With Every Book Read, We Add a New Chapter to the Inner Book

  • Everyone who reads a lot has a written book which they keep to themselves.
    • It could be called a set of representations from the book that the reader understands from their vantage point.
    • Typically, it’s not similar to the writers’.
    • And every further reading reshapes their beliefs accordingly, without them realizing it.
    • This inner book determines the reader’s ability to understand the text.
      • Which elements of a new book will be retained and how they will be interpreted and later reshaped to fit the inner book’s structure are crucial aspects.
      • The reader is highly selective and picks elements for cultivation which their inner book dictates.
    • Hence, the author’s dissatisfaction with their work.
      • They have a perfect inner book inside themselves; other books are available to them, and nothing quite meets the quality demands of their inner book, even their own work.
      • An author tries to accomplish this unreachable goal, to write a book that matches their inner book, but always fails to deliver.
    • The inner book is the reason we tend to discuss books we hear about in conversations.
      • But what we consider the book that we are discussing at the moment is, in fact, not the book but an anomalous accumulation of fragments of the text. Bits and pieces of knowledge that our consciousness clings to, and our imagination reshapes this inner book every time we pick up a new book or start a conversation about some other book.
      • Our understanding doesn’t have anything in common with the book we are holding and reading. It is what we think it is, not what the author had thought when they wrote the book.

Writing and Thinking Over the Inner Book

Оставить комментарий

Ваш адрес email не будет опубликован. Обязательные поля помечены *