Storytellersunplugged

1. George Guthridge

   Hi Elizabeth,

   This was a very interesting blog.

   I had a similar experience, though one that was far less dramatic. I used to read very fast, but about the time that I entered college I noticed that I had begun subvocalizing the words instead of just glancing at the text. Naturally, my reading speed slowed to a crawl.

   Interesting, my favorite professor had predicted it would happen. He told the class, “When you start loving literature instead of just reading, then you will find your reading speed really slowing down.”

   Your comment about the centipede was great!

   Jan 7th, 2007

2. Janet Berliner

   Thank you for joining our motley crew and for a
   wonderful Sunday morning essay. I look forward
   to the next one. -Janet

   Jan 7th, 2007

3. Anonymous

   Ah, I was that kid who was reading in the adult section by the time she was ten too.

   I’m not sure that I’m reading slower, but I do reread more. Rereading eats more into my New reads time even more than writing does.

   Wonderful post, Ms Bear!

   Jan 7th, 2007

4. Sully

   Intriguing to the max. The interplay of conjugating rhythms and context in a kind of wall to wall matrix hits me like a new color in a rainbow. Not new. Just one I’ve ignored because it comes at my senses like synesthesia, crossfiring into sound — say, the hum of a tuning fork. I think I read everything translated out of Russian literature like this when I was a teen. Often did not know what I read in the normal sense, and yet had a phantom approach to ingesting the meaning in total. Bear in mind, it was TRANSLATED. Some of it grandly, but often badly, as with the Constance Garnett translations of Dostoyevsky. Yet, something in the style (construction? idiom?) impacted me. Found myself doing all kinds of pointless tricks in my own writing, sometimes only half aware. Like writing sentences in a mathematical progression by word count. I’m most curious as to who your favorite writers were at these different stages in your evolution (devolution? revolution?). What prose struck you as beautiful?

   – Sully (Thomas Sullivan)

   Jan 7th, 2007

5. Maryelizabeth

   Thanks. A wee bit o’ empathy here as well — as a quick and comprehensive reader at an early age (though not on your level or, say, that of my friend, Little Willow), I can remember my parents intervening with my teacher and the principal during my last year of elementary school. They were teaching us some sort of structured reading approach … not Hooked on Phonics or Evelyn Wood, IIRC, but something of that nature. And after the first half hour or so I was in tears because whatever they were trying to make me do was making my eyes and mind hurt and Slowing Me Down. Yay for the past, when I probably would’ve been forced to learn it because of some sort of No Child Gets Ahead rule…

   Jan 7th, 2007

6. Maryelizabeth

   Er, that should be “When NOW…”
   I am not so skilled a typist.

   Jan 7th, 2007

7. Anonymous

   What an amazing tale! I’ve never experienced anything even close to being able to ‘grok’ an entire paragraph like that.

   I loved Orm the Beautiful, Elizabeth. It’s wonderful to have you here.

   Jan 7th, 2007

8. David Niall Wilson

   Different periods in my life have resulted in various levels of ability to read the fiction of others. Editing killed a lot of it for me, being a reviewer changed my methods and the concentration level, and of course the shift from writing mostly short fiction to writing mostly novels has changed things again…I still love to read, but find that I often need to read through the voice of another - audio books - to keep the speed and effect in the ballpark of what the author meant. I tend to skim, to speed read, or to mire myself down and get distracted…when as a boy I could read four, maybe five novels in a week.

   Interesting seeing this all from a different perspective.

   DNW

   Jan 7th, 2007

9. John B. Rosenman

   Really good. As a centipede, I trip over my own feet all the time. What is leg 68 doing when leg 14 is coming down? How I wish I could read more holistically and swiftly, even if I lose a little of the content and substance.

   A fascinating mini-history of your experience as a reader.

   I was never as fast as you, and I lacked the semi-eidetic ability you had, but I remember that as a kid, we were allowed to take as many as ten whole books home for the summer, and I would devour them in a couple sittings.

   Anyone remember the fresh smell of school books? Magic!

   Jan 8th, 2007

10. Elizabeth

    Sully–

    You know, when I was younger, I thought that beautiful prose was a function of beautiful and interesting words and complex rhythms. I never “heard” what I read–which is one of the things I was missing. So I read in large part for characterization and plot. Although I do remember being absolutely hypnotized by the prose in one particular chapter of Patricia McKillip’s Fool’s Run, the one about the black plastic roses, which is a sort of tense matrix of prose.

    And the rhythms of Kurt Vonnegut’s prose, with its white space and repetition, I still find masterful.

    DNW–

    That’s *interesting.* I find audiobooks intolerable, and am restless about being read to. (I tend not to go to readings, or like doing them myself, because text always seems… very static and frozen to me when presented in that kind of a heavy linear fashion. I can’t follow it as well when it’s read aloud!)

    And now you have just made me realize how weird that is.

    Teresa–

    *Thank* you!

    John B.–

    Mmmm. New book smell.

    ***

    thanks, everybody!

    –ebear

    Jan 8th, 2007

11. Richard Dansky

    Fascinating and well-written. Thank you for posting that.

    I’ve had experiences that mirror what you’re talking about, both with reading material and with games. the role of designer causes one to dissect gameplay in much the same way an editorial machete enables you to start cutting at prose. Ultimately, when I came out the other side - and it was years after my editorial stint before I could really read for pleasure again - I found that my tolerance for the bad, or even the mediocre, had dropped to zero, but my appreciation for the good had increased. I can appreciate different choices more and recognize where those choices were made, but being able to see more choices also means being able to see the bad or lazy ones.

    Again, thanks for an excellent essay.

    Jan 11th, 2007

12. Anonymous

    “I find audiobooks intolerable, and am restless about being read to. (I tend not to go to readings, or like doing them myself, because text always seems… very static and frozen to me when presented in that kind of a heavy linear fashion. I can’t follow it as well when it’s read aloud!)”

    I was blown away by this blog post, as well as the above comment. When I was at the Writers of the Future workshop (WOTF XX) I felt TERRIBLE that everyone else was reading the anthology the moment they got their hands on it, and praising one another, and generally having a great time. But I couldn’t read a word of the book. I just sort of sat with it in my hand, thinking I’d gone completely crazy. It was so embarassing to admit to my TOC mates that I couldn’t read their stories. I was terrified of coming across like some pretentious pigdog who thought she was too good to be in the book, and reading the other stories was beneath her.

    No. No no no. Ack!

    I’d forgotten how to read. This wasn’t some kind of weird panic issue either … I’d been having a tough time reading anything at home snug in my bed either. I think it took me about 2 years to learn how to read again after publishing my first short story. Like you’ve said here, I would read a sentence, and then immediately edit it. I’d compare it to the next sentence, and then analyze how the sentence worked in terms of placement within the paragraph. After a few paragraphs, I’d be exhausted, and I’d just give up.

    It’s sort of scary. I too read at a blistering pace. I read all the dog and horse books in the library, twice. When I was I dunno, 11, I ditched school one day and read The Talisman (Kind ang Straub) in six or so hours. I have the worst time in the world with fiction readings and audio books make me nuts. Someone recently forced me to listen to podcasts of people reading Lovecraft, and one Lovecraftian vocabulary word (squamous, or cyclopean)was enough to send me off giggling so badly I couldn’t follow the rest of the story. Aural ADD.

    So, thanks so very much for this post. If I’m batshit, because I’m a writer who once forgot how to read, then at least I’m not alone. Hallelujah.

    Joy Marchand

    Jan 13th, 2007

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