Nicholas Carr
I really like the two-way idea contained in this quote.
With the first part I pondered how that happened, and I thought that because we all experience a book slightly differently: we recall some bits of it with far more clarity than others; we find the emphasis that speaks most strongly to us; and I guess we enjoy or appreciate different characters in an individualised response way.
So perhaps if we were telling the story in our own words say (like a precis I guess) we would skip over some bits, spend a lot of time on others; put two or three things together that we felt were connected and so on. So in that way I guess we do re-write the book.
And the second part suggests that the book re-writes us as well. So perhaps that is about pre-conceived notions being challenged; we learn something that we add into our knowledge base; we empathise with situations we have never had to consider for ourselves and the like.
Like lost of things in life, I like the notion of interaction and exchange that comes from one thing to another, and back again and that glorious energy of growth and learning.
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Woven Chronicle by Reena Saini Kallat, AGNSW, January 2023
hmmmm ... I'm inclined to think reimagined rather than rewritten, in the sense that I "hear" a books words spoken in my mind as I read, often with a "vision" of the scene (particularly with fiction) ... but I take your point (and his) about our minds being rewritten, especially when reading nonfiction ... and wow, Woven Chronicle is the perfect illustration!
ReplyDeleteI think you are right about the re-imagined bit, it is certainly what also happens with me. And I do think it possible, not always, that things we have laid downing our brains get modified and altered by what we read, hopefully changed for the better! You would have loved seeing that whole wall piece Liz...
DeleteI thought Woven Chronicle to be textile and was surprised to learn otherwise when I went exploring ... and lucky you to see it in its current configuration, which I much prefer to the version with its more "traditional" orientation that I found online
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