THE LAST PAGE
I like the images created by the author on pages 3-5 of the readers from these pictures, paintings, and statues, but I feel it is a little long-winded for him to merely say he is not alone. I feel what he means by this statement is only that he is not alone in his love of reading.
On page six, Manguel writes "we always think that we are alone in each discovery, and that every experience, from death to birth, is terrifyingly unique," and I never really thought of that. I have eureka moments every now and then, but I never thought about how vain I was in thinking those thoughts were mine first, and alone, and how everyone would be impressed in my clever thoughts.
Page 11 "I took to trailing far behind them, murmuring, 'Hear, hear.'" I find myself feeling this way with some of the things Manguel writes, but not knowing how to blog about it.
Just below the quote on page twelve, he uses the word fantastical. I did not know that was a real word! I thought it was just a commonly used made-up word. I like how he uses it to describe how he believed everything in his books was real.
READING SHADOWS
Whoa! Page 35: I would have never thought that people who were left-handed were left-handed because they used the other side of their brain to think! I wonder if those people have different thought patterns because of this.
THE SILENT READERS
Page 42: It's strange that Ambrose read silently. I thought that you could only understand written Latin when it was read aloud because it had no spaces or punctuation. Maybe he was just awesome.
Page 43: "The implication is that this method of reading, this silent perusing of the page, was in his time something out of the ordinary, and that normal reading was performed out loud." I think this is very dense of him to write this. He is writing a book on the history of reading! Shouldn't he know that you had to read Latin out loud because there weren't spaces? This irritates me.
Page 48: I am going mad with how he is slowly writing about the way people read aloud and why. He could have said it, and been done with it.
THE BOOK OF MEMORY
Page 58: The King of Egypt says that if people learn to read, "they will cease to exercise memory because they will rely on that which is written." I love that this is in here because we still say this of knew things. People say that we don't have to remember anything because we can just Google it, and if we forget, well, Google it again! "A reader, Socrates admonished Phaedrus, 'must be singularly simple-minded to believe that written words can do anything more than remind one what one already knows.'" I want to use this in a debate on Google right now!
LEARNING TO READ
THE MISSING FIRST PAGE
Page 86: Manguel personifies books, saying, "The books on my shelves do not know me until I open them, yet I am certain that they address me--me and every other reader--by name; they await our comments and opinions." I like that he mentions this, because I feel like a good book is alive, sitting on the shelf calling softly to everyone just waiting to tell its story. I never really think about the book having a plot when I start it. The book comes to life as I turn the page, and the end isn't written until I have read it.
PICTURE READING
I mostly just listened to what the book was saying in this chapter, however, it did make me think of a time I wanted to read a story before I knew how to read. I pulled out a large book full of children's stories, and opened it up to a random page in the middle. I had never tried to read a story on my own, and thought I could do it after listening to my mom read to me. I had opened up to "The Ugly Duckling," but did not know this at the time. I remember crying because I couldn't figure out what the pictures were saying, and thinking years later that there were no words, only pictures to the story.
BEING READ TO
When he talks of his lover, I automatically halt my thought pattern because that is never written about in text books! I think it should be more common. Everyone needs a little more love, and it kind of makes me want to giggle. Maybe I'm just being silly.
I don't care for being read to because it is hard to concentrate, and I never really have as good of an experience as I would if I read it myself. The only exception I can think of is hearing Shel Silverstein read his own poetry.
5 comments:
Kim, the comments section is working now--thank you!
I agree that I would rather read to myself than be read to aloud. When I read I often find myself going back to re-read something a page or two back. It is impossible to do this when someone else is doing the reading.
I agree with you and Manguel, that each book is alive waiting to be open. I'm glad you decided to quote Manguel on books being alive. "I never really think about the book having a plot until I start it." At first I wasn't sure of what you meant by this sentence, but I think what you're trying to say is that you are like a blank slate when you start a book, just waiting for it to come alive in front of you.
I love how you mentioned how we just Google everything today. When I was reading that chapter, I never made the connection between what the King of Egypt said and Google. I guess I'm on the fence when it comes to this topic. On the one hand, I do think Google has made us lazy in the sense of, like you said, we can just Google (and re-Google) something we have forgotten (I know I'm very guilty of this at times). However, we also have such an abundance of information available to us in just a few keystrokes.
I was also intrigued by the comment about how people won't use their memory as much with today's technology. I write down quotes I like to reinforce my memory of them, but past that a lot of it is forget and check.
As far as books being alive goes, they definitely all have their own personalities. I disagree with you about the ending, though. I'm always well aware that the end is near, it's just a matter of getting to it; the reader decides when and the author decides how.
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