tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972764383963459152.post2938177499475923160..comments2023-05-30T07:00:13.707-04:00Comments on Bookphilia.com: The experience of readingBookphiliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05155882653615842141noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972764383963459152.post-89866751934761671032009-05-07T16:56:00.000-04:002009-05-07T16:56:00.000-04:00Colleen, thanks for mourning the death of my inner...Colleen, thanks for mourning the death of my inner reader! <br /><br />JG's "book death"/out-of-body experience is what I remember most about reading as a child. <br /><br />In the long ago, my mind's eye saw more but understood less. <br /><br />Now it's the reverse. <br /><br />Hopefully my godless prayers will be answered and my old reading self will be jolted back to life. <br /><br />Anyhow, I have been experimenting with a simple reading technique. <br /><br />At the front end of a story, say, the first 25-50 pages, I slow my pace way down and make a concerted effort to visualize the characters and the setting, to make them as palpable as possible. <br /><br />Gradually the words disappear and fictional reality emerges.<br /><br />This works marvelously well for Proust whose sentences are like so many Russian nesting dolls. At Amateur's mention of Swann's Way, I smell fresh cut grass, my madeleine cookie and lime-blossom tea, and there's pleasure in that! <br /><br />KevinAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972764383963459152.post-35036771699716392042009-05-07T14:44:00.000-04:002009-05-07T14:44:00.000-04:00"Reading for pleasure is much more about generalit..."Reading for pleasure is much more about generalities." Ack! Put me in the exact opposite category.<br /><br />J.G., you're reading <I>Swann's Way</I> - what pleasures are there besides Françoise and the asparagus, or Marcel hugging the hawthorn bush, or the two steeples crossing each other? "[T]he little scallop-shell of pastry, so richly sensual under its severe, religious folds".<br /><br />Tastes is what they is, I know. My taste is for art that does not flow. I want writing that pricks, cockleburr prose.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972764383963459152.post-54486961232310320482009-05-07T12:15:00.000-04:002009-05-07T12:15:00.000-04:00I am glad to know that I am not the only one who d...I am glad to know that I am not the only one who doesn't remember everything about every book they read. I thought I had some kind of retention problem. I do remember quite a bit about the books that I love but mostly I remember the feelings that I experienced while reading them, and usually I can recall the timeline of my life through the book I was reading at the time. I do have a visual play running through my mind as I read. I have not lost my ability to sit for hours at a time and get lost in literary worlds, it's just that I don't have the opportunity to do so as much anymore. Usually when I come across a particularly beautiful sentence, it will stop me in my tracks and I will repeat it out loud or read it over and over but I don't memorize it and I don't write it down either which I really think I should start doing. Create a commonplace book or something so that I don't lose that sentence forever. I do remember whole passages from children's books either because I reread them repeatedly as a child or have read them over and over to my own children. Love J.G.'s term 'Book Death'.Stacyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12387313238448432017noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972764383963459152.post-35219971545443590992009-05-07T10:02:00.000-04:002009-05-07T10:02:00.000-04:00At the beginning of a book I am very conscious of ...At the beginning of a book I am very conscious of the author's language, especially in an older book, as well as whatever narrative devices are used to get the story started. But then, in the best books, I shove off from shore and am in the book -- and want to stay there.<br /><br />They say the most lasting memories are the emotional ones and that is true or books. The more I loved it or detested it or was angered by it, the better I remember.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972764383963459152.post-84630688873820134232009-05-07T08:13:00.000-04:002009-05-07T08:13:00.000-04:00In my household we call it "Book Death." That mea...In my household we call it "Book Death." That means that when a book is really good, the entire house could burn down without the reader noticing, provided that the reader's own couch or chair didn't catch on fire. Very relaxing, in an out-of-body kind of way.<br /><br />As for lines, characters and other details: If I have studied a book in school, I will remember a lot more. Reading for pleasure is much more about the generalities. As one character says in <I>The Big Chill</I>, "Sometimes you have to just let art flow over you."J.G.https://www.blogger.com/profile/02806805528636359436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4972764383963459152.post-53617769816176696952009-05-06T23:32:00.000-04:002009-05-06T23:32:00.000-04:00I thought that I had lost my ability to sit with a...I thought that I had lost my ability to sit with a book for hours. I blamed it on the lure of the internet and just the fact that I have more to do now. Then I got the flu and couldn't handle books, TV or the computer. After about 4 days I could read again and was so grateful that was all I did for days between sleeping. <br />I also can't give any kind of book review to save my life no matter how much I enjoyed a book. I know I liked it or didn't, but in my head I'm moving on to the next one.Samnoreply@blogger.com