On page 37 Maguel talks about how when we read we don't actually read from left to right, but rather we read very erratically, with our eyes jumping all over the page, piecing together bits of information at a shockingly fast rate. It had never occured to me to think about how it is that we read, physically. To me, reading has always been about the abstract; analyzation and contructive thinking, etc. But it was really fascinating to stop and think about the movement of my eyes and how it relates to my brain actually taking those bits of unrelated information and putting them together into something I can understand and process all in an instant.
If you want to try something a little mind-boggling, try pretending that you are reading. Don't actually read, just look at words on a page and move your eyes over them from left to right as if you really are reading. If you did it the way I did, you might have found that the movement felt really unnatural and fake. Your eye movement is much too smooth and fast. That isn't what your eyes feel like when they really read. I thought that was interesting.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
"Experience came to me first through books. when later in life I came across an event or circumstance or character similar to one I had read about, it usually had the slightly startling but disappointing feeling of deja vu, because I imagined that what was now taking place had already happened to me in words"
- Manguel pg 8
This particular passage really stuck out to me, because I have experiences similar situations where something I had once read about, and not fully understood at the time, seemed to fall flat once I had actually experienced it for myself. Manguel goes on to say that although he had never tasted Jelly, he had read about it before, but once he actually tasted it he was disappointed because it was not nearly as magnificent as he had been lead to beleive. One of the first exampled of this that comes to mind is actually Harry Potter.
The summer before my first year of college I was ecstatic about the idea of going off and living on my own. I imagined that I would make friends and have all these awesome adventures away from my parents and that I would become unimaginably immersed in culture and learning. My first year of college did not go like that at all. I discovered that the major I had chosen was not only fairly useless in the real world but also that most of my classmates (and professors) were arrogant and cocky. I didn't have a car and as a result I spent most of my time in the dining hall instead of having all of the marvolous adventures I had dreamt up for myself. I developed severe depression as a result of both the dramatic change of suddenly living on my own with a roommate who was a horror in and of herself, and at my despair that all of my visions of an exciting and carefree college life had been dashed.
I was clearly enamoured by the whimsical world J K Rowling had illustrated to me through her words. I mean obviously I wasn't expecting magic or wizards or quidditch, but I certainly was not expecting to end up running back home to my parents because I hated my major and dorm rooms are ridiculously expensive.
- Manguel pg 8
This particular passage really stuck out to me, because I have experiences similar situations where something I had once read about, and not fully understood at the time, seemed to fall flat once I had actually experienced it for myself. Manguel goes on to say that although he had never tasted Jelly, he had read about it before, but once he actually tasted it he was disappointed because it was not nearly as magnificent as he had been lead to beleive. One of the first exampled of this that comes to mind is actually Harry Potter.
The summer before my first year of college I was ecstatic about the idea of going off and living on my own. I imagined that I would make friends and have all these awesome adventures away from my parents and that I would become unimaginably immersed in culture and learning. My first year of college did not go like that at all. I discovered that the major I had chosen was not only fairly useless in the real world but also that most of my classmates (and professors) were arrogant and cocky. I didn't have a car and as a result I spent most of my time in the dining hall instead of having all of the marvolous adventures I had dreamt up for myself. I developed severe depression as a result of both the dramatic change of suddenly living on my own with a roommate who was a horror in and of herself, and at my despair that all of my visions of an exciting and carefree college life had been dashed.
I was clearly enamoured by the whimsical world J K Rowling had illustrated to me through her words. I mean obviously I wasn't expecting magic or wizards or quidditch, but I certainly was not expecting to end up running back home to my parents because I hated my major and dorm rooms are ridiculously expensive.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)