Both writer and reader experience the same basic pleasure — something in one form on the page takes another form in the mind. This is the essential pleasure of literature, ideas going into and out of words over and over and over, any time the readers opens a book, or the author takes up a pen.
Janes Smiley, 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel
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| Jane Smiley |
Good communication is usually thought to be when the ideas coming in (to the readers or the listeners) are the same as those going out (from the writers or the speakers). Yet sometimes we misunderstand entirely. This seems to happen all the time in conversation. What I hear isn't what you said, or vice versa. Even the written word can be badly misunderstood, even though writers can take more time framing their words and readers can always reread to better understand what they are reading.
But I am intrigued by one phrase Smiley writes: "something in one form on the page takes another form in the mind." This suggests that the two ideas, what is written and what is read, are rarely identical, and that this can actually be a good thing. Words are read (or heard) by someone with a very different mind, a different perspective, different beliefs, a different history. These differences color almost every attempt at communication. When a writer describes a scene, for example, readers will each picture something in their minds that is not quite what the writer pictured.
This is not necessarily failed communication. It is what makes language so magical. What readers read may often be something deeper, more profound, than what was written. Readers can find ideas in books that never occurred to the authors themselves, which is what makes literary criticism so valuable. Ideas inspire new ideas.
The spoken word and especially the written word are vital not just because they express ideas but because they give birth to ideas.
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