The novel brings into the world the moments of self-reflection, detachment, irony, and laughter against which mighty powers militate and which they would gladly condemn to exile were not the novel standing in their way. Like Penelope, it undoes each night the tapestry that the theologians, philosophers, and learned men have woven the day before. From such intertwining of the fragmented world and fragmented lives comes the biggest challenge to the book and book reading. The strength of the book was its unique ability to link biography and history, private and public, individual and society, lived moments and the meaning of life. The fate of the book in our globalizing world does not depend on, and cannot be explained by, technologies of printing or anything else confined to the publishing trade.
Books share the fate of the societies of which they are a part.
When we worry about the future of books and book readership, let us take a closer look at society and its trends. To make books fit for the society we inhabit, let us try to prevent it from becoming unfit for books. Profile Zygmunt Bauman is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the Universities of Leeds and Warsaw. All rights reserved.