Gentle Reader - By unenlightened
You could not possibly be entirely represented in these tight confines, and yet there is an empty openness, clouded with a suspicious resistance that suffuses you as you absorb the fact that your present experience is the purported subject of the words you are reading.
The instinct to break the predictive power of the story is easily satisfied, and yet there is also a satisfaction in perusing a story that has also read you, at least in the commonality of universal subjectivity.
There is a sense of vertigo about reading that 'you': not you, and yet by this very denial reinserting yourself into the story, as if the narrator, the narrative, and you, the recipient, have never been entirely distinguishable.
And the end of the story, so near, will release you back to your individuality again, with just a brief moment of disappointment, that the mutuality has already ended, and the faintest idea - a fear, almost - that you might have been infected in some way.
The instinct to break the predictive power of the story is easily satisfied, and yet there is also a satisfaction in perusing a story that has also read you, at least in the commonality of universal subjectivity.
There is a sense of vertigo about reading that 'you': not you, and yet by this very denial reinserting yourself into the story, as if the narrator, the narrative, and you, the recipient, have never been entirely distinguishable.
And the end of the story, so near, will release you back to your individuality again, with just a brief moment of disappointment, that the mutuality has already ended, and the faintest idea - a fear, almost - that you might have been infected in some way.
Comments (11)
That tells you something about me I guess.
I didn't like the word "vertigo." It reminded me of a time I had vertigo and it was a nauseating experience with everything spinning and it worsened when I attempted to lie down, so I had to sleep upright in a chair and I was really tired. I drove myself to the doctor, which wasn't a great idea because I couldn't even walk a straight line.
I got better after whatever viral inner ear thing cleared up, but that's what that word triggered me thinking about. If you ask me about this story in a year from now, I'll still associate it with that time I had vertigo.
You could have written a story about vertigo. Maybe horror/ slasher story.
Nah, it'd have been more realistic, with me holding onto the walls with the dry heaves.
(Thats not an introduction; its an essential part of the book.)
This story, Gentle Reader, is almost like a distillation of that book, so what we have, without the extraneous elements of plot, is a phenomenological examination of the central concept of reader as protagonist, and of the experience of reading in general.
Quoting Caldwell
Very nice insights and concepts.
Although the story appears at first to be merely philosophical, rather than fictional and dramatic, in fact it does have a beginning, middle, and end, and a surprise ending at that. I confess I was put off at first by the rather academic, Latin-heavy languageI might have preferred a more direct, less abstract highfalutin stylebut Ive changed my mind about this. Everything is clear, the writing is highly accomplished and confident, and its self-contained, strong and brilliant, like a diamond. And I had fun reading it, which says a lot.
This story, which is the story of the readers experience of reading it, is a good demonstration that to be intellectually penetrating or philosophical you dont need hidden meanings, symbolism and allegory, mysterious gestures towards depth, a Big Message, heaviness and misery, or even ambiguity. Everything here is in the open and clearly stated, playful and light, and it leaves us thinking and questioningnot because were confused, but because were interested.
Im immensely curious about who wrote it. I have absolutely no idea.
EDIT: Correction, I think I know who the author is.
So I guess the storys projection of suspicious resistance was spot on.
Quoting Caldwell
This is the direction you took, perhaps because you were creeped out.
The trick is to line up your body so that when you feel one side of you sink on solid ground, you line it up with the ship's rising side. And then when you feel your that side is rising, you line it up with the ship's sinking side.
Easy-peasy.
This part does not ring true because from the very beginning were made self-conscious.
Its also a very very wide stretch to presume that we might feel infected in some way by four short paragraphs of written text. We were infected with individuality long ago.
"you", construction of the narrative self. the narrative of the constructed self could not possibly represent "you", and yet we go along with it for the sake of interest and entertainment.
It can only induce vertigo by extra associations and autohypnosis.