kindle的销售数字已经顺利地突破百万），还会在多样性上有所增加（Kindle的读者遍布全球各地）。你甚至能与危地马拉的读者交流一下时空问题，若这真是你的兴趣所在。

“唯有联结！”E. M. 福斯特在《霍华德庄园》中告诉我们，“再也不要活在孤独斗室中。”在本文撰写之时，这句话已经被31位Kindle读者标注出来。