And how does that make you feel?

     Have you ever been in a class discussion where one student says something that blows your mind? I'm talking about that one guy/girl who has an idea that is so nuts, you can't even fathom how they came to that conclusion. I know I've definitely had a few of those moments.


     On page 125 of The Dead, Schwarz opens by talking about "off the wall ideas." That was what initially got me thinking about the standards of "normal thinking" and what is considered to be "out of the box." Schwarz goes on to talk about what sentences mean and how we interpret them, using both the literal translation and the imagination, and how "it is the reader's struggle to make sense of a challenging work that reader-response critics seek to describe." So, what should we consider "out of the box?" What are the standards of normalcy that we give to readings? I believe that writing can be open for interpretation, unless the writer plainly states something, like "the boy ran." There's no hidden meaning to that. As we know, our minds work differently. No two minds are alike. So, its obvious that our standards of normalcy would be different, right? However, people are still able to criticize each other's own interpretation of a reading. That's pretty insane, if you ask me. Who's to tell me that my ideas of someone's writing are wrong? But then again, does that make everyone right? That's the confusing part about writing and reading. Everything is open for interpretation, and yet nothing is open for interpretation. Only the writer really knows what he was trying to say.


     I think that we are told what the standards of normalcy are. Early on, we set a trend and try to follow that until a new trend, or standard, is set. But what we don't realize is that our minds are constantly changing and we're constantly shifting our views. Schwarz even states something similar on page 133: "reading and readings evolve, and that by understanding that fact we take an important step toward constructing a new, imaginative, rule-governed...reading of our own."


Does that mean we'll accept the fact that we all have our own standards of normalcy? Or will we just accept a new standard that is slightly more open-minded than before?

"Unbeing dead isn't being alive." - E.E. Cummings

     In the small section I've read so far of The Dead by James Joyce, I've come to realize that people can be physically dead, but also mentally dead as well. One of the main characters I've come to know so far is Gabriel, who is really dead mentally. The way Joyce describes his actions and his reactions shows how much life he actually lacks. He barely has any emotion and is very stoic. He seems like someone who would speak in monotone and it almost seems like he truly does not enjoy life.
      As the bubbly, emotional, talkative mess that I am, it's really hard to understand Gabriel. However, I am capable of feeling sympathy for him. I feel bad for him that he does not feel the urge to travel and see the world when Mrs. Ivors asks him and his wife to the Aran Isles with her and some friends. But I feel worse for his wife, Gretta. I can't imagine what it is like to have someone that you love seem like they aren't there anymore. It reminds me of the song "My Immortal" by Evanescence. In the song, there is a line that says "I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone. But though you're still with me, I've been alone all along." I feel like that is how his wife feels on the inside. It makes me very sad for her. I almost feel like it is easier when someone dies physically than mentally because when someone dies mentally, the shell of who they were is still always around to make you remember how things were. And lastly, I wanted to comment on how this book seems to take place in such a cheery setting, a party with lots of beloved friends and family, but still takes on a rather dreary tone. It takes some seriously talented writing to do that.
      Anyway, I'm sorry for such a depressing post! Hopefully there will be some positive vibes coming from Joyce's novel soon. I will end this by saying, however, that Gabriel does feel some joy, especially when seeing his wife's happiness. So that may be a factor that really brings him to life, as a person in his own world, and as a character that I can really understand.

     One thing I really loved about reading was rereading. Isn't that crazy? Whenever I would finish a book, I always reread the end pages or chapters, especially when they were really happy endings. The feeling that you're at the end of someone's journey is bittersweet, and always takes more than one scan through.
     That's what Gardiner talks about in chapter 2. She explains what it takes to be a good reader and that it is always okay to reread a passage in order to understand it. Sometimes, in fact, it's necessary. Usually a reader would think that having to read a book or a page more than once makes them stupid. But in reality, it just shows how much they want to understand the details and how much of the book they actually want to soak in. It's always really good to read over a text to understand it better. That's why I liked this chapter. It gave reason and value to rereading.

I didn't realize how many different things in the world used the same word to describe themselves, whether it be their name or their description. In the section we read from Gleick's novel, The Information, he talks about disambiguation and how Wikipedia uses it to unweave the tangled web of words we have in the world. This is why you'll have different links to all the different things you'll find when you type in a world. For example, he says that when you type in Babel, you'll see many different links for things, such as the tower, Canadian mountains, a movie, etc. I never actually thought about what Wikipedia would be like without disambiguation. I can imagine having so much false information and being so confused when typing in the word "Babel" and reading that its elevation is 30,000 feet or whatever number it actually is. Doesn't it make you wonder? Why don't we have different words for everything? Although I definitely cannot imagine having to learn a zillion different words.

Gleick also says something that describes the universe so well. I couldn't even think of a better way to show how vast it is. He says, "If the universe is a computer, we may still struggle to access its memory. If it is a library, it is a library without shelves." It's mind-boggling to realize that we've only accessed a small percentage of things in the universe. We don't know if it actually ends or if it continues on forever. We don't know if there's other life or if we're it. We don't even know how much we don't know. That's the scary part; we don't actually know how much information that we're missing out on. It's just nuts to me that this universe is so big.

Information Nation

First off, I would like to comment on the title of the first chapter of Gleick's book: Drums that Talk. The title immediately held my interest and made me want to read, which is always something really important in a book, newspaper, report. It's a hook and it keeps you captivated.
       But more importantly, I want to focus on page 16 of the section we read. Gleick talks about using fire signals, the fastest way of sending a message back in the day. Now, none of you know this yet, but Lord of the Rings is my heart and soul. And as soon as I read about bonfires being used to spread the messages, I automatically thought of the scene where Pippin (Peregrin Took) lights the signal fire and then an entire string of fires is lit across the mountains and plains. It amazes me how interconnected things are in the world, how a scene from Lord of the Rings can be connected to this book, and to the Trojan War.
        It's also interesting to me that these signal fires had one meaning: something is going on. Basically, people had to play a guessing game as to what was happening until someone actually showed up, which was probably a huge hassle because they really didn't know whether to prepare for the arrival of someone important or to prepare for a battle. I guess it kept them on their toes. Of course, Gleick later says that they tied mirrors and flags to them, probably signifying what event was occurring, so that they could prepare for the right occasion.
       It's so cool to think about how far we have come, especially now that we even refer to the postal service as "snail mail." It makes me wonder if people think about fire signals or sending mail by horse. As of this moment, a text is sent within seconds, and we'll only keep getting faster about it.

History Behind the Magic

Now that I've started reading the actual history part of A History of Reading, I've realized how much of the past actually catches up with the future. Reading through the process of how thinkers attempted to understand the way our sight worked, I waited and waited for the answer to come years in the future. In reality, there had actually been some really accurate answer located in writings from the past. I think it's so wonderful that past information doesn't just become obsolete, the way technology does. With technology, if it is not the newest thing on the market, the product value actually goes down. But with proven facts or just theories, there is always a time to question them or to find new information that adds onto those ideas. Anyone who discovers something or proves something should feel eternally valuable because their ideas will never become obsolete.
I feel like we should all strive to discover something or to prove something in life because our legacy will never die. The world will never lose its thirst for new information, which is a beautiful thing. The world will always continue to grow intellectually.

First Post!

There are a couple things I'd like to say about the first chapter of A History of Reading, by Alberto Manguel.
First off, I can really relate to him when it comes to having such a passion for reading. My mom is always telling me about how I would sit in the shopping cart at Walmart and read the signs above as we would look for the right isle. In my elementary school, our teachers would give us these bag tags that went on our backpacks that honored how many books we read per year; I always had the one that said "I read over 100 books this year!" Books are an escape, an imaginary life, a secret garden full of magic and mystery. They've always been a constant in my life, especially when I feel like my world is too overwhelming to deal with.
And I do believe they change depending on the reader. Unless you're reading a book like The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien, bless his heart, where it takes 4 pages to describe a leaf falling on the ground, the details and images in your head really depend on YOU. You get to choose what you think the character looks like based on their description. It's all based on what you feel the setting/person should look like. The author, unless he's described the person and the setting in absolute detail, gives you a basis and a storyline, but the rest is up to you. I think that's pretty cool. We really have a lot of power, as readers. And, of course, the writer will tell you that the character is geeky or the setting is creepy, but you add your own foggy twist and you decide whether or not that geek wears thick or thin framed glasses. Reading books almost gives you a chance to be your very own illustrator.
We really take advantage of the fact that we can read, the fact that we're even allowed to read. It's such a beautiful ability and it opens so many doors, whether they are the doors to a broader vocabulary, a more colorful imagination, a wiser outlook on life, or even just to a better knowledge on how to cook. We add depth to ourselves with every page we turn.
I really appreciate Manguel telling us about his life and giving us some of his back story because now I've got a better insight to his life and what makes him love literature the way that he does.