So, which are better: e-books or paper books? Chances are you – and everybody else on the bus – has an opinion. You only need to type the words ‘kindle debate’ into Google to be overwhelmed with over seven million hits. Somewhat ironically, a lot of ink (or perhaps keyboard keys) have been used over this question. 

Ever since kindles emerged in 2007, they’ve sparked controversy and galvanised thel book community into action. But is this debate even worth having? Does it matter in what form people are reading books? In a world where literature has to fight tooth and nail (or should that be spine and cover) against countless other avenues of entertainment and media, surely it’s important to encourage reading in any form. A way to read literature anywhere, and to carry thousands of books in one slim tablet, looks from this angle like the answer to every bookworm’s prayers. And yet there is such animosity against the humble kindle. There is even a National Indie Book Day (March 21^st if you’re planning a boycott of Amazon.com) where people are encouraged to eschew electronic books and celebrate local independent bookshops and their physical, paper progeny.

So what’s the argument championing the paper form? Only a cursory glance at Google will bombard the amateur researcher with so many justifications for the incredible value of physical copy, the unending mental benefits of books and the vital perfection of paperbacks that the reader is left wondering how humanity could possibly survive without them. Just six minutes of reading a physical book, we are told, reduces stress by 68%, keeps the brain functioning on a high level, and staves off Alzheimer’s. This is not, apparently, true of the e-book: a Norwegian 2014 study found readers of Kindles were ‘significantly worse’ at remembering the order of events in a novel than those who read it in paperback. Anne Mangen stated: “the haptic and tactile feedback of a Kindle does not provide the same support for mental reconstruction of a story as a print book provides”. And then there’s the emotional attachment the public have to their dear old paper Penguin pals. Countless childhood memories of bulging shelves, bright covers and hours spent searching fondly for ‘that specific book’ means it is incredibly difficult to abandon paper copy completely. E-books also contribute significantly to the death of independent bookshops: sales of print books fell by over 6.5% in 2013, and the trend has continued. Although ‘indie bookshops’ have recently made a comeback on the highstreets, e-books are undoubtedly a threat to this endangered breed.

But if e-books are really ‘sans teeth, sans eyes, sans everything’, why do we keep on using them? Why are there so many enthusiastic kindle-ites extolling their fully-charged literary virtues? Well, Kindles are incredibly easy to use, to store, and to carry. You can purchase a huge amount of literature through them for almost nothing (the complete works of Dickens is 2p), and explore new writing that might not have otherwise been discovered. It can enlarge text for the hard of sight, it has a light to read in the dark – it even contains a dictionary.  Who wouldn’t want the entire book-world right at their fingertips, at the touch of a pad?

It is at this point that I have to admit that I am biased – I work in an independent bookshop myself, and have been indoctrinated to shun e-books. Yet, despite my rigorous toeing of the party line, I can see their appeal. Yes, I cannot imagine ever finding a fond message penned into the front of a kindle cover or finding old train tickets amongst its non-existent pages, but I’m still envious of my friends who have entire slim, sexy, personalised libraries that they can carry around in their pockets. And surely, as mentioned earlier, the point of these different approaches is simply to encourage and enable reading in any form? I’m convinced e-books and paper books can work together to make the world a more literary, and happier, place. Just don’t drop either in the bath.

First of all, I apologise. 

Sorry.

Heretical as the title sounds, let me assure you I am no apostate from the church of the Cumber(batch). I think Benedict Cumberbatch is a good actor. But I think even he should not be free of scrutiny…

Sorry.

Cumberbatch is currently taking on British theatre’s holy of holies: Hamlet. Outside the stage door following a now much discussed preview, Cumberbatch’s inquisitorial gusto made headlines when he condemned a scourge of social media venerating heathen. Apparently they had committed the sin of filming the production. Mr Cumberbatch explained “It’s mortifying, and there’s nothing less enjoyable as an actor on stage, experiencing that…”  The transgression in question was the forsaking of the proper (indeed self-prescribed) adoration of our blessed Benedict.

This moment of controversy raises two questions. The first is specific to Cumberbatch; does he have a right to tell people how they should experience the theatre they pay for? More specifically, is his outcry a legitimate artistic statement or just another case of petulant celebrity narcissism?

Obviously the above is an uninteresting question with an obvious answer. For how could any true believer deny Benedict’s right to dictate the reception of his art or indeed the integrity of this art…? Elementary, oh ye of little faith.

But a second more general question remains; is it true that it is better to watch theatre in the flesh than through a lens? An exegesis from Cumberbatch’s revelation gives us the following reason for preferring the flesh: “I can’t give you what I want to give you, which is a live performance that you’ll remember, hopefully in your minds and brains whether it’s good, bad or indifferent, rather than on your phones.” 

Mr Cumberbatch thinks that if his performance is mediated by a smartphone, then the audience will not properly appreciate his vision for the part. But it would seem this state of grace does not extend far beyond Benedict. After all, Mr. Cumberbatch has no qualms about backing a production that disregards Shakespeare’s own vision by placing ‘to be or not to be’ at the start of the play. Seemingly only the elect receive the salvation that safeguards their artisitic vision. Shakespeare is good, but evidently, he’s no Benedict Cumberbatch.

Aside from this hypocrisy, Cumberbatch makes the more fundamental mistake of believing that what he thinks he communicates to an audience, is what they receive. The notion that the conveyance of his art may be jeopardised by mediation, assumes that the artist can and should have ownership of the public’s experience. On this logic, there can be a correct or proper reception of a work defined by its semblance to the intention of the author. Given that ideas of a ‘correct’ reception of a work of art are hazy at best and reactionary at worst, I don’t think we can dismiss the smartphone experience as a perversion to what is already an intrinsically imperiled concept: total artistic control. Indeed Cumberbatch’s fury at the lens of the camera is shortsighted: ultimately the material lens is a stand in for the fundamental lens that is the distorting influence of each and every audience members’ subjectivity. Perhaps those condemned filmers should have responded with #CumberBarth.

So what other cause might Benedict have to complain? It might be said that regardless of how we receive the play, we receive it better in the flesh than through the screen. This live experience is therefore superior as it would be “one that you’ll remember, hopefully in your minds and brains”. A purely live performance is therefore ‘better’ because our response to the play would be stronger or more intense. Presumably this is why it would be remembered not only in the mind but also in the brain.

If we say materiality (seeing the actor before you instead of on screen) is tantamount to intensity, then Cumberbatch is right. Like many, I would rather watch him live than watch him on a recording. But that was not the situation when he addressed the fans. The fans were not watching Benedict on the screen after, but watching Benedict through the screen during. This is important.

Now before you accuse me of iconoclasm, bear with me. The live smartphone image is not an unholy derivative of the divine original. So far as we mortals are concerned, the godlike Benedict is a god… on screen. The important point to draw is that the divine original is confined strictly to the screen. As much as it pains me to say it, he is just a good-looking, self-important actor lucky enough to have his pretensions made credible by association with the intelligence of the characters he plays. In short, the flesh and blood Benedict is nothing compared to the one on screen.

Ironically because this Benedict is human – all too human – the audience probably won’t actually remember much of the performance in their minds or brains. They came to see Sherlock, they got Benedict. In a stroke of genius however, this audience hit upon salvation. By watching through their smartphones, they got what they paid for; Sherlock in all his resplendent glory.

Neither does this mean audiences were conned into buying a DIY version of a night-in with the Sherlock boxset. For at a certain level Benedict is right, the live experience is better, it does give you something the screen can’t. What the screen can give you is a distance between the image and the thing. This space between reality and its representation is filled with the fantasies and desires that elevate the image to a beatific height far in excess of the thing. It is for this reason that Benedict the man could never hope to reach the intensity of reaction that the presence of Sherlock the character would. And yet this is what the punters ultimately wanted to see. 

There is however one drawback with the screen; ultimately you can dismiss it as fiction and turn off the TV. In theatre this disavowal is far more difficult once the story has you in its clutches. This is what you pay for.

And this is why Benedict’s Hamlet may offer a borderline religious experience to the camera-totting pilgrim. This production is an opportunity to mediate the material Benedict through the restraining lens that allows us to project our fantasies. But crucially, unlike television, there is something behind the screen whose presence we cannot dismiss. Put your hands together and raise your smartphone up to the (foot)light….

The trick is to remember that the real Benedict you know and love is not the man, but the image. Now for the first time you can believe, unconditionally, that there is a reality to this illusion. In an age where every day we seek to consolidate reality and its representation, it would seem that the scourge of filmers realised the ideal of our age. The theologians have a word for this, substance: the reality behind the appearance. Perhaps the real question is therefore not whether the filmers missed out on the substance of the play, but whether there was ever any substance to have missed out on. In this regard the fault is certainly not on the side of those behind the screen. Get over it Benedict; it might actually be nobler in the mind (and brain) to put up with those likes and shares that will make you an outrageous fortune. 

★★★★☆
Four stars

Since their self-titled 2006 debut, fans of Beach House have learned what to expect from their albums, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Depression Cherry, the latest album from Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally, is a comfortable showcase of what the duo does best: silky, immersive dream-pop. They have perfected a soothing melancholy that is showcased in the album’s opening track, the lush, wistful ‘Levitation’.

Scally and Legrand move into more unfamiliar ground on ‘Sparks’, the album’s single and standout track. Overlapping murmuring gives way to a fuzz of electric guitar-lines that recall (even more than usual) the warped force of My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Loveless’. The track feels unusually visceral; with more space for noise and abrasion than the duo usually allow themselves. That soft-edged chaos is present in the song’s lyrics, which speak of urban destruction,

“We drive around this town/houses melting down”

Although it would probably be a mistake to draw real-world conclusions from Beach House’s eerie and ambiguous lines, it’s hard not to wonder if they had in mind the state of emergency that was declared earlier this year in their hometown of Baltimore.

‘Sparks’ is an outlier rather than a pattern in ‘Depression Cherry’ and the rest of the album doesn’t quite live up to its promise. Songs like ‘Beyond Love’ could fit comfortably on their previous album, 2012’s ‘Bloom’. Like that album, it’s pleasant but not particularly memorable. The unexpected sour notes in ‘Sparks’ disappear as the album progresses. That may feel initially disappointing, but by the time the minimalist rhythm of ’10:37’ kicks in, Legrand and Scally have drawn you back into their mesmeric, complex yet careful world. No song exemplifies their delicately contained sound better than the album’s closer, ‘Days of Candy’. The track begins with an intro that could be taking place inside a cathedral- no coincidence, given the band’s reliance on the organ as their instrument of choice- before giving way to a fuller, sweeter melody.

 ‘Beach House’ has always been an absurd misnomer for a band that acts as the perfect soundtrack to staying awake and driving around alone at midnight. When Legrand sings “it was late at night” at the beginning of ‘Space Song’, it feels almost unnecessary. Beach House have a knack for songcraft that mark them apart from some of their shoegazy predecessors. Rather than just making appealing vowel-sounds to complement their melody, the duo’s lyrics, and Legrand’s distinctive voice, form an integral part of their appeal. In the same song she double-tracks the refrain ‘fall back into place’ in such a way that the second voice is out of synch but not quite an echo; the result is a strange and effective sense of motion, one that suggests that the song was built around that line, rather than vice versa.

Listening to ‘Depression Cherry’, you could legitimately complain that the duo could have pushed into more ambitious territory, but when Beach House make introspection so absorbing and satisfying, it feels a little ungrateful to ask them to change.

★★★★☆

Another One is the mischievously self-aware title of Mac Demarco’s latest release. We all know what to expect before we hear it – and sure enough he’s given us another album of laid-back rock and roll tracks. His sound hasn’t developed significantly since it reached its apotheosis in his second album, 2, but can anyone honestly say they mind?

 I’m dancing enthusiastically to ‘Ode to Viceroy’ amongst the several hundred other Mac Demarcos that make up the audience, and the answer seems to be no. Clad in denim, plaid shirts and baseball caps, we sway, smoke and sing along to this paean to nicotine addiction. It’s pretty clear that it doesn’t need to change, Mac’s sound totally hits the spot.

The set’s a bit disappointingly short, but he plays a good mix of new and old material. As you can imagine if you’ve heard anything about Mac, his stage presence is awesome, and he and his band chat a lot of pretty funny shit. The show ends with an unstoppable performance of ‘Still Together’, in the middle of which Mac goes off stage for a good five minutes while his band fire off some rock and roll guitar-solos, before coming back for one final chorus, accompanied by the shrill screams of the crowd struggling heroically to hit those high notes.

Unusually, the night continued for the writer when he unassumingly sat down for a pint with a couple of friends on a roof garden in a nearby pub, and one hour later found himself in the midst of the VIP afterparty. A couple of rounds of karaoke with Mac rounded off the evening nicely. By the end of the night it wasn’t just about the sound: the goofing off, the denim and caps, the smooth guitars, warm synths and crooning vocals, Mac Demarco is about an aesthetic. What Mac makes is a Gesamtkunstwerk, and it works for me.

There are six cinematic adaptations of Madam Bovary, but not one biopic of her creator, Gustave Flaubert. This should come as no surprise; unlike his most famous heroine, Flaubert lived a life spiced with about as much sensation as the shipping forecast. It is probably beyond even the most unscrupulous screenwriter in Hollywood to enliven the tale of a man whose most intense relationship was with his mother.

But a greater obstacle would stand in the way of such a screenwriter, and indeed in the way of any adapter of any writer’s life. It is that writers, from day to day, are usually far more boring than we would like them to be. Flaubert said that as a writer you should be ‘regular and orderly in your life, so you can be fierce and original in your work.’ Though there are many writers who would like to be thought never to do a full hour’s serious work, there are almost no great ones to which this dictum does not apply. Great literature does not result from a rapturous gaze at the stars, or walk through a meadow, followed by half an hour of frantic scribbling. It results from sitting at the desk, hour after hour, and returning to it, day after day. The problem for film makers is that sitting at a desk is not particularly interesting to watch. It cannot be hammed up, because even if the writer’s experience is dramatic, all the drama takes place in his or her head. Viewers of Amadeus, Milos Forman’s otherwise good biopic of Mozart, should snort with laughter when the Maestro actually sits down to write his music. The moment he begins to pump his fist to the beat of imaginary drums is the moment we cease to believe we are watching Mozart at work.

Of course an actor needn’t necessarily spend a minute writing to convince us their character writes most of the time. But that actor’s job, of suspending our disbelief, is made much harder if what we are to believe cannot be shown. Imagine the same dilemma in films about other trades. Imagine Whiplash with no drumming, American Sniper without any sniping.

The BBC’s recent biopic of the Bloomsbury group, Life in Squares, had to thin out thirty years of history considerably to cover them in just three hours. Stripped of all unessential detail until only the bare bones of a plot remain, this drama is not so much a miniseries as a montage. Characters meet (invariably next to expensive paintings) and a minute and a half later are love. World War One lasts twenty minutes, or, by another chronological measure, three sex scenes. Imagine if To the Lighthouse were told at the same pace as its author’s life: the second line would be ‘Well, here we are then!’ Yet the silliest omission Life in Squares makes is required not for economy but for the reasons I’ve already mentioned. Not once do we see Virginia Woolf actually working. Viewers might be forgiven for thinking that she receives her novels in the past rather than writing them herself. Instead we do often see her sister Vanessa at work on her famous portraits. The show’s creators do not shy away from showing us her more camera-friendly art because they are more interested in entertaining us than accurately portraying their characters. In theory this is the right priority. They are producing prime time television, not writing a biography. But in practice their neglect of the truth is exactly what makes Life in Squares unsatisfying as a piece of entertainment, because we are simply not convinced the skittish, mumbling, apparently workshy character before us is Virginia Woolf.

For a writer to be believable on screen, we must be aware that there is an entire dimension of their personality which cannot be expressed in the visual medium – the part of themselves which they express in their prose. This is the second major difficulty of portraying writers on screen. Short of actually presenting the viewer with blocks of prose (as Bazz Lurhmann did in his Great Gatsby) film makers are prevented by their medium from showing us the writer’s work. Paraphrased or referenced or curtailed between quotation marks, it can only be glimpsed at, like the solitary thoughts which formed it. Woody Allen’s 1997 film Deconstructing Harry makes an almost successful attempt to circumvent this problem – whenever characters refer to Harry Block’s stories, the stories themselves are dramatized, as if they were quotations within the larger text of the film. The problem with this form is that it suggests these dramatizations are themselves Harry’s stories, when really they are just verisimilitudes, translations into a foreign medium.

Two of the best portrayals of writers on film that I know of succeed because they acknowledge they cannot give us insight into their work. The first is perhaps a little obvious: The Shining, a film far more frightening in its first half, when we do not what thoughts are going through Jack Torrence’s head as he stares at his typewriter, than in its remainder. While we do not know for sure how bad his writer’s block is, and while we do not know that his insanity is printed on every page of his manuscript, Torrence is an unknown quantity to us, perhaps a murderer or perhaps just a man going through a very poorly timed and situated midlife crisis. He is like a shadow on the bedroom wall, which may or may not be that of an intruder. It is structurally convenient that Torrence writes just that one line over and over again. This line can be held up to the viewer as a symbol for the monotony of his thoughts, whereas no whole novel could be captured on camera to show us the vibrant mind that made it.

It is almost too obvious to be worth saying that the scariest films are those which play on our fear of the unknown. What makes The Shining superb is that the unknown element is not some outwardly terrifying thing, like the Grudge, ready to intrude into the protagonists’ lives. It is Torrence’s mind, already hiding in plain sight when the film begins. By making the viewer afraid of the fact they cannot fathom a writer’s mind beyond a certain depth, Kubrick celebrates this very unfathomability.

Listen Up Philip, Alex Ross Perry’s film about a moderately successful young novelist with a point to prove, is brilliant for the very reason that it refuses to congratulate Philip for being mysterious to the viewer. We hear a lot about how good Philip’s two novels are (mostly from Philip himself) but we never find out what they are actually about, or what they are trying to achieve artistically, or what insight into the human condition, if any, they convey. Perry might have exploited this blind spot in the viewer’s vision, and suggested that if only we could actually read Philip’s works we would understand him and forgive his callousness. But he does not do this. In fact his film seems always to be trying to ignore its hero, like a dinner party ruffled by a tub thumper. So often the camera doesn’t acknowledge Philip until he speaks, and when he announces to his long suffering girlfriend that he intends to spend the summer with his mentor Ike Zimmerman, the narrative does not follow him. It sticks with his girlfriend for the film’s entire middle section. These directorial conceits are brilliant because they refuse to grant Philip the mystique of the enigmatic artist, which he tries to effuse with his every sentence.

What do the The Shining and Listen Up Philip have in common? Not much, except main characters who we can believe are complicated enough to have their own thoughts to put down on paper, or at least try to. Two dimensional characters can usually pass themselves off as three dimensional. They can talk as if they had more to say, behave as if able to behave otherwise. But a two dimensional character cannot pass off as a writer. For if they cannot convince us they think, than how are we to believe they can write?