Thursday, October 09, 2008

The Gutenberg Elegies

Chapter 6

The impressions and images, the codes and symbols, are remembered from books even if the actual passages of dialogue and some characters slip the memory.

The reading memory is also connected to the experience of reading, with certain books able to conjure up memories of the situation they were read in. That is the result of something solitary and deep.

“The writing process begins in the writer, the life; it branches odd onto paper, into artifice; but the final restless resting place of every written thing is the solitary life of the reader.” Pg 108


Chapter 7

There is a relationship between the reader and the writer that is an important result of immersion in a novel. They are both to a certain extent on the same side and able to share the same experiences.

“When we read we bring the life – ultimately our life - to the words.” Pg 113