Posting via wireless, waiting patiently at Expensive Car Rental Chain. Meanwhile, someone writes to draw my attention to the following:

"M. JOHN HARRISON: I found this quote from Zadie Smith on the excellent Anodyne blog at http://vananodyne.blogspot.com/ --- 'But the problem with readers, the idea we’re given of reading is that the model of a reader is the person watching a film, or watching television. So the greatest principle is, "I should sit here and I should be entertained." And the more classical model, which has been completely taken away, is the idea of a reader as an amateur musician. An amateur musician who sits at the piano, has a piece of music, which is the work, made by somebody they don’t know, who they probably couldn’t comprehend entirely, and they have to use their skills to play this piece of music. The greater the skill, the greater the gift that you give the artist and that the artist gives you.'

Though I would normally, as a matter of principle, disagree with ZS over anything, even an established fact like, say, the distance to the Sun from the Earth; and while I may not agree with all the implications the word 'skill' has in her argument; I'm embarassed to find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with this. A book spends only a short part of its life being written into existence; it spends the greater part being read into existence. Every reading --every 'performance' --is a creative misreading, a misappropriation. I don't just welcome that; I often write to encourage it. As far as I'm concerned we aren't talking about photocopying here, or player-piano, or a computer running a programme: we're looking at something much more like the expression of genetic code."

It's pouring rain again, and the rental queue is approximately eight deep, but my day just seriously brightened. Thanks, MJH!
- posted by cjb @ 11:09 AM