Alas, almost one month of Sundays of me not reading. Though, I will be back on the horse next week. No updates really. I still have been reading Count of Monte Cristo for six weeks in email installments, and I have not touched Othello for two weeks. I know it ruins the purpose of a Sunday Salon wherein I don’t actually read, but I do like blogging and the wonderful visitors I get through the Salon.
Since the discussion last week worked so well, I encountered another topic I would like to pose the Salonists. Recently, I stumbled upon message board postings about visualization. To my surprise some people don’t visualize books or at least not the degree that others do. I think for the most part people do, but this got to me thinking about how each of us visualize the words we read. If the author is not very descriptive, do you fill in the blanks about the characters’ physical looks, locations, etc.? Even if the writer describes something, does your image of the location change? To what degree? Do film or tv adaptations change the way you read books if you’ve seen the movie/know who has been casted? This of course can lead into questions about adaptations and the visuals from your mind: are they usually more or less the same or drastically different than you would have thought/if you made the adaptation?
For my part, I visualize and do feel in blanks. When reading books that have not been adapted or I have not idea of their adaptations, the characters end up looking like no one I know. I rarely put actors in this movie either so many of my characters end up “generic” looking unless they are described as extraordinarily attractive. It does end up like a movie in my head much like the way I dream. I fill the landscape better than I do clothing or style. The fact that I do watch so many films and remember my dreams contribute to easy and vivid visualization of books.
On another topic of books, my friend L and I decided to have a mini book club this summer between the two of us. She is one of the few friends of mine that is an avid reader. As a Classics and Latin student, she’s more advanced than me in classic and ancient works, but I’ve read more contemporary works than she has. Though, we both share similar authors and tastes. In any case, we wanted to read and discuss some books neither of us had read/finished. Yes, as if I don’t have enough books to read with all the challenges going on. Though, most of these books can be cross posted, in one of my challenges, and one of the reasons we selected some of them is because we own most of them. There is no way we are going to go through the list, but I am posting it here for fun.
- Don Quixote by Cervantes
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report and other stories
- The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
- Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
- Bleak House by Charles Dickens
- Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
- Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
- Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls
- Thomas Mann: Death in Venice, The Magic Mountain, other stuff
- Lady Chatterly’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
- The Kretuzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy
- North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Literary Links:
Guys Read – This relates to my post about finding a mate who reads, but this is a site that encourages and support guys reading by giving them suggestions. It’s good if you have little boys who aren’t too keen on reading either.