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reading.

skindeep's picture
Submitted by skindeep on Thu, 03/25/2010 - 12:00am

while we spoke about reading and listening and what qualifies as reading in class i couldnt help but relate our converstaion to people.

when someone talks to me, there is a vast difference between them talking to me in person and them talking to me on the phone. because when you're spoken to in person, the level of interaction you have with the person is so much more -- intimate? deeper? (i cant find the word)

you get to read the person, you get a glimpse into what theyre thinking and feeling and whats said behind their words. on the phone, its so different, yes, your imagination gets to work better and you have to listen harder but the basic level of interaction that there is is different.

and that to me is the difference between being read to as a kid and listening to an audio tape.

thoughts?

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rachelr's picture

Personal connection

Submitted by rachelr on Thu, 03/25/2010 - 12:13am.

 I definitely agree- I mean this also goes along with how we were talking about liking the tangibility that a book gives us. A book is something that you can hold and smell, and you also "hear" the story or text in a different way. When you listen to a book on tape you hear it only through your ears. If you are reading a book you "hear" with both your eyes and your mind. More thought is put into understanding each letter of text- interpretation is left up to the reader- how do you read the text? What words do you emphasize? All this is based on the reader, and so much of the connection between the words, the text is removed if a third party is narrating the text. 

I definitely see the connection between reading a person and a book, but also between reading a person and listening to an audio book. But I also want the voice of the author (or I suppose the voice of the characters through the author) to be the primary voice that I "hear." 

I am not opposed at all to listening to audio books, but I still maintain that the true experience of a book is best known through the physical holding and actual reading of a book.

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