January 24th, 2010 / 4:59 pm
Power Quote
Lily Hoang
Power Quote
To mumble, to shout
“Reading remains inseparable from… labial mimeticism and its vocal activity – there are texts that should only be murmured or whispered, others that we ought to be able to shout or beat time to.” -Georges Perec
(I only put up the photo because it’s irresistible!)
Reading Stanley Elkin’s The Magic Kingdom is reminding me that I am out of shape. I mean, it feels good to speak like Elkin, but it’s tiring. It leaves you out of breath after only fifteen, twenty pages. I am going to assume this is intentional. He wants you to feel what it’s like to be sick, to have your body fail on you.
Reading Stanley Elkin’s The Magic Kingdom is reminding me that I am out of shape. I mean, it feels good to speak like Elkin, but it’s tiring. It leaves you out of breath after only fifteen, twenty pages. I am going to assume this is intentional. He wants you to feel what it’s like to be sick, to have your body fail on you.
labial mimeticism… that’s a mouthful.
labial mimeticism… that’s a mouthful.
ha! i move my lips when i read. i always thought it was cause i was dumb.
ha! i move my lips when i read. i always thought it was cause i was dumb.
Especially pages 13-14.
Especially pages 13-14.
At what point during those pages do you find yourself out of breath? And aren’t you a little young to be so out of shape? You seem like the type who reads Men and Women during lunch.
At what point during those pages do you find yourself out of breath? And aren’t you a little young to be so out of shape? You seem like the type who reads Men and Women during lunch.
i laugh a lot when i read, esp when things aren’t funny. i used to read mss in my office, & i’d read a sentence that was so fucking amazing i’d start laughing. a laugh for the brilliance of the writer, maybe. the grad student who had a cubicle outside my office must have thought i was crazy… or dumb. who knows.
i laugh a lot when i read, esp when things aren’t funny. i used to read mss in my office, & i’d read a sentence that was so fucking amazing i’d start laughing. a laugh for the brilliance of the writer, maybe. the grad student who had a cubicle outside my office must have thought i was crazy… or dumb. who knows.
Language (well, communication first, then language) was *heard* for eons before it was read. Even birds and animals communicate by sound (“food over here, guys!” “danger over there!”)
I am reading aloud in my head all the time when I read. I have only ever really had trouble is with Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Need to have him read to me!
This is the beauty of such websites as From the Fishouse, where poets are archiving audio of their work.
http://www.fishousepoems.org/
I do a lot of reading out-loud in my classes. I read to my students, my students read to each other.
I like to have the subtitles (“english for the hearing impaired”!) when I watch a movie. I find I catch so much more by reading the dialogue as it is being spoken.
When I go to a reading, I much prefer having the text in front of me – to catch all the words. And I hear them with all the stresses and inflections intended by the (good) writer-reader giving the reading.
It’s about communication, I think.
I’ve rambled.
Language (well, communication first, then language) was *heard* for eons before it was read. Even birds and animals communicate by sound (“food over here, guys!” “danger over there!”)
I am reading aloud in my head all the time when I read. I have only ever really had trouble is with Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Need to have him read to me!
This is the beauty of such websites as From the Fishouse, where poets are archiving audio of their work.
http://www.fishousepoems.org/
I do a lot of reading out-loud in my classes. I read to my students, my students read to each other.
I like to have the subtitles (“english for the hearing impaired”!) when I watch a movie. I find I catch so much more by reading the dialogue as it is being spoken.
When I go to a reading, I much prefer having the text in front of me – to catch all the words. And I hear them with all the stresses and inflections intended by the (good) writer-reader giving the reading.
It’s about communication, I think.
I’ve rambled.
Sometimes if I’m feeling weary, I’ll read (slightly slightly) out loud to myself. It’s weird, but it can a.) charge my concentration b.) change the way I understand the piece. I’m not sure how. But I think, “This is a piece that I read out loud to myself,” and it’s therefore different from pieces I didn’t have to read out loud to myself.
I guess I haven’t really paid enough attention to know why/how it’s different. Will begin doing so now.
Sometimes if I’m feeling weary, I’ll read (slightly slightly) out loud to myself. It’s weird, but it can a.) charge my concentration b.) change the way I understand the piece. I’m not sure how. But I think, “This is a piece that I read out loud to myself,” and it’s therefore different from pieces I didn’t have to read out loud to myself.
I guess I haven’t really paid enough attention to know why/how it’s different. Will begin doing so now.
another great audio site (my personal favorite) is PennSound: http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/
another great audio site (my personal favorite) is PennSound: http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/
“To begin with, the art of the jigsaw puzzle seems of little substance, easily exhausted, wholly dealt with by a basic introduction to Gestalt: the perceived object–we may be dealing with a perceptual act, the acquisition of a skill, a physiological system, or, as in the present case, a wooden jigsaw puzzle– is not the sum of elements to be distinguished from each other and analysed discretely, but a pattern, that is to say a form, a structure: the element’s existence does not precede the existence of the whole, it comes neither before nor after it, for the parts do not determine the pattern, but the pattern determines the parts: knowledge of the pattern and its laws, of the set and its structure, could not possibly be derived from discrete knowledge of the elements that compose it.”
–Perec. Life: A User’s Manual.
One of the great first sentences in literature. G.P. wins the late 20th century.
“To begin with, the art of the jigsaw puzzle seems of little substance, easily exhausted, wholly dealt with by a basic introduction to Gestalt: the perceived object–we may be dealing with a perceptual act, the acquisition of a skill, a physiological system, or, as in the present case, a wooden jigsaw puzzle– is not the sum of elements to be distinguished from each other and analysed discretely, but a pattern, that is to say a form, a structure: the element’s existence does not precede the existence of the whole, it comes neither before nor after it, for the parts do not determine the pattern, but the pattern determines the parts: knowledge of the pattern and its laws, of the set and its structure, could not possibly be derived from discrete knowledge of the elements that compose it.”
–Perec. Life: A User’s Manual.
One of the great first sentences in literature. G.P. wins the late 20th century.
Yes!
Yes!