What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The cover caught my eye first while I was browsing in the bookstore. Not surprisingly, I later learned that the author, Peter Mendelsund, is an award-winning cover designer. His book stood out from the surrounding piles of others for its simplicity. The cover is matte black with two lines of serif text top and bottom that frame a gold foil icon of a keyhole at its center. Of course, I wanted to know what was on the other side of the keyhole; in this case, the contents of the book.
It’s unlike any book I’ve read before in that almost every other page is illustrated. I found this both interesting and distracting, if not overwhelming at times. However, the points Mendelsund makes are equally interesting and original for their insight. In one chapter about the co-creative process of reading, he states, “These images we ‘see’ when we read are personal: what we do not see is what the author pictured when writing a particular book. That is to say: Every narrative is meant to be transposed; imaginatively translated. Associatively translated. It is ours.”
Mendelsund’s examples from classic books are well chosen, among them Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Several decades after having read Anna Karenina, I still remember what she looks like. However, through the author’s careful analysis, I realize that my representation of Anna is based on how I characterized her in my mind, how I have imaginatively constructed her, rather than the scant details given of her physical appearance.
The author delves beyond the concrete when he compares reading to listening to music. “If we don’t have pictures in our minds when we read, then it is the interaction of ideas—the intermingling of abstract relationships—that catalyzes feeling in us readers. […] This relational, nonrepresentational calculus is where some of the deepest beauty in art is found. Not in mental pictures of things, but in the play of elements…”
This book offers much to consider when we think about how we read. I’ve come away with a new awareness that will help me in my future writing, as well. I recommend this book for anyone interested in how we see what we read, and how what we write impacts our readers.
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