Literary graffiti?

In last weekend's W/E Australian Magazine, the erudite foreign affairs editor Greg Sheridan wrote (amongst other things) about the practise of annotating books. It's an interesting subject, and will get a variety of reactions from different people, very much dependant upon age and occupation I suspect.

For example, ask your average tertiary student about this practise, and they will readily admit to being serial annotaters (even, god forbid, in library books, but hopefully in pencil). Actually, some may even seek out the annotated text - after all, it's kind of like someone has done your homework for you, isn't it?

Many are initially shocked at the very notion of this practice - surely it denigrates and degrades the text, somewhat akin to literary graffiti. But as Sheridan points out, it can actually be of some benefit to the next reader of the book.

Personally, I think of this as a 'meta textual' thing - that is to say, it's a unique connection between you, the author, and all who have gone before. It's actually like a backward kind of online forum, come to think of it, but done really slowly. Is that such a bad thing?

Once again though (and as Sheridan mentions), this surely has to be yet another endorsement for the old-fashioned, paper kind of book. As I may have said in previous posts: I am yet to envisage any day wherein I may look forward to curling up on the couch with any kind of electronic reading device.

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