Reader’s opinion|The enjoyment and impact of Plato, Seneca or Plutarch comes largely from the fact that they wrote for the ear, not the eye.
Congressman Teemu Middle Series (ps) took an exceptionally strong position on the government’s policy favoring audiobooks (HS 2.10.).
Keskisarja, himself a writer and deputy member of the culture committee, defends printed books. He characterizes audiobooks as “sheer human shit”. According to him, “jogging with wires on your head” is not neurologically reading.
Keskisarja does not come to mind that the government may have wanted to take into account the wider time perspective of literature in its policy. Books meant to be read with the eyes are a fairly new phenomenon in the history of mankind. It only became common when the art of printing was invented in the 15th century.
Before that, copying books was a chore. For example, in ancient times, it was common that if someone got hold of a book, they would invite friends to their home, where the book would be read aloud. Platonic, of Seneca or of Plutarch the enjoyment and impact comes largely from the fact that they wrote for the ear, not the eye.
A large part of, for example, ancient literature thus belongs to the genre of literature that Keskisarija names as “human shit”, and “those who run around with wires on their heads” are part of an ancient tradition.
Juhana Torkki
writer and translator, Helsinki
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