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EVD's picture

Ideas after class on 9/7

My thoughts about Reality Hunger changed after our discussion today..When I first started reading I thought it would be a lot easier to read the book if it had chapter titles or subtitles that made sense or let you know what you were about to read beforehand or if the segments were in a more obvious order. Someone in class today said something like if you "play the game" that Shields is trying to get us to go along with (reading his work how he wants it to be read- as a collage-type thing) then it really is easier for me to read the book without subtitles or anything like that. Because at least for me, if I read the book as a long sequence (like I might read a novel) rather than just as a bunch of quotes, then I don't skip over things that seem less interesting, I pay attention to the order in which Shields placed the quotes, and I don't disregard a quote or hold a quote in higher regard just because of its author. If I read the book assuming that Shields placed the ideas in a specific order and chose pieces of quotes for a specific reason (in order to express his viewpoint) then the text makes more sense to me and seems like a more finished piece.

 

Also, did anyone else notice the titles of the other books David Shield's has written in the front of Reality Hunger? Three of the titles include the words "a novel" which I thought was strange considering the format of Reality Hunger and what he seems to think about the novel in Reality Hunger...

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