Death of the Text?
“In the beginning was the
word,” says the Bible. Man is a word-making animal. One of the first things he
did as he started walking on two legs must have been coining words for
effective communication. Words continued to be coined enriching human languages
from the time of the earliest cuneiform texts. Man cannot live without the
texts.
“Is the written word
doomed?” The latest In(di)spire forum questions. No, it isn’t. The vlog and the
blog will coexist just as the TV and the print media do or the novel and the
movies do. True, more people are taking to the TV and the visual media. Video
blogging has become quite popular too similarly. Yet the power of the word, the
primordial power of mankind, will never be lost.
Words create texts. And
words will continue to exercise their charm on readers for ages to come. Even
today there are plenty of people who enjoy reading the newspapers in spite of
the fact that the TV brings the news more efficiently and attractively.
Literature continues to fascinate readers in spite of the movies and other such
entertainments.
The delight one gets from
the written texts is quite different from that given by other media. Words are
magic. Words are drugs. Words create music and stir the soul as nothing else
can.
I stick to blogging and
the written text.
Heartening to read a post where text blogging isn't thought to be on the way out. I own a kindle but prefer reading printed books. I have a laptop and access to every sort of news portal, yet I subscribe to five dailies. I have a personal library of 5000+ books at home. I simply cannot visualise the written word disappearing.
ReplyDeleteArvind Passey
www.passey.info
I too love the print versions to their electronic counterparts. Novels entice me more than movies. Nothing can take the place of good writers.
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