Before dinner the other evening Hania and I sat on the balcony drinking wine, eating smoked fish spread, and reading. When a neighbor appeared below, walking his dog, I imagined we presented a sterling portrait of marital boredom. What helped us, dimmed the picture a little, was the fact that we were reading books – Elena Ferrante and Tom Bissell – and not looking at screens. Books lend their owners an aura of seriousness and purpose that smartphones or iPads never do. Never mind that we could have been lost in airport novels, and online one can read scholarly journals. A digital device has a variety of uses – chatting, shopping, watching videos, searching for old flames – and this multifacetedness makes resorting to one while in the company of another person seem rather desperate, and rude (and intrinsically furtive). A book, when it’s in one’s hands, serves only one function. And reading, while sometimes touted as the ultimate escape, is eternally tied to the idea of edification, which automatically removes it from suggestions of desperation and boorishness. (Not to mention a book’s transparency, the title always there in plain view.) Read a lot of books and you get described as bookish, which is still a compliment; screenish, if the word existed – and perhaps it should – is something no one would wish to be called.
