From: Vincent Campbell (VCampbell@dmu.ac.uk)
Date: Wed 30 Oct 2002 - 15:47:26 GMT
<I would say that a person doesn't even read the same book twice.
The
> process of reading involves not only the information encoded in the
> letters
> on the page, it also involves the way we interpret that information and
> how
> we apply what we have learned about the world to the words of the writer.
>
> If I read a book today that I read as a young man, I will get more (or at
> least a different viewpoint) out of it than I did the first time because I
>
> am in many ways a different person than I was then.>
>
I'd agree with that, having recently re-read 'The Lord of the
Rings', inspired by Peter Jackson's film to re-encounter a book I loved as a
14/15 year old. Now at 31 I still found the book enjoyable, but could see
some of the limitations for which Tolkien is so criticised (mostly by
writers of mundane fiction jealous of the sales, and elitist literary
critics, both of whom should know better and should stick to bleating on
about how much better books and plays are than film and television).
Terry Pratchet (in one of the many film-related documentaries) said
that if you read the book at 14 and didn't think lord of the rings was the
best book ever there was something wrong with you, but that if you read the
book in your 40s and_still_thought it was the best book ever there was
something wrong with you!
Vincent
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed 30 Oct 2002 - 15:53:56 GMT