Note on reading
October 16th 2006 08:19
In my opinion -- you don't have to buy this -- the most pleasurable kind is where you lose consciousness of the sign, and focus on the signified. Where you don't care so much about the words on the page, and mightn't even see them. Where your eyes are hungry for information.
You care about the story, about finding out what happens next. And you care about what you're feeling. You put yourself at the mercy of the writing. You relish the effects, or the evocativeness, that certain phrases or passages have, and you reread them with relish. You don't think about why the writing has that effect or what other possible effects it could have. And you certainly don't think about crap like "themes".
The greatest literary critics must be able both to read naively and to read with all the apparatus of explanation and analysis.
You care about the story, about finding out what happens next. And you care about what you're feeling. You put yourself at the mercy of the writing. You relish the effects, or the evocativeness, that certain phrases or passages have, and you reread them with relish. You don't think about why the writing has that effect or what other possible effects it could have. And you certainly don't think about crap like "themes".
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The greatest literary critics must be able both to read naively and to read with all the apparatus of explanation and analysis.
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Comment by Homer Joyce
Homer ...
Comment by JoshZ
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
A prof of mine at uni used to talk about "writing that consciously draws attention to itself" -- this was his justification for using linguistic features of the text as part of a description of audience response.
But, yeah, the older, and more natural, aesthetic ideal is writing that's effortless. For instance, good editing is about leaving no footprints -- you shouldn't be able to tell when a good editor has done his/her job.