Reading in the Listeners Perspective as Enumerated by Alberto Manguel - Essay Example

Reading in the Listener’s perspective as enumerated by Alberto Manguel In normal situations, the act of someone reading on behalf of another one undoubtedly is not all beneficial on the part of the person to whom a script is being read to as it denies the listener personal freedoms that are only inherent to personal reading. Simply put, the act places a person, the listener, on a passive state with little ability to engage to full capacity his mental faculties instead relying on the reader for interpretation of facts in the reader’s own perspective. While this act is common to the class of people who purport to be reading, it instead makes no sense of reading at all. Alberto Manguel in his Chapter “Being Read To” as contained in his book “A History of Reading” revisits the common and often contradictory subject of reading on behalf of someone. He carefully looks into this issue analytically giving the readers a historical framework on the origin of the subject, quite in line with his title “A History of Reading” perhaps as a means of justifying his perspective and pure love of writing and reading. Above all, I agree with Page’s arguments that Manguel’s writing tackles each of its chapters using a freestanding approach that carefully selects on topics in the “ A History of Reading” thereby bringing on a new approach to how reading approaches have conventionally been taught overtime, and peoples approach to reading both in private and public sphere, and what has been popularly referred to as reading as a metaphor, offering a relation what is conventionally being heard to that information which is read over time as has been exposed in his controversial chapter “Being Read To” (Page). Alberto Manguel’s “History of the Reading” is an interesting historical writing that combines a rich collection of learned knowledge and pleasure rather than mere reading. This informative reading takes on a different approach than to book organization, adopting what I may call a digressive route which does not have a conventional beginning to proceed logically as some would expect of a ‘historical’ writing (Manguel; Bell). According to Manguel, he takes on the approach that there is no universal governing law operating in this situation, though there seems to be a outstanding concept that repeats itself in a variety of forms. To this far, this writing as advanced by Manguel calls for what can be strongly referred to as privilege of the reader. The reader’s thoughts can therefore contribute in changing the book into more like a message that makes sense for his choice of writing on the historical platform in relation to the text of by an extension its author. (Manguel) Therefore through a multiplicity of effects and stylistic features, readers are then in a position to recompose a new thought, varied interpretation and illumination of the entire book in ways quite similar to the original words and meanings as put forward by Manguel, though this time, the audience is able to engage a new heading, re-constructing it as it occurred in the hope of bringing Manguel’s ideas to life. To a very large extent, Bell contends that this ability of the reader to look right into the thoughts of Manguel and to redefine a new heading for the book can provide justifiable explanation regarding reading of this writing and to an extension its ability to communicate effectively to successive generations, but also seek to deeply expose the personal liking of any favorite writing: and for this it support the notion of what ought to be said, or rather what people wish to say. (Bell) In every aspect, the chapter of “Being Read To” starts off as a narrative force. Other chapters including Whiteman’s poems, and the associated readings and his envy for words, and for sailors and bus-boys, all combine into one overwhelming unit as whole. In more elaborate analysis, Alberto Manguel moves from the Whiteman’s to lunch, providing us with books and meals, food for thought, writers cooking up a story, rehashing a text, having half-baked ideas for a plot, spicing up scene or garnishing the bare-bones argument, therefore the discussion moves in an elaborate manner in putting the reader right into the context of understanding a History of a reading. (Manguel) Quite practically, Manguel gets down to his writing style, and brings out something that by far interests an average reader, for instance, when Manguel describes his lonely childhood, or his narration of his story of the cigar-wrappers of Florida, who went to the extent of paying readers to pay readers for them to read an entire writing to cheer up their days, we get to see his clear passion for the choice of word and writings, that is free of all the chilliness of the verbiage and drop of name. There are also even periods of high art during when Manguel describes the starting point of the greatest gravestone to Western literary and religious art; this is what can be described as the process in making of King James Version of the bible. More importantly, the readers are engaged in reading a literary composition that is supposed to make them reflect upon the usage of words, and a printed page, and finally to the solitude reading that people tend to value, the reading situation that allows us as readers to get ourselves into each person’s thoughts, completely, without any obstruction experienced along the way nor distortions and filtrations. For a large percentage of us and other readers, Alberto Manguel’s book and especially his interesting chapter on “Being Read to” provide a unique escape. He places us in solitude in the comfort of our rooms, yet at the same time, we are in touch with the happenings of the outside environment. Yet, in every essence, as we read through this material, we are constantly thinking on what might really exist outside in the natural environment, having a fantastic and hyped moment in a noisy background, yet there we are in the quietness of our rooms, all alone, perhaps to get the insights of “A History of a Reading.” In this Chapter, “Being Read To”, he points out that a book in no resemblance to a leaf, can be read over again as a source of relieve, this reading can be done both in public and public sphere. He also explores the functions of the lector within the 19th Century Cuba, when tobacco employees paid some of their members to loudly read for them political pacts, histories, novels and even poems when they made themselves busy with the process of rolling cigar. (Bell) quite practically, people have a tendancy of reading through others, in which they sit and let others do the reading on their behalf, the resulting effect is always diverging; in the listener’s perspective, he feels contended having read a book, while in the book’s perspective, it feels yet to be read and understood by the person doing the listening. Moving from the mysteries of cuneiform right through the use of visual language as used during an Absoluet Vodka advert, it can be argued that the chapter views Manguel’s work from our earliest written form of languages towards a chronological pathway to the modern age of information. (Manguel) In conclusion, I will take on Manguel’s position as he exposes in this chapter, and to such it is satisfactory to note that whether we view reading right from the ancient times, or when in solitude during the winter periods, or perhaps in the cigar factories as was witnessed during the nineteenth century to the latest present day of information and technology, listening to someone read a book on our behalf undoubtedly denies the listener many of the freedoms that are only characteristic of doing the personal reading one’s self. The aspect of personal reading enables one to decide on the reading tone, lay emphasis on a point, go back to an interesting passage, and in Manguel’s own words, it provides the reader with “ a sense of unity in space and time, that can only be achieved in the reader’s own perspective” (Manguel). Works cited Bell, J.S. "Narrative Inquiry: more than just telling stories." TESOL Quarterly 36 (2002): 207 213.Print Manguel, Alberto. A History of Reading. Toronto: Random House Canada, 1996.Print Page, R. New Perspectives on Narrative and Multimodality. London: Routledge, 2010.Print Read More