March 26, 2007

Straight back into the arms of a stranger

“Reading is usually thought of as a solitary act, although a reader in the act of reading is the opposite of self-absorbed. A reader journeys infinitely further from self than can be achieved in travelling across the globe or into space. A reader interrupted can be vague, disoriented; she has been returned abruptly, without benefit of decompression or debriefing, to one specific point in geography and time, from somewhere else altogehter. To admit to having been lost inside a book is not to resort to metaphor but to admit the turth. A reader reads blindly (even books that have been read before hold new directions and dimensions) and so must have confidence in the writer. Reading is like a game of trust in which one person falls straight back into the arms of a stranger whose job it is to catch the faller and hold her fast”. Anne Giardini, “Double Happiness”