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To read is to write..

Dagobert

Dagobert

New Member
I read somewhere that the real authors of written texts are both the writer and the reader who inevitably adds to, or 'reads' into the text interpretations and connotations that were not meant by the writer to be there.

Consequently, the book you are reading is unique and cannot be read by any other person but you.

Even you yourself cannot re-read that same book later because you will add different connotations based on your additional life experience, including the experience of having read the book before.

Is this a significant phenomena, or is it sophistry?
 
I would have to say that I think this is true, but in my opinion, it comes from our psychology. We all do have different interpretations of things as it is seen through "our eyes." If we all interpreted things the same way then we would all like or dislike the same things for the same reasons. This is a complex mixture for each of us to signify the exact reasons we like or dislike something. At times we may never be able to find the reason.
 
I believe it to be true too. What a writer wrote will have different impacts on different people because we are not all the same.
 
Do you consider yourself a different person than you were 2-3 years ago? You have changed most likely (all your skin particles have probably been replaced with new ones, your views on the world and how you interact with people may have changed, ect.), but you would still consider yourself the same person. If you were talking about things that you did 2-3 years ago, you would use the word I when describing them. The "I" that is you persists, something that makes you an individual, despite changes in your environment and experiences.

So, I think that it would still be the same book, but you might just interact with it differently based off of your new experiences. If anything, the content of the book doesn't change, just your perceptions of it.

And if the entire point of this is that people change and that people can understand and view things differently than other people, then I don't really see it as something insightful.


P.S.
I think that even though an author might have different impacts on different people ,because people are not all the same, an author might have the same impacts on different people, because we are more similar than we may like to admit.
 
The point I was trying to make I guess is that, from a writer's perspective, a book may be considered a completed work upon publication, but it's "final completion" in reality must await the reader's interaction with it. In that sense, books evolve after they have been published...
 
I don't really understand how we can make the book "evolve" (I.E. CHANGE) by "interacting" with it. If we find new things about a book on a second reading, doesn't that just mean that we perceived the book differently during the second reading? Do our perceptions really change what the book consisted of? Or are we just discovering what is already there?

And even on a first reading of a book, do our interpretations of a book actually change what the book is consisted of? I feel like the book is something concrete, all the possible ideas and interpretations are already there, even if the author didn't foresee them, and it is the various minds that read the book that discovers those interpretations. I don't see how our interpretations can effect whether the book is complete, finished or evolved. It's hard for me to grasp that the book's completion is dependent on a reader's interpretation of it.

And just to respond to a point that you made:
"Consequently, the book you are reading is unique and cannot be read by any other person but you. "

Let's imagine that there is a ball on the ground and two people are surrounding that ball.
Person A looks at the ball and sees the color purple. Person B looks at the same ball and sees the color black (because he is color blind). Do you feel like person A and person B are looking at two unique balls? Or are they looking at the same ball and perceiving it differently?
 
Landslide said:
I believe it to be true too. What a writer wrote will have different impacts on different people because we are not all the same.
Click to expand...

I think this is a very valid point made here. Even though a writer might be telling a story specific to a certain case or person, the fact that many of us can identify ourselves with the writer's character speaks to that.
 
Surely it's a given that different people will react/respond differently to any particular book. The book - i.e. the words as written by the writer- don't change. Therefore to state, "Consequently, the book you are reading is unique and cannot be read by any other person but you." is a bit of an overstatement.
 
Just to tell you that I am reading (and interpreting and adding connotations...!) your responses, and will come back in the dialogue ...
 
I do not question at all that, from a writer's perspective a book remains the same no matter who reads it. No argument there. If your definition of a book is what a writer puts on paper no matter how it is understood by readers, then books are static objects that do not change with time or readership. Just like a blue ball remains a blue ball no matter how the viewer sees it.

But, if like me, you see the essence of a book as akin to a conversation rather than to an inanimate object such as a ball, then differences appear. If you have a conversation with person A and a conversation with person B where you put forward the exactly the same points, you will end up with two differing conversations.

As opposed to the color of a ball, the content of a book is malleable because it is subject to the interpretations chosen by the reader in light of his or her experience.

Those interpretations will most likely be personal and vary from what the writer intended. In that sense, the act of reading modifies the content of a book as originally conceived by the writer.

I headed my post will the following statement : to read is to write.

I wanted to say that reading is a creative, not a passive activity. Creative to the point that the reader participates in the development of a book's message.

Of course, you could say that what I wrote is stating the obvious. As the writer, I can say that this was not the intention of my post, but as readers, you can certainly interpret it that way.

And in the final analysis, the reader's interpretation always trumps the writer's intention. :lol:
 
Dagobert said:
I headed my post will the following statement : to read is to write.

I wanted to say that reading is a creative, not a passive activity. Creative to the point that the reader participates in the development of a book's message.
Click to expand...

I think you are mixing two separate, albeit intertwined, processes. To read is to read and all that implies vis a vis interpretation of the words, etc. To write is to write.

And back to one of your original questions, "Is this a significant phenomena, or is it sophistry?" Sophistry.
 
I ask for your patience in allowing me another swing at this...

I do want to say that I agree with much of what Ell wrote: Reading is reading, and writing is writing. Two separate but intertwined processes.

Also, I'm glad that we seem to agree that interpretations are indeed added by readers.

We differ when I claim that this addition of interpretations (or of connotations) by readers is the creation of new content to a book. I say this because they are not necessarily what the author intended to say. In my view, these additions could be called figuratively a form of "writing".

Whatever we call it, we should agree that this addition of interpretations and connotations means that the message in a book is partly defined by individual readers.

I asked in my initial post if the fact that the message in books vary from reader to reader is an important consideration, or if it was sophistry.

Ell said it was sophistry. There, I disagree.
 
Dagobert said:
We differ when I claim that this addition of interpretations (or of connotations) by readers is the creation of new content to a book. I say this because they are not necessarily what the author intended to say. In my view, these additions could be called figuratively a form of "writing".

Whatever we call it, we should agree that this addition of interpretations and connotations means that the message in a book is partly defined by individual readers.
Click to expand...
I think what you describe has always been a part of reading. The interpretations and connotations as you describe above are a natural part of the reading process. The interpretation and in some cases misinterpretation of an author's words will always be an inherent part of reading. To then call it a form of "writing" is, to me, flawed reasoning. Hence, why I called it sophistry.

sophistry [ˈsɒfɪstrɪ]
n pl -ries
1. (Philosophy)
a. a method of argument that is seemingly plausible though actually invalid and misleading
b. the art of using such arguments
2. subtle but unsound or fallacious reasoning
3. an instance of this; sophism
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers
Click to expand...
 
I feel I,ve failed somehow when a read puts a different spin on their interpritation of my work, from what I intended.
 
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