It is my own personal contention that those who do not enjoy reading have not yet had that Secondary World experience, primarily because they have not yet found the right text for them. Case in point, my own brother used to mock the hours I could spend reading and belittled my tears over "fake" stories. Then, around 40, I think, my brother found the right sort of text for him, entered that Secondary World, and has been a voracious reader ever since.
As amazing as it was to learn what was happening to me when I got lost in a book, the best bit of my studies came later, when I "met" Louise Rosenblat, the most brilliant of all brilliant reading scholars. Back in the dark ages, she wrote Literature as Exploration (1938). Forty years later, the culmination of her Transactional Theory of reading was published as The Reader, The Text, and the Poem (1978). It is no hyperbole, to me, to state that everything that can be understood about reader engagement stems from her work.
She believed that every reading experience is an interactive event between the reader and the text, that meaning is made through that interaction. Meaning does not lie merely in the words of the author. Nor does meaning lie solely within the reader. Instead meaning is made, meaning is created, in the interaction that takes place between the text and the reader. Therefore, each event was unique because every reader is unique. That transaction, that exchange, she termed a "poem." [A wonderful metaphor if you think about it.] The very best part of her theory is the understanding that each poem is also unique to the reader. By this I mean that when you re-read a text a new poem is created, because while you are still you, the you that you are in the next reading is unique from the you that you were in the previous reading.
The poem is created from your knowledge, your experience, your feelings...everything about you. Every day of our lives we change, we grow. Even the densest of us, even the most stuck-in-the-mud oafs, are still different because we have lived more, tasted more, heard more, felt more, seen more. Perhaps is it too blatant an example, but I read Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time before I was given the gift of faith and then again after. Imagine my surprise when I realized this was a story of faith and the Mrs Who, Mrs Which, and Mrs Whatsit are angels, not witches! How much more profound was experiencing anew The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe once I knew, once I was able to believe the work of the cross.
Of course, I also find fascinating how two Christians who are authors chose to wield their pens. I admire them both. One wrote as a Christian author; one wrote as an author whose faith colored her work but did not desire to write "Christian literature." In fact, she oft took umbrage at those who would try to classify her (and subsequently restrict her work) as a Christian writer.
As amazing as it was to learn what was happening to me when I got lost in a book, the best bit of my studies came later, when I "met" Louise Rosenblat, the most brilliant of all brilliant reading scholars. Back in the dark ages, she wrote Literature as Exploration (1938). Forty years later, the culmination of her Transactional Theory of reading was published as The Reader, The Text, and the Poem (1978). It is no hyperbole, to me, to state that everything that can be understood about reader engagement stems from her work.
She believed that every reading experience is an interactive event between the reader and the text, that meaning is made through that interaction. Meaning does not lie merely in the words of the author. Nor does meaning lie solely within the reader. Instead meaning is made, meaning is created, in the interaction that takes place between the text and the reader. Therefore, each event was unique because every reader is unique. That transaction, that exchange, she termed a "poem." [A wonderful metaphor if you think about it.] The very best part of her theory is the understanding that each poem is also unique to the reader. By this I mean that when you re-read a text a new poem is created, because while you are still you, the you that you are in the next reading is unique from the you that you were in the previous reading.
The poem is created from your knowledge, your experience, your feelings...everything about you. Every day of our lives we change, we grow. Even the densest of us, even the most stuck-in-the-mud oafs, are still different because we have lived more, tasted more, heard more, felt more, seen more. Perhaps is it too blatant an example, but I read Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time before I was given the gift of faith and then again after. Imagine my surprise when I realized this was a story of faith and the Mrs Who, Mrs Which, and Mrs Whatsit are angels, not witches! How much more profound was experiencing anew The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe once I knew, once I was able to believe the work of the cross.
Of course, I also find fascinating how two Christians who are authors chose to wield their pens. I admire them both. One wrote as a Christian author; one wrote as an author whose faith colored her work but did not desire to write "Christian literature." In fact, she oft took umbrage at those who would try to classify her (and subsequently restrict her work) as a Christian writer.
L'Engle's The Arm of the Starfish has one of the most profound "poems" I have ever experienced, one that created anew is deeper and richer each time I visit the story. In a nutshell, there is a despicable man who causes the death of much beloved, innocent man. When the evil man's daughter is injured, he turns to the main character's father for help. The daughter is saved. The main character is astounded and incensed that her father would help the enemy. When she flings her anger and her betrayal at him, her father tells her that if you are going to care about the fall of the sparrow, you cannot pick or choose who the sparrow is going to be.
Good stuff there.
Good stuff there.
SIGH.
I re-read all the time. All the time. I have favorite series I visit often. [Who wouldn't want regular doses of the brilliant pen of James Herriot?] I have authors for whom I own every single book that they published. When reading the next book in a series, my "rule" is that I first re-read all the books that came before it. For one series, that count is currently at 22! In this way, I prepare myself for the next serving by tasting once more the fullness of the feast offered me.
Just recently, for the fifth time, I re-read a series that has floored me in the new poems that are created each time I do so. They are not profound, I think, for anyone but me. The fall of the sparrow truth, well, the whole world could take note of that one. But Kaylin's battles? Well, I have been thinking of late that Michelle Sagara wrote this entire series just for me.
Here are a few excerpts:
Cast in Silence
It never went away. The regret. The guilt. Sometimes it ebbed for long enough that she could believe she was beyond it, but that was wishful thinking, another way of lying to herself. She didn't want to share this with Teela and Tain. Sharing bar brawls and near-death, yes. But this? [p.52]
~~~~
"Stop judging your life by the failures," he whispered.
"What should I do?" she whispered, "I'm always going to fail."
"We all do," he said softly, his voice closer now. "We all fail, but none of us fail all the time." [p. 178]
~~~~
"I think," she added, "that's why you can't see what I see; I never let you. It's dark, it's horrible – it's everything I believe about myself. The tower is speaking to me, yes. Bit by bit, it's unraveling all the lies of omission, even the ones I told myself. Maybe especially those. It's pulling out the things that I kept hidden because I couldn't stand to think about them.
"I don't know who I am, Severn. I don't think I've ever known who I am. But I know who I want to be, now. Maybe that's all I'll ever know. What I was is so large in my own mind I can't break through it if it's hidden. And I keep it hidden because I'm afraid. Of what it says about me. Of what it'll say about me to people whose opinion I actually care about.
"I'm not proud of it," she added." But I can pretend I accept it – as long as I never have to acknowledge it. And this," she said, throwing her arms wide, "is what it is. It's too big. I need to let it be what it was." [p. 296]
Cast in Secret
Epharim waited until she had joined them again and said softly, "You fear discovery. You fear your own thoughts." And he said it with pity. Kaylin was not the world's biggest pity fan."Fear, we all know," he added. "And we all know rejection and pain. But none of us have ever suffered this fear of being revealed, this fear of being seen as we are." He was serene, and without judgment. [p. 80]
~~~~
[Kaylin] "Would you change your past?"
[Severn] "Parts of it. In a heartbeat."
He shrugged again.
"You wouldn't?"
"I can't. I don't waste time thinking about changing what can't be changed."
"And you're never afraid that someone won't judge you? That they won't misunderstand you or misconstrue you as you are now?"
"People judge me all the time. Be careful of that," he added, pointed at a trellis that grew near the roadside. Vines were wrapped around it, and they rustled in the nonexistent breeze.
"But they don't have the right –"
"They have the right to form their own opinions. I have the right to disagree with them in a fashion that doesn't break the Imperial Laws."
"But-"
"I'm not afraid of the judgment of strangers," he told her quietly. "I live with my own judgment. That's enough. And I judge others, and live by those judgments, as well."
"I don't-" want to be despised or hated. She couldn't quite frame the words with her lips, they sounded so pathetic as a thought. But Severn had her name; she felt it had between them, it's foreign symbols not so much as sound as a texture. Ellariayn.
He stopped walking and caught her face in his hands, pulling it up. She met his eyes. "Then stop despising and hating yourself, Kaylin. We're not what we were. We're not what we will be. Everyone changes. Everyone can change. Let it go. If you're always afraid to be known, you'll never understand anyone else. If you never understand anyone else, you're never going be a good Hawk. You'll see what others see, or what they want you to see. You won't see what's there." [pp. 99–100]
Cast in Chaos
"I...I don't know how." It was hard, to say it. To admit it. Especially to Nightshade. Ignorance was weakness.
No, she thought. Ignorance was only weakness if you clung to the damn thing. [p. 107]
Re-reading this series, I regularly find bits and pieces of thoughts and choices and reactions that I had not noticed before, bits and pieces that reach up and grab my heart, shake my soul, and very much trouble my waters. I am not Kaylin and she is not me. But we share so very many of the same struggles. Each time I enter her world, the poems of meaning created are different because I am different, a bit older with new experiences. And I understand Kaylin better because I understand myself better. It is surprising to me that, still, after many times through the series, I find new bits to highlight and note for myself on my Kindle.
I re-read all the time. All the time. I have favorite series I visit often. [Who wouldn't want regular doses of the brilliant pen of James Herriot?] I have authors for whom I own every single book that they published. When reading the next book in a series, my "rule" is that I first re-read all the books that came before it. For one series, that count is currently at 22! In this way, I prepare myself for the next serving by tasting once more the fullness of the feast offered me.
Just recently, for the fifth time, I re-read a series that has floored me in the new poems that are created each time I do so. They are not profound, I think, for anyone but me. The fall of the sparrow truth, well, the whole world could take note of that one. But Kaylin's battles? Well, I have been thinking of late that Michelle Sagara wrote this entire series just for me.
Here are a few excerpts:
Cast in Silence
It never went away. The regret. The guilt. Sometimes it ebbed for long enough that she could believe she was beyond it, but that was wishful thinking, another way of lying to herself. She didn't want to share this with Teela and Tain. Sharing bar brawls and near-death, yes. But this? [p.52]
~~~~
"Stop judging your life by the failures," he whispered.
"What should I do?" she whispered, "I'm always going to fail."
"We all do," he said softly, his voice closer now. "We all fail, but none of us fail all the time." [p. 178]
~~~~
"I think," she added, "that's why you can't see what I see; I never let you. It's dark, it's horrible – it's everything I believe about myself. The tower is speaking to me, yes. Bit by bit, it's unraveling all the lies of omission, even the ones I told myself. Maybe especially those. It's pulling out the things that I kept hidden because I couldn't stand to think about them.
"I don't know who I am, Severn. I don't think I've ever known who I am. But I know who I want to be, now. Maybe that's all I'll ever know. What I was is so large in my own mind I can't break through it if it's hidden. And I keep it hidden because I'm afraid. Of what it says about me. Of what it'll say about me to people whose opinion I actually care about.
"I'm not proud of it," she added." But I can pretend I accept it – as long as I never have to acknowledge it. And this," she said, throwing her arms wide, "is what it is. It's too big. I need to let it be what it was." [p. 296]
Cast in Secret
Epharim waited until she had joined them again and said softly, "You fear discovery. You fear your own thoughts." And he said it with pity. Kaylin was not the world's biggest pity fan."Fear, we all know," he added. "And we all know rejection and pain. But none of us have ever suffered this fear of being revealed, this fear of being seen as we are." He was serene, and without judgment. [p. 80]
~~~~
[Kaylin] "Would you change your past?"
[Severn] "Parts of it. In a heartbeat."
He shrugged again.
"You wouldn't?"
"I can't. I don't waste time thinking about changing what can't be changed."
"And you're never afraid that someone won't judge you? That they won't misunderstand you or misconstrue you as you are now?"
"People judge me all the time. Be careful of that," he added, pointed at a trellis that grew near the roadside. Vines were wrapped around it, and they rustled in the nonexistent breeze.
"But they don't have the right –"
"They have the right to form their own opinions. I have the right to disagree with them in a fashion that doesn't break the Imperial Laws."
"But-"
"I'm not afraid of the judgment of strangers," he told her quietly. "I live with my own judgment. That's enough. And I judge others, and live by those judgments, as well."
"I don't-" want to be despised or hated. She couldn't quite frame the words with her lips, they sounded so pathetic as a thought. But Severn had her name; she felt it had between them, it's foreign symbols not so much as sound as a texture. Ellariayn.
He stopped walking and caught her face in his hands, pulling it up. She met his eyes. "Then stop despising and hating yourself, Kaylin. We're not what we were. We're not what we will be. Everyone changes. Everyone can change. Let it go. If you're always afraid to be known, you'll never understand anyone else. If you never understand anyone else, you're never going be a good Hawk. You'll see what others see, or what they want you to see. You won't see what's there." [pp. 99–100]
Cast in Chaos
"I...I don't know how." It was hard, to say it. To admit it. Especially to Nightshade. Ignorance was weakness.
No, she thought. Ignorance was only weakness if you clung to the damn thing. [p. 107]
Re-reading this series, I regularly find bits and pieces of thoughts and choices and reactions that I had not noticed before, bits and pieces that reach up and grab my heart, shake my soul, and very much trouble my waters. I am not Kaylin and she is not me. But we share so very many of the same struggles. Each time I enter her world, the poems of meaning created are different because I am different, a bit older with new experiences. And I understand Kaylin better because I understand myself better. It is surprising to me that, still, after many times through the series, I find new bits to highlight and note for myself on my Kindle.
My doctoral research, completely unique at the time, looked at strong female protagonists in modern high fantasy, was conducted in a girls book club. In another entry, perhaps, I will go through a brief summary of my research outcomes and the model of "engagement of self" that I devised. It is odd, thus, having created that academic work, I still find myself marveling at the power of reader engagement and the ever new experiences I can have with a text that is completely familiar to me.
Rosenblat was a genius in a way I believe few understand. Yes, she had her day in the sun, but scholars have this distressing tendency to chase after the latest and the greatest, leaving behind truths that could continue to inform and frame new academic discourse, new discovery. The true depths of her work have yet to be plumbed. Its profundity never truly measured.
Rosenblat was a genius in a way I believe few understand. Yes, she had her day in the sun, but scholars have this distressing tendency to chase after the latest and the greatest, leaving behind truths that could continue to inform and frame new academic discourse, new discovery. The true depths of her work have yet to be plumbed. Its profundity never truly measured.
