The Future of the Book: From Papyrus to Pixels

书的未来：从纸草到像素

The digital transformation of the way books are written, published and sold has only just begun

书籍的撰写、出版和销售方式的数字化变革才刚刚开始

Fingers stroke vellum; the calfskin pages are smooth, like paper, but richer, almost oily. The black print is crisp, and every Latin sentence starts with a lush red letter. One of the book’s early owners has drawn a hand and index finger which points, like an arrow, to passages worth remembering.

手指轻触犊皮纸；小牛皮制成的书页像纸一样顺滑，但更丰润，近乎油腻。黑色的文字很清晰，每句拉丁文都以一个鲜红的字母开头。这本书早年的主人之一在书上画下了一只伸出食指的手，像一个箭头般指向那些值得铭记的段落。

In 44BC Cicero, the Roman Republic’s great orator, wrote a book for his son Marcus called de Officiis (“On Duties”). It told him how to live a moral life, how to balance virtue with self-interest, how to have an impact. Not all his words were new. De Officiis draws on the views of various Greek philosophers whose works Cicero could consult in his library, most of which have since been lost. Cicero’s, though, remain. De Officiis was read and studied throughout the rise of the Roman Empire and survived the subsequent fall. It shaped the thought of Renaissance thinkers like Erasmus; centuries later still it inspired Voltaire. “No one will ever write anything more wise,” he said.

公元前44年，古罗马伟大的演说家西塞罗（Cicero）为他的儿子马库斯（Marcus）写了一本书，名为《论义务》（de Officiis）。这本书告诉他如何过有道德的人生，如何平衡美德和利己，如何产生影响力。他所言并不都是原创。西塞罗汲取了多位古希腊哲学家的观点，他可以在自己的书房里查阅他们的著作，其中大部分自那以后都已不知所踪。西塞罗的著述却留存下来。在罗马帝国崛起的整个过程中，人们阅读和研究《论义务》，帝国衰亡后它仍然被保存下来。它塑造了伊拉斯谟（Erasmus）等文艺复兴时期的思想家；几个世纪以后还启迪了伏尔泰。“再不会有人写出更智慧的文字。”他说。

The book’s words have not changed; their vessel, though, has gone through relentless reincarnation and metamorphosis. Cicero probably dictated de Officiis to his freed slave, Tiro, who copied it down on a papyrus scroll from which other copies were made in turn. Within a few centuries some versions were transferred from scrolls into bound books, or codices. A thousand years later monks meticulously made copies by hand, averaging only a few pages a day. Then, in the 15th century, de Officiis was copied by a machine. The lush edition in your correspondent’s hands – delightfully, and surprisingly, no gloves are needed to handle it – is one of the very first such copies. It was printed in Mainz, Germany, on a printing press owned by Johann Fust, an early partner of Johannes Gutenberg, the pioneer of European printing. It is dated 1466.

这本书的文字未曾改变，但它们的载体却经历了不断的转化变形。西塞罗可能向他的获释奴隶提洛（Tiro）口述了《论义务》，提洛把它誊写在古本手卷上。而其他复制本又是抄自这本手卷而来。几个世纪中，一些版本从手卷转换成装订书或抄本。一千年后，僧侣们一丝不苟地手工抄录该书，平均每天只能抄几页。而后，在15世纪，一台机器开始印刷《论义务》。本刊记者手中的豪华版本，是最早的这类复制品之一。让人高兴又惊奇的是，不需要戴手套就可以翻阅这本书。它在位于德国美因的茨约翰·福斯特（Johann Fust）的印刷机上印刷。福斯特是欧洲印刷术先驱约翰尼斯·古登堡（Johannes Gutenberg）早年的搭档。印刷日期是1466年。

Some 500 years after it was printed, this beautiful volume sits in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, its home since 1916. Few physical volumes survive five centuries. This one should last several more. The vault that holds it and tens of thousands of other volumes, built in 1951, was originally meant to double as a nuclear-bomb shelter. Although this copy of de Officiis may be sequestered, the book itself is freer than ever. In its printed forms it has been a hardback and, more recently, a paperback, published in all sorts of editions – as a one off, a component of uniform library editions, a classic pitched at an affordable price, a scholarly, annotated text that only universities buy. And now it is available in all sorts of non-printed forms, too. You can read it free online or download it as an e-book in English, Latin and any number of other tongues.

约500年后，这本精美的书躺在加州圣马里诺（San Marino）的亨廷顿图书馆（Huntington Library）里。自1916年来，这里就是它的栖息地。少有纸质书能流传五个世纪。这本应该还能留存几百年。存放它和其他几万本书的地下室建于1951年，地下室最初的作用是核弹庇护所。虽然这本《论义务》可能被禁锢了，这本书本身却比以往任何时候都更自由。它的印刷形式包括一种精装版和最近出版的平装版，它有各式各样的版本——绝版、图书馆文库的一卷、平价的典藏版、唯大学购买的学术性注本。而如今它也有了各种各样的非印刷版本。你可以在网上免费阅读或下载英文、拉丁文或许多其他语言的电子版。

Many are worried about what such technology means for books, with big bookshops closing, new devices spreading, novice authors flooding the market and an online behemoth known as Amazon growing ever more powerful. Their anxieties cannot simply be written off as predictable technophobia. The digital transition may well change the way books are written, sold and read more than any development in their history, and that will not be to everyone’s advantage. Veterans and revolutionaries alike may go bust; Gutenberg died almost penniless, having lost control of his press to Fust and other creditors. But to see technology purely as a threat to books risks missing a key point. Books are not just “tree flakes encased in dead cow”, as a scholar once wryly put it. They are a technology in their own right, one developed and used for the refinement and advancement of thought. And this technology is a powerful, long-lived and adaptable one.

许多人都担心这类技术对书意味着什么。大书店关门，新设备流行，新手作者充斥市场，亚马逊这个网上巨头变得日益强大。他们的焦虑不能被简单地看作是老生常谈的“技术恐惧症”。数字变革可能会改变书籍被撰写、销售和阅读的方式，程度超过书籍史上任何一次发展，而这并非对所有人都有利。无论老将还是革新者，同样可能败下阵来。古登堡死时几乎一文不名，福斯特和其他债权人接手了他印刷厂的控制权。但是，把技术完全视为对书的一种威胁，可能会错过一个关键点。书不只像某位学者曾经打趣说的那样是“死牛包裹树皮”。它们本身就是一种技术，为提炼、推进思想而发明使用的一种技术。这种技术强大、长久，而且适应力强。

Books like de Officiis have not merely weathered history; they have helped shape it. The ability they offer to preserve, transmit and develop ideas was taken to another level by Gutenberg and his colleagues. Being able to study printed material at the same time as others studied it and to exchange ideas about it sparked the Reformation; it was central to the Enlightenment and the rise of science. No army has accomplished more than printed textbooks have; no prince or priest has mattered as much as “On the Origin of Species”; no coercion has changed the hearts and minds of men and women as much as the first folio of Shakespeare’s plays.

像《论义务》这样的书不只经受住了历史的变迁，它们帮助塑造了历史。古登堡及其同事把它们保存、传递及发展思想的能力提高到了另一层次。人们能和其他人同时研究印刷材料并交流想法，这触发了宗教改革，也是启蒙运动和科学崛起的关键。没有哪一支军队取得的成就超过纸本教科书；没有哪一位君主或牧师的重要性堪比《物种起源》；没有哪一种高压政治曾像莎士比亚戏剧首批对开本那样，改变了男男女女的心灵和思想。

Books read in electronic form will boast the same power and some new ones to boot. The printed book is an excellent means of channelling information from writer to reader; the e-book can send information back as well. Teachers will be able to learn of a pupil’s progress and questions; publishers will be able to see which books are gulped down, which sipped slowly. Already readers can see what other readers have thought worthy of note, and seek out like-minded people for further discussion of what they have read. The private joys of the book will remain; new public pleasures are there to be added. What is the future of the book? It is much brighter than people think.

以电子形式阅读的书籍将拥有同样的力量，并启动一些新的能力。印刷书籍是把资讯从作者传输给读者的一种上佳途径；而电子书还可以把信息反向传输。教师可以了解到学生的进展和疑问；出版商将能看到哪些书被一口气读完，哪些则被人细细品味。读者已经能够看到其他人认为哪些内容值得一提，并寻找见解相似者进一步讨论阅读的内容。书籍的私密愉悦性将保留，却会增加新的公共乐趣。书的未来如何? 远比人们想得光明。

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