Of Two Minds . Text on the screen is conspicuously non-print, unheavy, undark, dry, unimprinted, prone to sailing off. Yet it is just as conspicuously not also the eye's distant white noise of television, neither the undifferentiated blur, the illusionary road shimmer, nor the embodied presence, not the angelic hum and play of light which television draws in air. Instead with the electronic text there's undeniably a thing there on the screen. Like children's rolypoly pushover toys it somehow stays where it is when you scroll it, though it is always momentarily lost, or the eye is.
Print stays itself, electronic text replaces itself.
From reading the first day's comments, it seems that I'm the only one who sees a clear value in reading traditional books on a computer. Sven is sure that the context of electronic text is so different than ink on paper that the experiences can't be reasonably compared. Both Michael and Carolyn are enthusiastic about electronic text but not as applied to existing books. Actually I'm not sure if Michael, Carolyn or Sven has had the opportunity to read a complete novel on a laptop. Since I've read several, I thought it might be helpful if I described the experience at least anecdotally.