MAGAZINE REVIEWS

Why do books matter?

by Seth Rogovoy

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Nov. 3, 1999) - Why do books matter? Why shouldn't we celebrate the many advantages of digital text over printed matter? Why should we let a sentimental attachment to old-fashioned paper get in the way of progress, whereby writing will be published digitally and available on demand at the click of a mouse? Harper's Magazine

In his essay "In Defense of the Book" in the November issue of Harper's Magazine, author William H. Gass explains why. "A treasured book is more important than a dance card…because such a book can be a significant event in the history of your reading, and your reading (providing you are significant) should be an essential segment of your character and your life."

In other words, we write our lives with the books we read, and the books we have read, lined up on the shelves of our personal library, are the story, in no small way, of our lives.

"In the ideal logotopia, every person would possess his own library and add at least weekly if not daily to it," writes Gass. "The walls of each home would seem made of books; wherever one looked one would only see spines; because every real book…is a mind, an imagination, a consciousness. Together they compose a civilization, or even several."

Gass acknowledges that not everyone can live inside their own library, which is why he laments the Disneyfication of the public library. "Now libraries devote far too much of their restricted space, and their limited budget, to public amusement. It is a fact of philistine life that amusement is where the money is."

The New Yorker

I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. Ask my wife. As soon as reports surfaced about mosquitoes spreading a deadly virus killing birds and humans in the New York metropolitan region, I noted that the origin might well be traced back to biological terrorists.

In "West Nile Mystery" in the Oct. 18/25 issue of the New Yorker, author Richard Preston examines the slim evidence of the West Nile virus's origins.

Like a sleuth, Preston traces the path of infection, which first gained notice when dozens of crows and other birds died at the Bronx Zoo in August. By late September, spooks at the C.I.A. were chilled when the virus was identified as West Nile; intelligence reports dating back to last spring had it that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had embarked on a full-scale program to develop and unleash the virus.

The virus could very well have made its way from Africa as a passenger on an errant bird on an unknowing human. Its path to our shores, accidental or otherwise, may never be known. One thing is clear, however. The ever-shrinking global village makes all sorts of travel and transmission easier, innocuous and otherwise.

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone, which evidently has given up any pretense toward serious cultural reportage in favor of People-style celebrity-mongering, is still somewhat on the ball when it comes to political coverage. It has a long history of astute political analysis, with writers like Hunter S. Thompson and P.J. O'Rourke - both of whom are still on the masthead - having called the magazine home for many years.

William Greider is now Rolling Stone's chief political correspondent, and he has been hard at work tracking the presidential candidates for Campaign 2000.

In the Oct. 28 issue, Greider visits with Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona). He finds in McCain a complex figure who defies typecasting. While on the one hand he is a "war hero," having spent five-and-a-half years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, he is not a knee-jerk booster of military spending. He believes that the Pentagon is riddled with waste and inefficiency which does no good for the nation's security or for the men and women in its employ.

He is a political reformer whose name is attached to a key piece of legislation regarding public financing of electoral campaigns, and he has spoken critically of the Republican party's fondness for millionaire contributors. His hero is Theodore Roosevelt, an "activist reformer" who believed in the power of the federal government to do good.

McCain lacks the internal censor required on the stump, and sometimes his tongue gets ahead of his brain and gets him in trouble. And Greider notes briefly McCain's legendary temper, which has even led an Arizona newspaper to declare him unfit to serve in the White House.

McCain has been stumping hard in New Hampshire, where voters have a long history of sending the front-runner - in this case Texas Gov. George W. Bush - limping out of their state. Look for McCain to make a strong showing in the New Hampshire primary early next year.

[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Nov. 6, 1999. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1999. All rights reserved.]