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Its best understood the way jazz was according to Louis Armstrong (or was it Fats Waller?) who said, when asked what jazz was, maam, if you dont know what it is, dont mess with it. Anyone ready, willing and able to deal with Peter Mendeslunds remarkable What We See When We Read will find the author begins by trying to answer that very question. And then moves on from there to define reading books and reading (i.e. understanding) the world. What We See When We Read is a marvelous intellectual adventure for all who are packed and ready to leave home for a 448-page journey to thinking differently. On Page 392 of this book, the author playfully lists some of the metaphors used in this book to describe the reading experience. There are 62 of them in all, alphabetically from arch, arrow, atoms, audience and aurora to video game, walk, wall and wine. What you have to understand is who Peter Mendeslund is to be able to get away with such a book published by Vintage: the associate art director of Vintages corporate brother Alfred A. Knopf and (obviously his own description), a recovering classical pianist. If you think of his book as a kind of massive and occasionally difficult piano sonata, youre on your way to amazement and enrichment. He begins by answering his very basic question about What We See When We Read in this way: something blurred like the painting Lily Briscoe is painting in Virginia Woolfs To the Lighthouse. He then goes on to tell us what reading, say, Anna Karenina is actually like which is not something where we picture Anna as fixed. To prove the point, he gives us somewhat hilariously Anna Karenina rendered by police composite sketch software based on the descriptions in Tolstoys novel. Mendeslund drolly understates that he always imagined her hair as being more tightly curled and blacker. If youre [source] not actually engaged in droll understatement youd probably observe that there isnt a living soul in the world who ever read Tolstoys novel and pictured her THAT way. But thats the point one Meneslund is making among very many. Characters in fiction are words and actions and moral precepts. <br>Full story: http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/what-do-we-see-when-we-read-and-how-20140817
Its best understood the way jazz was according to Louis Armstrong (or was it Fats Waller?) who said, when asked what jazz was, maam, if you dont know what it is, dont mess with it. Anyone ready, willing and able to deal with Peter Mendeslunds remarkable What We See When We Read will find the author begins by trying to answer that very question. And then moves on from there to define reading books and reading (i.e. understanding) the world. What We See When We Read is a marvelous...
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