'The concern of 'Critical Practice' is not what we read, but the reading process itself!'

Belsey & Certeau | On the ‘Reading Process’

The Reader as Poacher ❤️

#onreading

Michel de Certeau, French philosopher, who is widely known as the ‘philosopher of everyday life’ gives a metaphoric high to the activity of reading, by characterising the reader as indulging in ‘poaching’ in the ‘forest’ of the literary text! 

The reader hence becomes a poacher in the domain of the ‘text!’

Says he,

They move across lands belonging to someone else, like nomads poaching their way across fields they did not write!

Reading is both a public and a private activity: one can be observed reading, but the thoughts that the reader takes from the work remain unobservable, unless the reader chooses to make their engagement with the text public, through discussion and creative dissemination of their own.

In this regard, it would be apt to quote Terry Eagleton’s axiomatic lines on Iser -  

‘The most effective literary work for Iser is one which forces the reader into a new critical awareness of his or her customary codes and expectations,’

says Terry!

Well, Iser’s theories would assume great significance to those literary beings who are curious to know more on ‘how’ texts are ‘consumed’ by the reader! 

Again, to the literary philosopher Francis Bacon, 

‘Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few are to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.’

Interestingly, Mark Heyer’s categorization of books do such an amazing connect with metaphors borrowed from our ancestors’ ways of gathering food: grazing, browsing, and hunting. 

In like fashion, to Heyer, there are three different ways of reading or gathering information, based on the gentle art of reading!

Reproducing interesting excerpts from Heyer, over here, for us all –

In the grazing mode, the ‘‘reader’’ picks up everything coming out of the book. For this purpose, we shall call that mode ‘‘continuous reading,’’ in the sense that the reader aims to construct a significant whole out of a long text, even if the reading spans many sessions. 

This mode of continuous reading is most typical of the novel where users have to immerse themselves in a book in order to create a fictional universe. 

It is also the case, albeit with significant differences, with long essays where the reader has to master a series of arguments and relationships, like Darwin’s On the Origin of Species or Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams.

In browsing mode, readers pick up only what is of interest to them through the ‘‘scanning of a large body of information with no particular target in mind’’. That mode became fairly common with the advent of newspapers, magazines, big catalogues, and coffee table books.

In hunting mode, the reader seeks specific information. This mode is relatively recent and became a real possibility only when alphabetical order was adopted for dictionaries!

Now, therein lies the ‘Shavian’ difference between reading for pleasure and reading for profit! Ain’t it?

Neil McCaw’s lovely book has been such inspiration to me in this regard. It’s titled, How To Read Texts, and is a definitive guide for all of us in the literary arena, to be guided into the nuances of reading! You may want to read excerpts from this Neil McCaw delight on our past post HERE!

This takes us to Catherine Belsey, yet another amazing professor of our times, [and the dominant spur behind this blogpost,] who interacts with us through her renowned book titled, Critical Practice, on the ways in which we make meaning in the process of reading itself!

Professor Catherine Belsey

This book would sure be a launchpad for an exciting adventurous trip down ‘theory-lane’ you bet!

Well, Critical Practice discusses in such nuanced detail the basic concepts on all things ‘theory’, and highlights for us all, the myriad ways in which we locate meaning in a text, and the possible interface between human beings and language, readers and texts, writing and cultural politics etc.

Just a cursory look into her Preface, would tell you how engaging she is, in all her critical interventions!

Here we go –

Writing the first edition of Critical Practice was a learning experience for me. New theories were arriving from Paris by the planeload, giving rise to heated debate. 

They seemed to change everything we thought about culture in general, but there was only one way to find out what difference they made to the practice of reading in particular. 

How do we know what we think till we see what we write? I wrote the book to find out—and have never been the same since.

Hope I’ve given you enough of a teaser or an appetizer to make you get the book for yourself! Please don’t don't download the book! Experts say that, the possibilities of reading a book that’s been downloaded in our mobile or on our computer screens are an abysmal one percent!

And for once, could you please just forget Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age! Please! ;-) Thank you!

That done, go ahead, lay hold on your own personal hard copy of Belsey’s Critical Practice, that’s up for grabs on all e-stores - and that for a paltry sum - and thereby motivate such scholarly Professors of the Belsey-ian types to write more and more!

Because, as Lewis Hyde in his memorable read titled The Gift observes, ‘In a free market the people are free, the ideas are locked up.’ Well, these great minds then, unlock these great ideas for us, with all care and concern, through the vibrant creative spirit within them, and, for this, we owe them thanks! And this ‘thanks’ we owe them, by purchasing a copy of their books! Ain’t we? :-)

So ladies and gentlemen, please allow me the honour of signing off this post, with Belsey’s lines from her Critical Practice –

The concern of Critical Practice is not our individual commitments, not what we read, nor what politics we bring to bear on what we read (though my own sympathies are transparently clear in the text), but the reading process itself.

Gives us all the more reasons to cheer Catherine and her creative spirit! Alley!?

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