Gutenberg's Fingerprint
CBC Books | CBC | Posted: May 3, 2017 1:24 PM | Last Updated: July 9, 2017
Merilyn Simonds
Four seismic shifts have rocked the history of human communication: the invention of writing, the invention of the alphabet, the invention of mechanical movable type that made the printing press possible, and the invention of the internet. Poised over this fourth transition, e-reader in one hand, a perfect-bound book in the other, Merilyn Simonds — author, literary maven and early adopter — asks herself, "What is lost and what is gained as paper turns to pixel?"
Gutenberg's Fingerprint trolls the past, present and evolving future of the book in search of an answer. Part memoir and part philosophical and historical exploration, the book finds its muse in Hugh Barclay, who produces gorgeous books on a hand-operated antique letterpress. As Simonds works alongside this born-again Gutenberg and with her sons to develop digital and audio editions of her flash-fiction stories, The Paradise Project, her assumptions about reading, writing, the nature of creativity and the value of imperfection are toppled.
Gutenberg's Fingerprint is a timely and fascinating book that explores the myths, inventions, and consequences of the digital shift and how we read today. (From ECW Press)
From the book
When I was very young, I came down with an extended bout of measles just as my baby sister was born. I was sent to my grandmother's house. In an upstairs closet she kept toys for such occasions: a wooden cart and horse with tiny wooden bottles of milk that fit into miniature crates, sweet porcelain-faced dolls, and an educational toy that I think of as a very early version of a computer. About the size of a square suitcase, the top lifted like a laptop, its hinged arms connected to a base that was a chalkboard. The "screen" was a thick scroll moved by wooden knobs. I'd turn the knobs and the scroll would move to reveal architectural drawings, a train in perfect perspective, songbirds and their eggs, flags of the world, the complete Morse Code, a lady with a hat that if you squinted became a Bengal tiger. Really, everything a girl needed to know. As I fix my cursor to scroll down my computer screen I often think of that other scroll, and of the Romans, especially the marble sculpture of a young girl, discovered in Pompeii, a small scroll held loosely in her hand.
From tablets and scrolls to scrolling tablets, and in between, the codex we call book.
From Gutenberg's Fingerprint by Merilyn Simonds ©2017. Published by ECW Press.