{"id":2208,"date":"2014-07-19T13:51:55","date_gmt":"2014-07-19T13:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=2208"},"modified":"2014-07-19T13:51:55","modified_gmt":"2014-07-19T13:51:55","slug":"reading-through-someone-elses-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/reading-through-someone-elses-eyes","title":{"rendered":"READING THROUGH SOMEONE ELSE\u2019S EYES"},"content":{"rendered":"

JULY 17, 2014<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Print\"<\/a><\/p>\n

POSTED BY BRAD LEITHAUSER<\/p>\n

You pick up a novel. If it\u2019s any good, before long it has you trying to get into its characters\u2019 heads. What are they feeling? What will they do? Can they be trusted? But, behind such thoughts, broader and subtler questions arise: What is the author aiming at? What was he or she feeling when these paragraphs were written? As for the book\u2019s perceived inconsistencies: Was the author being inattentive, or were you? Literary reading soon grades into complex efforts at mind reading.<\/p>\n

But more complicated still\u2014and, in some ways, more rewarding still\u2014is the attempt to read a book through someone else\u2019s eyes. Your thoughts triangulate. You wonder, What did person X feel when he read Y\u2019s book?<\/p>\n

It needn\u2019t be a novel. Maybe it\u2019s a collection of stories, poems, even essays. Somebody you\u2019re interested in\u2014your person X\u2014found this book entrancing. It\u2019s no longer sufficient to know what the author was thinking. Now you want to know what person X thought the author was thinking.<\/p>\n

Perhaps you read a book that you don\u2019t much care for. Then you discover that some writer you adore, and with whom you feel psychologically aligned, loved it. So you open it once more, this time attempting to apprehend it through his eyes. \u201cWhat did he see in it?\u201d you ask yourself. The question provides a rhythmic march through its pages: What did he see? What did he see?<\/p>\n

Some books are read chiefly in a triangular fashion. I was surprised recently to discover that Arthur Golding\u2019s translation of Ovid, first published in 1567, remains in print. Likely, this is not purely a result of its literary merits\u2014Golding\u2019s translation was the one from which Shakespeare absorbed the transformations of the Roman poet who was, arguably, his greatest influence. Needless to say, Shakespearean scholars have sifted through Golding\u2019s soil with a fine-toothed rake, seeking to turn up a familiar glint\u2014a borrowed phrase, a recycled simile.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For detail please visit here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JULY 17, 2014 POSTED BY BRAD LEITHAUSER … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[633,632],"views":1050,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2208"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2210,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208\/revisions\/2210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}