Susan Sontag suggests that in modern times when reading we analyze the text, dig into it, separate in in little pieces for our better understanding. We analyze and analyze, separate and separate pieces until we find what we think is the “real” meaning of the text.
Today, when reading both Ehrenreich’s Chapter 6 and Hemingway’s “Hills Like While Elephants” I noted some other things about my reading. First of all, that when reading I have to be focused in order to understand it completely, I have to read fast so that I don’t have any chances of forgetting about my reading. After finishing my readings, the passages I was interested in seem to keep going around in my head, maybe I’m not thinking anything about them, but I am surely digesting the information and trying to make them mine, relating them it to my life.
However, I noted that when I read someone’s theory I apply Sontag’s technique. I analyze it, give opinions, read more closely and dig into the phrases I’m interested in and sort of leaving aside those I believe can be discarded. I struggle to find the real meaning of the theory, what the author is really trying to say; which could be translated to finding my own interpretation of his work. On the other hand, when I read a story I completely forget about my own thoughts and let the writer tell me whatever he wants to say at the moment, I’m just a listener; I give myself a chance to enjoy the text. Maybe I’ll dig into in later, but I let the story plant a first impression before I intervene.
Do we all read in the same way? obviously we don’t: some read while listening to music, some laying down, others in a writing desk with a nice light. But do we all apply the same techniques? and how do they affect our understanding of a text? Do authors mean that we intervene in their work in order to understand its meaning, or are we just being rude and abusive?
Manuela Toro.
