A History of Reading

A History of Reading does nothing short of astonish me as a reader. Alberto Manguel explains reading in a way that incorporates his life experiences into the historical aspect of reading. On page 7 Manguel said, "it is the reader who grants or recognizes in an object, place or event a certain possible readability; it is the reader who must attribute meaning to a system of signs, and then decipher it." This interests me because it relates to the idea of who came first, the writer or the reader.

I found the chapter on "The Book of Memory" to be very interesting. The last two pages of the chapter, pages 64 and 65 were particularly interesting. Manguel recalls his teacher in Buenos Aires who taught him to memorize poems. Being the theatre buff that I am I was intrigued by Manguel's mention of memorization and oral tradition in cahoots with discussing the history of reading. The short mention of his teacher's father being immortalized in Fahrenheit 451 as a book-saver was interesting because it is just another of many characters in Manguel's life that greatly effected his own ability to read and write about reading. 

Also on page 64 Manguel discusses how memory of a book can be effected by the "light" in which it is read, " we never return to the same book or even to the same page, because in the varying light we change and the book changes, and our memories grow bright and dim". This is an interesting idea because I know that when I re-read a book its never the same as that first endeavor into the pages. I agree that the "light" in which I read effects my opinion of a book. 

Within each chapter Manguel preposes excellent ideas that resonate in the mind.