December 17th, 2009 / 1:48 pm
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Reading Ray Backwards (guest-post by Alec Niedenthal)

HannahB-Ray-00If Gary Lutz does it–and he says he does–I don’t know how he does. In an interview with Michael Kimball, Lutz says, “Maybe part of the explanation of why I write the way I write has to do with the way I sometimes read. I sometimes read a book from back to front, sentence by sentence-a practice that, as one might imagine, can give a completely different disposition to a book.” I’ve been trying to read Barry Hannah’s slim marvel, “Ray,” back to front. Sentence by sentence. It won’t work. A book like “Ray” has a certain velocity, speed, force. You’d think that because most sentences here are jewels, are the sharpest of diamonds, that one could isolate them and pick them apart from the bone outward. But it’s become clear to me that Hannah’s sentences sing precisely because they are deeply embedded in a system of voice which, however fragmented the narrative structure of “Ray,” is a system, and therefore, to my mind, necessary.

The story goes that Hannah gave Gordon Lish a 500-page or so manuscript, Lish worked it over with his demanding Lishy hands, and what we have is pretty much a collection of the draft’s most striking sentences. But a book is written with and in a certain code. It would be easy to say that the experience of reading “Ray” from back-to-front was disorienting. It was more than that. Back-to-front, it was nauseating. Part of me wants to say something about the human brain having been conditioned to absorb narrative in a linear fashion. But the other half tells me it isn’t so much the complete narrative body as it is the narrative of the voice itself.

Each sentence tells a story. Lutz and Lish both understand the sentence as self-contained, as an object–in Emmanuel Levinas’s words, “more material than all matter.” As Lutz says in a recent interview with We Are Champion, “Every sentence should feel like the nucleus of the story in which it will eventually appear.” But what are the dimensions of the sentence? Why should the sentence end at a period? If we think of the sentence as an object-in-itself which works in isolation, are we not perpetuating traditional, straightforward modes of storytelling? Here, I’ll pick a sentence out of “Ray” at random. “I promise not to take a jet anymore.” This is Ray addressing his stepson. It’s a great sentence on its own. “[T]ake a jet”: take it where? We love the awkward poetry. This passage, in context, is an arresting (and, I think, particularly beautiful) interruption of the narrative, which is tenuous in the first place.

Let’s arrange and rearrange the surround of our “jet” sentence:

Never be cruel, weird, or abusive.
I promise not to take a jet.
I love your mother.
Amy, Bobby, too.
This boy is so full of loves the juice comes out his eyes.

Or:

This boy is so full of loves the juice comes out his eyes.
Amy, Bobby, too.
I love your mother.
I promise not to take a jet.
Never be cruel, weird, or abusive.

This seems arbitrary, yes. But the first one, read linearly, has more force. It’s a rhythm which fits. Would you read poetry backwards? If, as the avant-garde now regularly posits, there is no distinction, really, between poetry and prose, how is reading backwards, for the pure sensuality of the sentence, justified? Prose can be plotless and still enthrall on the sentence level. But plot and narrative are not identical terms. There is a narrative to sentence the same way there is a narrative to music; a voice vibrates in a certain key because it takes up a certain narrative. Even the most fucked of books has a narrative, a code, an insistent deferral of resolution. Not resolution in terms of plot, but in terms of language and the space of that language. Which resolution, it could be argued, is in fact an opening-up. Sure, Burroughs, for instance, cut up his work and it worked, but the DNA-matter of his work allowed for that kind of approach.

A careful reading has rules–rules that can be bent, manipulated, headbutted, but if broken, I am not truly engaging with the text at hand. I am violating the thingness of the work. Dismantling plot–which seems to be a pivotal project of the avant-garde right now–is worthwhile in my mind, but perhaps it’s something like a transcendental illusion to think we can overcome narrative.

In reading “Ray” backwards, one intends to strip plot of its devices–character, drama, scene–and solidify the sentence. But we would be wrong in thinking language gets its force from plot. Narrative happens on the level of the sentence, with no exteriority of plot. Etc. Language is deferral, a system perpetually subject to its own re-opening, etc.

Yes, okay, but what does sending the text ascramble do?

Reading “Ray” back-to-front, more than anything, allowed me to more deeply engage with “Ray” in a front-to-back reading. Instead of getting a sense of how each sentence works alone, I grew to understand how the Hannah’s sentences form a network, a system of reference, repetition and recurrence. How the sentence îsˆ”more material than all matter.” But not taken in isolation. If we objectify (in the sense of hardening) each sentence–and a backwards reading certainly did just that–then the work becomes flat. Sentences lose their power, their intergration and velocity; we drain the work of its dynamism and performance. Momentum slows. The ethic of the text nearly disappears; what’s left is mostly debris.

“Ray,” nor any worthwhile work of words, is not, cannot possibly be read as a random smattering of sentences. Its complexity comes precisely from a dissimulation of simplicity. Like all great works of fiction–of art–it denies its own absolute truth; it hides slyly inside of a lie.

The next time you reread a book, try reading it backwards, maybe by sentence, maybe by paragraph–maybe hold the book vertically and read it that way. The experience works you over, gets you squeamish; it felt distinctly like violating something holy, like eating the Talmud. It is, in a very literal sense, an inversion of time. The sentences stand still while everything else topples.

“Hear me, poets. I have certain feelings.”

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105 Comments

  1. Sean

      Norman Mailer actually did this with his own books, as an editing trick. He did not want to get involved in the content of the book, only the sentence.

      I think this would be a good mental exercise. The real question is this: Would you dare do it as a FIRST read of a book?

  2. Sean

      Norman Mailer actually did this with his own books, as an editing trick. He did not want to get involved in the content of the book, only the sentence.

      I think this would be a good mental exercise. The real question is this: Would you dare do it as a FIRST read of a book?

  3. alan rossi

      really good essay here. i’ve tried reading some stories backwards, as per Lutz, and yeah, just couldn’t come close to doing it, for all the reasons you’ve articulated here. the reading backwards almost seems a prescription for Lutz’s own work, as if it’s a thing he does with his own sentences. would be interested in seeing how a backward-Lutz story might go over.

  4. alan rossi

      really good essay here. i’ve tried reading some stories backwards, as per Lutz, and yeah, just couldn’t come close to doing it, for all the reasons you’ve articulated here. the reading backwards almost seems a prescription for Lutz’s own work, as if it’s a thing he does with his own sentences. would be interested in seeing how a backward-Lutz story might go over.

  5. Mike Meginnis

      For a second I thought this was about reading Ray in Reverse backwards.

      That would be really stupid.

  6. Mike Meginnis

      For a second I thought this was about reading Ray in Reverse backwards.

      That would be really stupid.

  7. Mike Meginnis

      That said I like the actual post.

  8. Mike Meginnis

      That said I like the actual post.

  9. Mather Schneider

      Why don’t you read every word backwards too?

  10. Mather Schneider

      Why don’t you read every word backwards too?

  11. Mather Schneider

      Or maybe you should read it upside down? Or standing on your head? Or you could stare at the cover and read it with your x-ray vision? Or you could eat it (pretend it’s a baby) and let your stomach read it.

  12. Mather Schneider

      Or maybe you should read it upside down? Or standing on your head? Or you could stare at the cover and read it with your x-ray vision? Or you could eat it (pretend it’s a baby) and let your stomach read it.

  13. Ryan Call

      or like reading ‘time’s arrow’ backwards.

  14. Ryan Call

      or like reading ‘time’s arrow’ backwards.

  15. Ryan Call

      i really also liked this essay alec.

  16. Ryan Call

      i really also liked this essay alec.

  17. Stu

      Yeah! Better still, close your eyes, put your hand on the cover and absorb the stories? Jesus.

  18. Stu

      Yeah! Better still, close your eyes, put your hand on the cover and absorb the stories? Jesus.

  19. alec niedenthal

      thank you!

  20. alec niedenthal

      thank you!

  21. Kyle Minor

      Best post in the history of HTMLGiant. I wish you’d expand it to a full-length manifesto and publish it someplace attention-grabbing, because it is a useful clarifier w/r/t certain orthodoxies of sentence-driven fiction.

  22. Kyle Minor

      Best post in the history of HTMLGiant. I wish you’d expand it to a full-length manifesto and publish it someplace attention-grabbing, because it is a useful clarifier w/r/t certain orthodoxies of sentence-driven fiction.

  23. alec niedenthal

      Wow, thank you, Kyle! HTMLG seems attention-grabbing enough. I’m actually doing a project (for school, but I’m going to try to post some of it here) in January on the connection between sentence-driven fiction and “ethical space.” Maybe that will turn out to be something of a manifesto.

  24. alec niedenthal

      Wow, thank you, Kyle! HTMLG seems attention-grabbing enough. I’m actually doing a project (for school, but I’m going to try to post some of it here) in January on the connection between sentence-driven fiction and “ethical space.” Maybe that will turn out to be something of a manifesto.

  25. Justin Taylor

      I really admire this essay of Alec’s, not in the least because I disagree with it, at least in part. That’s one reason I was so excited when he sent it to me, and that I got to publish it! Teasing out exactly “which part” is stickier business, and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to think some of these things through.

      Basically, I don’t think the two types of reading are irreconcilable. They yield different results, is all. If one prefers to experience Ray (or any book) as a collection of self-contained sentences, surely one is free to do so, in much the same way that if you are trying to learn something about the way a certain director frames his shots, you might watch his films without regard to his casting choices or the quality of his script. Indeed, I might very well watch it with the sound off, or out of order. This is an inexact example, a limited if not a weak one, but note that in the interview with Lutz in question, he also speaks of reading books–on occasion–specifically for the quality of their punctuation. Clearly, in Gary Lutz, we have a very different type of reader than the “typical” reader–whatever that is. I think the great virtue of the Lutz interview is the clarity and honesty with which he can connect what he reads *for* to the way in which he chooses to do his reading. As my favorite undergrad professor–a Lacanian–used to say: The pervert is the only person who actually knows what he wants.

      But none of this should be interpreted as a critique of the above post, which I hasten to re-iterate I myself solicited and then published. I think Alec does a stand-out job of designating one philosophical limit of the scope of what has been referred to (not unlovingly) as “the cult of the sentence.” It should surprise nobody that cults are occasionally given toward making sacrifices, and yes, to super-valuate the sentence means necessarily to devalue everything outside or beyond the sentence. He’s right, more or less, about what is gained and what is lost. In order, however, to assert the “rightness” of one approach over the other, we would have to first assume that the varying parties have the same goals in mind–that they are the same kind of reader, or seeking the same sort of experience, and deliberating as to how best to obtain it. If we concede a margin of difference in the desires and philosophies of Lutz and Niedenthal–perhaps narrow, perhaps wide or anyhow widening–we see a larger picture of two serviceable approaches, reasonable and defensible positions that may not be reconcilable but the world doesn’t force us to choose just one. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this conversation is what it teaches us about each of the writers who have shared something of their reading processes with us.

  26. Justin Taylor

      I really admire this essay of Alec’s, not in the least because I disagree with it, at least in part. That’s one reason I was so excited when he sent it to me, and that I got to publish it! Teasing out exactly “which part” is stickier business, and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to think some of these things through.

      Basically, I don’t think the two types of reading are irreconcilable. They yield different results, is all. If one prefers to experience Ray (or any book) as a collection of self-contained sentences, surely one is free to do so, in much the same way that if you are trying to learn something about the way a certain director frames his shots, you might watch his films without regard to his casting choices or the quality of his script. Indeed, I might very well watch it with the sound off, or out of order. This is an inexact example, a limited if not a weak one, but note that in the interview with Lutz in question, he also speaks of reading books–on occasion–specifically for the quality of their punctuation. Clearly, in Gary Lutz, we have a very different type of reader than the “typical” reader–whatever that is. I think the great virtue of the Lutz interview is the clarity and honesty with which he can connect what he reads *for* to the way in which he chooses to do his reading. As my favorite undergrad professor–a Lacanian–used to say: The pervert is the only person who actually knows what he wants.

      But none of this should be interpreted as a critique of the above post, which I hasten to re-iterate I myself solicited and then published. I think Alec does a stand-out job of designating one philosophical limit of the scope of what has been referred to (not unlovingly) as “the cult of the sentence.” It should surprise nobody that cults are occasionally given toward making sacrifices, and yes, to super-valuate the sentence means necessarily to devalue everything outside or beyond the sentence. He’s right, more or less, about what is gained and what is lost. In order, however, to assert the “rightness” of one approach over the other, we would have to first assume that the varying parties have the same goals in mind–that they are the same kind of reader, or seeking the same sort of experience, and deliberating as to how best to obtain it. If we concede a margin of difference in the desires and philosophies of Lutz and Niedenthal–perhaps narrow, perhaps wide or anyhow widening–we see a larger picture of two serviceable approaches, reasonable and defensible positions that may not be reconcilable but the world doesn’t force us to choose just one. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this conversation is what it teaches us about each of the writers who have shared something of their reading processes with us.

  27. Justin Taylor

      Hey, you know what’s really irreconcilable? Calling two things reconcilable at the beginning of your post and then the opposite at the end of your post. Why don’t you grow yourself a cogent worldview, dipshit? Whoops….

  28. Alexis Orgera

      Jesus, man. You keep impressing me. Lovely post. Nice work with the narrative/plot distinction, which is of course true of poetry and fiction, seeing as how they’re the same thing and all ;)

      On a side note–sometimes when I can’t make a poem work, or it’s just not working, I’ll re-write it backwards and see what emerges from that. Sometimes I’ll do a sentence-by-sentence backwards, other times when I’m feeling deeply fucked up, I’ll do it word by word. The purpose is to find the narrative embedded in it.

  29. Justin Taylor

      Hey, you know what’s really irreconcilable? Calling two things reconcilable at the beginning of your post and then the opposite at the end of your post. Why don’t you grow yourself a cogent worldview, dipshit? Whoops….

  30. Alexis Orgera

      Jesus, man. You keep impressing me. Lovely post. Nice work with the narrative/plot distinction, which is of course true of poetry and fiction, seeing as how they’re the same thing and all ;)

      On a side note–sometimes when I can’t make a poem work, or it’s just not working, I’ll re-write it backwards and see what emerges from that. Sometimes I’ll do a sentence-by-sentence backwards, other times when I’m feeling deeply fucked up, I’ll do it word by word. The purpose is to find the narrative embedded in it.

  31. Alexis Orgera

      And I also appreciate your response, Justin. Sometimes a cogent worldview is the one that sees both sides–or many sides–of a thing. You’d be cultish, otherwise ;)

  32. Alexis Orgera

      And I also appreciate your response, Justin. Sometimes a cogent worldview is the one that sees both sides–or many sides–of a thing. You’d be cultish, otherwise ;)

  33. alec niedenthal

      I don’t necessarily agree that the cult of the sentence must sacrifice what lies in exteriority to the sentence. My mom is taking me to get a haircut now. But I’ll post more on that when my mom brings me home.

  34. alec niedenthal

      I don’t necessarily agree that the cult of the sentence must sacrifice what lies in exteriority to the sentence. My mom is taking me to get a haircut now. But I’ll post more on that when my mom brings me home.

  35. Eliza

      I like this because it acknowledges the misguided aspects/pitfalls of sentence fetishization, i.e. that valorizing the build of individual sentences in a novel or story–and not the way those sentences interact with each other–“robs the work of its dynamism.” It seems to me that most people who adopt that ‘sentence-first’ attitude are ignoring the fact that novels and stories possess emergent properties: even if we know everything there is to know about their atomic parts (constituent sentences), when those things are put together into a whole, into a story or a novel, there are qualities (of the whole) that emerge that we could never have predicted beforehand. To my mind that’s the biggest fault with the sentence-fetishist way of thinking–that it doesn’t leave room for those more complex interactions that obtain between sentences.

  36. Eliza

      I like this because it acknowledges the misguided aspects/pitfalls of sentence fetishization, i.e. that valorizing the build of individual sentences in a novel or story–and not the way those sentences interact with each other–“robs the work of its dynamism.” It seems to me that most people who adopt that ‘sentence-first’ attitude are ignoring the fact that novels and stories possess emergent properties: even if we know everything there is to know about their atomic parts (constituent sentences), when those things are put together into a whole, into a story or a novel, there are qualities (of the whole) that emerge that we could never have predicted beforehand. To my mind that’s the biggest fault with the sentence-fetishist way of thinking–that it doesn’t leave room for those more complex interactions that obtain between sentences.

  37. alec niedenthal

      Also, thanks again for posting this, Justin.

  38. alec niedenthal

      Also, thanks again for posting this, Justin.

  39. alec niedenthal

      Thanks, Alexis.

      What does the result of poetry writ backwards usually look like?

  40. alec niedenthal

      Thanks, Alexis.

      What does the result of poetry writ backwards usually look like?

  41. Alexis Orgera

      I’m not sure I understand why “fetishizing” the sentence doesn’t leave more room for more complex interactions between sentences. Is it like l-a-n-g-u-a-g-e poetry, in which meaning is purposely hatcheted for sound? Can you have an intersection? I mean, wouldn’t that be the most powerful way to play it?

  42. Alexis Orgera

      I’m not sure I understand why “fetishizing” the sentence doesn’t leave more room for more complex interactions between sentences. Is it like l-a-n-g-u-a-g-e poetry, in which meaning is purposely hatcheted for sound? Can you have an intersection? I mean, wouldn’t that be the most powerful way to play it?

  43. Tim Horvath

      Good post. I think of my fave literature as having something other than full-on forward momentum, instead being more akin to a river with eddies and riffles and suckholes (and the occasional wormhole to another book entirely). And a good sentence is often like this, too, taking side turns and stuttering its own step, so maybe like a fractal of a chapter/story, in turn a fractal of a novel/collection. I think of those trees so beloved of linguists, where the sentence is broken down and branches vertically down the page, and while I never really understood those things I think there’s something to said for that, like a good sentence is branching out into three dimensions rather than actually being processed in the left-to-right path that the words take on the page itself. Scanning a page of text is a lot like taking in a room or a forest stand, and thus periods are just one point of orientation among many. I’m reminded of this all the more when I listen to an audio book and am subject to its relentless momentum, where some words or actions or concepts might as well be literally echoing because that’s what they do in my head.

  44. Tim Horvath

      Good post. I think of my fave literature as having something other than full-on forward momentum, instead being more akin to a river with eddies and riffles and suckholes (and the occasional wormhole to another book entirely). And a good sentence is often like this, too, taking side turns and stuttering its own step, so maybe like a fractal of a chapter/story, in turn a fractal of a novel/collection. I think of those trees so beloved of linguists, where the sentence is broken down and branches vertically down the page, and while I never really understood those things I think there’s something to said for that, like a good sentence is branching out into three dimensions rather than actually being processed in the left-to-right path that the words take on the page itself. Scanning a page of text is a lot like taking in a room or a forest stand, and thus periods are just one point of orientation among many. I’m reminded of this all the more when I listen to an audio book and am subject to its relentless momentum, where some words or actions or concepts might as well be literally echoing because that’s what they do in my head.

  45. Tim Horvath

      Somehow this topic in general brought me to this bastion of oddness, where it is believed that, eg., children learn to “speak backward” before they do forward, and that if we heard everything backward it would all make sense: http://www.reversingmachines.com/.

      Man, do I wish I’d made this up.

  46. Tim Jones-Yelvington

      me too

  47. Tim Horvath

      Somehow this topic in general brought me to this bastion of oddness, where it is believed that, eg., children learn to “speak backward” before they do forward, and that if we heard everything backward it would all make sense: http://www.reversingmachines.com/.

      Man, do I wish I’d made this up.

  48. Tim Jones-Yelvington

      me too

  49. Justin Taylor

      Darling don’t you go and cut your hair!

      But seriously, you’re welcome, and thank you for triggering this conversation.

  50. Justin Taylor

      Darling don’t you go and cut your hair!

      But seriously, you’re welcome, and thank you for triggering this conversation.

  51. james

      gj alec. this was a great and thought-provoking post.

  52. james

      gj alec. this was a great and thought-provoking post.

  53. Eliza

      Is it like l-a-n-g-u-a-g-e poetry, in which meaning is purposely hatcheted for sound?

      I think some of the harder-core Lishites lean that way. Lutz discusses that process of “consecution” in his Believer essay (http://www.believermag.com/issues/200901/?read=article_lutz), and it’s a process that relies pretty heavily on torquing sentences just for sound.

  54. Eliza

      Is it like l-a-n-g-u-a-g-e poetry, in which meaning is purposely hatcheted for sound?

      I think some of the harder-core Lishites lean that way. Lutz discusses that process of “consecution” in his Believer essay (http://www.believermag.com/issues/200901/?read=article_lutz), and it’s a process that relies pretty heavily on torquing sentences just for sound.

  55. alec niedenthal

      Heh, I actually played Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain for the car ride. We got to listen to the whole thing because of traffic.

      Anyway, yeah, continuing with the same poorly-worded point: I don’t know if it was clear at the end of the essay, but I think that isolating or objectifying the sentence is worthwhile insofar as, like Tim points toward below, doing so clarifies precisely how and why the sentence works both with and against a certain momentum, an open space. I understand the sentence as an interpellated–or perhaps, in a very literal sense, sentenced–subject within the code/framework of the work at hand. A subject which is shot through with an event: its surround, which is radically contingent. The surround might be grounded in sound; it might just as easily not be. It is the same oscillation between the open “world” (here the deferential motion of narrative) and closed “earth” (the material sentence) which Heidegger articulates in POETRY, LANGUAGE, THOUGHT, wherein they blend and jut through one another in an economy. In this sense, the cult of the sentence is engaging with the “world” of the work–the unconditioned condition of possibility for the work, sentence by sentence, doing its work–through the “earth” of the sentence–the hardened order and materiality of it.

      If it were not the cult of the sentence, it would simply be another cult, another ideology, ad infinitum.

  56. alec niedenthal

      Heh, I actually played Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain for the car ride. We got to listen to the whole thing because of traffic.

      Anyway, yeah, continuing with the same poorly-worded point: I don’t know if it was clear at the end of the essay, but I think that isolating or objectifying the sentence is worthwhile insofar as, like Tim points toward below, doing so clarifies precisely how and why the sentence works both with and against a certain momentum, an open space. I understand the sentence as an interpellated–or perhaps, in a very literal sense, sentenced–subject within the code/framework of the work at hand. A subject which is shot through with an event: its surround, which is radically contingent. The surround might be grounded in sound; it might just as easily not be. It is the same oscillation between the open “world” (here the deferential motion of narrative) and closed “earth” (the material sentence) which Heidegger articulates in POETRY, LANGUAGE, THOUGHT, wherein they blend and jut through one another in an economy. In this sense, the cult of the sentence is engaging with the “world” of the work–the unconditioned condition of possibility for the work, sentence by sentence, doing its work–through the “earth” of the sentence–the hardened order and materiality of it.

      If it were not the cult of the sentence, it would simply be another cult, another ideology, ad infinitum.

  57. alec niedenthal

      I just realized I said “in a very literal sense” in both that post and the essay up top.

      Damn. I need to come up with new catchy modifiers.

  58. alec niedenthal

      I just realized I said “in a very literal sense” in both that post and the essay up top.

      Damn. I need to come up with new catchy modifiers.

  59. Alexis

      Backwards poetry ;)

  60. Alexis

      Backwards poetry ;)

  61. darby

      i tend to think the opposite is true. The more sentences function independently of each other, the more interesting and complex the connections between those sentences become.

  62. darby

      i tend to think the opposite is true. The more sentences function independently of each other, the more interesting and complex the connections between those sentences become.

  63. alec niedenthal

      Good point.

  64. alec niedenthal

      Good point.

  65. KevinS

      What’s fun is reading Manga backward. It’s easy to do since it’s layed out that way. Ha!

  66. KevinS

      What’s fun is reading Manga backward. It’s easy to do since it’s layed out that way. Ha!

  67. Amy McDaniel

      Alec, this is really fascinating. One thing that struck me, though, is that Lutz’s way of reading does not attempt to rip the sentence from its surround, its world, its network. Reading backward is still linear, it still accounts for the whole system, just in reverse. He isn’t saying that he reads sentences at random. It seems to me that reading something backward could only enhance an understanding of the greater framework, the system, the relation of part-to-whole. It is still left intact, just approached from different angles.

      I’m not meaning to imply that this is the only thing you are trying to say, not at all; I recognize that Lutz was a springboard, not the entire thing you are responding to. I really like the way you are questioning the conventional wisdom of the sentence as ultimate unit of measure in prose; thinking of music, for instance, the boundaries of the phrasal unit are more interpretable. But I would say that there’s something in what Lutz is talking about that is deeper and more comprehensive than just a way to get at the pure sensuality of the sentence-as-object. I’m going to think about all of this further. Thank you.

  68. Amy McDaniel

      Alec, this is really fascinating. One thing that struck me, though, is that Lutz’s way of reading does not attempt to rip the sentence from its surround, its world, its network. Reading backward is still linear, it still accounts for the whole system, just in reverse. He isn’t saying that he reads sentences at random. It seems to me that reading something backward could only enhance an understanding of the greater framework, the system, the relation of part-to-whole. It is still left intact, just approached from different angles.

      I’m not meaning to imply that this is the only thing you are trying to say, not at all; I recognize that Lutz was a springboard, not the entire thing you are responding to. I really like the way you are questioning the conventional wisdom of the sentence as ultimate unit of measure in prose; thinking of music, for instance, the boundaries of the phrasal unit are more interpretable. But I would say that there’s something in what Lutz is talking about that is deeper and more comprehensive than just a way to get at the pure sensuality of the sentence-as-object. I’m going to think about all of this further. Thank you.

  69. Eliza

      “The more sentences function independently of each other, the more interesting and complex the connections between those sentences become.”

      Or the connections just disappear.

  70. Eliza

      “The more sentences function independently of each other, the more interesting and complex the connections between those sentences become.”

      Or the connections just disappear.

  71. jereme

      justin i read this book because of your recommendation on HTMLG some time ago.

      it is my favorite book of all time.

      thank you.

  72. alec niedenthal

      Amy: Thank you, I’m glad you liked it.

      Right. And if you read my response to Justin’s comment, that aspect of Lutz’s reading–an enhanced understanding–did very much shine through for me. But for me it was an understanding of how tightly organized the sentences are in a front-to-back reading; obviously, as Justin pointed out, Lutz probably reads backwards for different reasons, or according to an entirely different system of reading altogether.

      Well, I’m as much trying to think the sentence in a new way as I am questioning conventional wisdom here. I’m at once asking how does something like “literature” emerges from the sentence, and why. I think Lutz is trying to do the same thing, and in particular is NOT just invoking or reinforcing the sentence-as-foundational wisdom we might have been thrust into. I also think Lutz is trying to step back and look at the relation between narrative and the sentence as well, but in his own oblique mode.

  73. jereme

      justin i read this book because of your recommendation on HTMLG some time ago.

      it is my favorite book of all time.

      thank you.

  74. alec niedenthal

      Amy: Thank you, I’m glad you liked it.

      Right. And if you read my response to Justin’s comment, that aspect of Lutz’s reading–an enhanced understanding–did very much shine through for me. But for me it was an understanding of how tightly organized the sentences are in a front-to-back reading; obviously, as Justin pointed out, Lutz probably reads backwards for different reasons, or according to an entirely different system of reading altogether.

      Well, I’m as much trying to think the sentence in a new way as I am questioning conventional wisdom here. I’m at once asking how does something like “literature” emerges from the sentence, and why. I think Lutz is trying to do the same thing, and in particular is NOT just invoking or reinforcing the sentence-as-foundational wisdom we might have been thrust into. I also think Lutz is trying to step back and look at the relation between narrative and the sentence as well, but in his own oblique mode.

  75. Andy

      why not tear each page out of the book and read the pages held up to a light so you could see through the page.

  76. Andy

      why not tear each page out of the book and read the pages held up to a light so you could see through the page.

  77. Roxane

      This is an excellent essay, Alec. I really like what you say about the code of a book. I’ve been really interested lately in books that teach you how to read them and your ideas here have really helped clarify my thinking on why I enjoy those kinds of books. Also, you made me buy Ray because of our comment-conversation the other day. I really can’t wait to read it now.

  78. Roxane

      This is an excellent essay, Alec. I really like what you say about the code of a book. I’ve been really interested lately in books that teach you how to read them and your ideas here have really helped clarify my thinking on why I enjoy those kinds of books. Also, you made me buy Ray because of our comment-conversation the other day. I really can’t wait to read it now.

  79. alec niedenthal

      Thank you, Roxane. Let me know what you think of the book (especially as regards the topics we were throwing around the other day) after you read it.

  80. alec niedenthal

      Thank you, Roxane. Let me know what you think of the book (especially as regards the topics we were throwing around the other day) after you read it.

  81. Mike Meginnis

      Well we’ve all done that.

      Everyone does that.

  82. Mike Meginnis

      Well we’ve all done that.

      Everyone does that.

  83. Justin Taylor

      My pleasure, man. It’s one of my favorites as well.

  84. Justin Taylor

      My pleasure, man. It’s one of my favorites as well.

  85. reynard

      i’ve also wondered what it would be like to do this since reading that lutz did. it’s like a painter looking at their piece upside down, which is my favorite of the oblique strategies – ‘turn it upside down.’ so it’s funny that you, alec, said in your re: to amy that it was lutz’s ‘oblique mode.’

      the thing that has always interested me about looking at something upside down is that it’s how our eyes actually see things. it’s our brain that inverts the images. have you ever seen someone speaking upside down? it’s totally surreal and reminds me how weird humans really are. it’s a good thing to do, i think. sometimes i like to watch things upside down on my ipod.

      one of the things tha happens when you look at art upside down is that you gain a new perspective of proportion and the use of space in the piece as a whole, as well as becoming more aware of the individual elements that make up the piece. i wonder if it isn’t the exact same thing with this exercise. anyway, i’m going to try it myself soon. thanks!

  86. reynard

      i’ve also wondered what it would be like to do this since reading that lutz did. it’s like a painter looking at their piece upside down, which is my favorite of the oblique strategies – ‘turn it upside down.’ so it’s funny that you, alec, said in your re: to amy that it was lutz’s ‘oblique mode.’

      the thing that has always interested me about looking at something upside down is that it’s how our eyes actually see things. it’s our brain that inverts the images. have you ever seen someone speaking upside down? it’s totally surreal and reminds me how weird humans really are. it’s a good thing to do, i think. sometimes i like to watch things upside down on my ipod.

      one of the things tha happens when you look at art upside down is that you gain a new perspective of proportion and the use of space in the piece as a whole, as well as becoming more aware of the individual elements that make up the piece. i wonder if it isn’t the exact same thing with this exercise. anyway, i’m going to try it myself soon. thanks!

  87. Stu

      This article is good in that it gives great insight into why there are people mesmerized by this particular way of text absorption, by this way of constructing language, but it’s not the way I read, so all it really does is make me consider the way I do things.

  88. Stu

      This article is good in that it gives great insight into why there are people mesmerized by this particular way of text absorption, by this way of constructing language, but it’s not the way I read, so all it really does is make me consider the way I do things.

  89. alec niedenthal

      Do you know what you’re going to try the exercise with?

      And yeah, upside-down talking faces are the weirdest, and they are beautiful and a little uncanny.

  90. alec niedenthal

      Do you know what you’re going to try the exercise with?

      And yeah, upside-down talking faces are the weirdest, and they are beautiful and a little uncanny.

  91. reynard

      i was thinking about trying it with andre breton’s nadja

  92. reynard

      i was thinking about trying it with andre breton’s nadja

  93. Links: Tidying Up Before The Holidays « Mark Athitakis’ American Fiction Notes

      […] The frustrations of reading Barry Hannah backwards. […]

  94. Ken Baumann

      Great post.

  95. Ken Baumann

      Thanks, Alec.

  96. Ken Baumann

      Great post.

  97. Ken Baumann

      Thanks, Alec.

  98. alec niedenthal

      Thanks a lot, Ken.

  99. alec niedenthal

      Thanks a lot, Ken.

  100. Orgrease

      i recommend eating them without looking too closely

  101. Orgrease

      i recommend eating them without looking too closely

  102. Orgrease

      “…the more interesting and complex the connections between those sentences become.”

      I agree with this to an extent but find that a reliance only on the spaces of independence can also develop an odd monotony in a sort of bang bang bang percussion. What I particularly enjoy is variations of the independence such that the cognitive distances between sentences take on a thematic character of either a parallel and/or divergent variation of modulation in an independent narrative arc from the overtly conscious prosaic meaning. One of the neat things in this interweaving is when the prose begins to mimic sculptural form… and I do not mean form on the printed page.

  103. Orgrease

      “…the more interesting and complex the connections between those sentences become.”

      I agree with this to an extent but find that a reliance only on the spaces of independence can also develop an odd monotony in a sort of bang bang bang percussion. What I particularly enjoy is variations of the independence such that the cognitive distances between sentences take on a thematic character of either a parallel and/or divergent variation of modulation in an independent narrative arc from the overtly conscious prosaic meaning. One of the neat things in this interweaving is when the prose begins to mimic sculptural form… and I do not mean form on the printed page.

  104. Orgrease

      Nice post.

      A technique that line editors use is to work a manuscript from back to front so that they can the better see what they are working on at a micro level without the noise of the text having to make any particular sense, a sense that lulls the reader’s senses into not seeing details of the structure. Do this a few times with a 700 page manuscript, particularly one not very well written and it gets to be very mind bending.

  105. Orgrease

      Nice post.

      A technique that line editors use is to work a manuscript from back to front so that they can the better see what they are working on at a micro level without the noise of the text having to make any particular sense, a sense that lulls the reader’s senses into not seeing details of the structure. Do this a few times with a 700 page manuscript, particularly one not very well written and it gets to be very mind bending.