The book I’m almost finished with now is Proust and the squid: the story and science of the reading brain by Maryanne Wolf. Wolf is a neuroscientist who studies dyslexia, which she says is catch-all phrase for problems learning to read.
I’m not terribly impressed with it - the opening chapters make weak and culturally biased arguments about the importance of alphabetic writing, and the brain science after that is a little dry. The good part is part three, where she summarizes a century of research into the biophysical basis for dyslexia.
She loves the Ancient Greeks, and especially Socrates and Plato. Socrates the great orator, and Plato who wrote it down. I was never clear on this - wasn’t Socrates, as Plato wrote him, partly the invention and voice of Plato? Again with the cultural bias: writing is not necessarily the definitive version.
But anyway, Wolf compares Socrates’ concern that literacy will corrupt young thinkers if they learn to read before they learn to think to modern day concerns about young people having access to the internet. She is validating Socrates’ concern vis a vis the Internet, which I disagree with, but also sets off a light bulb moment for me on page 221:
Throughout the [written] story of humankind, from the Garden of Eden to the universal access provided by the Internet, questions of who should know what, when, and how remain unresolved.
Intellectual freedom, filtering pornography, information about birth control, the bombing of Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War - all of these things touch on this question, and it struck me that my particular brand of librarianship answers it in the exact same way every time: everyone has the right to know everything, now.
And Socrates? I can’t think of him without thinking of Saukrates.
I bought this to read on a long flight, but I read from the other 9 books I had with me that day instead. Since then, I’ve never been able to get very far with it. I am finding this post very validating.
Hmm, I thought you didn’t read non-fiction, as a rule? I think the third section is definitely strongest, up until she starts to talk about the cultural implications of things, and there I’d be curious about your response.
I sent it down the book drop already but she has some spiel about learning to read fully means learning to reflect critically on what we’re reading and how the internet puts at risk of children not learning to do that, or worse, learning not to do it.
And to me, personally, I am not a very good reader, above average by test scores, but critical reflection happens for me mostly when I write, or talk about what I’ve read, and sometimes, when I read something else. And I think that’s just fine.
you’ve got me mixed up with someone else - my non-fiction to fiction ratio is like 3:1, higher if you don’t let me count re-reading fiction
no, it was you, but I must have gotten wrong what you said. I figured you had burned out on history nf.
all of the fiction i’ve been reading lately have appendixes with literary criticism in them. how do we count it then?
yeah, yeah, socrates, bill and ted whatev. but black cowboy canada? awesome!