Inspiring Older Readers
The Last Book by Reinier Gerritsen
I would be reluctant to call this a photographic essay because in many ways it doesn’t have a narrative arc that gives each photograph a role or a purpose. It’s much more accurate to say that it’s an accumulation of photographs collected and collated around a theme – in this case people reading on the underground and what that signifies.
In his very short introductory notes Gerritsen tells us that these photographs are the result of an extended project involving photographing subjects on the New York underground. This had already resulted in a book called Wall Street Stop where he photographed commuters making their way on and off trains at that particular subway station. In the course of completing that work however he had become aware of something else – the changing nature of people’s reading material and how this was altering the way people presented themselves to each other.
Reading a book, his introduction tells us, seemed to be on the decline as electronic devices intruded further into our lives. The idea that we could read a book and effectively use the cover of that book to signal to others who we are and how we think was, he believed, a social interaction that was on its way out given the anonymous nature of the e-reader. And so he reasoned that unless he set about documenting this phenomenon it could well become an unremembered part of our past. This time, however, he would step off the platform and get into the train itself.
This is a project that started life in 2011 which is, I would guess, the time when the idea that the paper book might have run its race was at its zenith. The other short essay written by Boris Kachka at the beginning of this book acknowledges this argument about paper books being replaced by tablets and phones and admits that these prophesies now seem absurdly overblown and the product of some pretty shallow thinking. Book reading far from disappearing as predicted by 2015 is now more robust than it has been for many years.
However, it’s impossible to escape the feeling that this particular book is the result of a project designed in some way to be a memorial to the lost ( or soon to be lost) art form we know as the printed book. But it’s also an attempt to capture in some way what it is (was) that reading a book in public was all about – other that is than the desire of the reader to be entertained for the duration of their journey. The bubble of self-absorption a book throws around us, the free pass it gives us to ignore our neighbours however close to us they press and the banner it provides for our chosen identity are all clearly on display in these photographs.
The subjects of the photographs are seen up close and personal – as are the people who watch them ( Gerritsen had to hand them slips of paper explaining why he was photographing them in order to allay suspicion and get permission to use the images) and we can also usually see the title of the books they are reading. To emphasise the fact that we need to know the book titles, Gerritsen gives us a full list of titles at the beginning of each section just in case there is any ambiguity.
I love lots of these shots – far too many to itemise – but I don’t see them as elegiac. As we head towards 2017 it seems clear to me that the paper book is here to stay and that it will find its place alongside the electronic reader as a choice the individual will make. We will, I’m sure, continue to advertise ourselves and our beliefs and aspirations through our choice of reading matter and as our books become more beautifully designed and elegantly produced, maybe we’ll want to be seen with them in public even more than we do now?
Terry Potter
December 2016