What it reminds me of is the music situation. It's been shown that there are two different types of music that trigger activity in two different parts of the brain: the emotional type, and the intellectual exercise type, which often appeals to the same sort of person who enjoys doing crosswords. I say "often" because my music preferences are more visceral, both in classical music and... I'm trying to think of a catch-all term for stuff from Bob Dylan to the Manic Street Preachers, and I can never really get into Bach or chamber music, and I love crosswords, in any language that I can handle.
This seems to be the same dichotomy, and the way the writer views what they are doing may not necessarily be the same way that most of their readers do. There's an analogy in music, too; Holst despised emotional reactions to music, but I don't think most listeners see the "Planets" suite as an intellectual exercise.
I don't think that I actually identify with characters; in fact, I'm not totally sure what it entails. I can get deeply involved with them, without feeling much contact with them or that there is much in common, at any level, between them and me. Indeed, I have a particular liking for getting inside the head of someone very different from me. I don't write much fanfic, but the fun for me is seeing if I can get deeply enough into someone else's character's head to make them behave appropriately.
Music might be a better analogy than you know--carbonelleMay 10 2010, 02:28:15 UTC
I'll double check with my friend, who's peforming the lead in Copeland's "Tender Land" later this month (1)
She's the cognosceniti; I'm the yokel who "just responds" to the music. She's the one who is capable of finding "more music" for me to like; she's the one who can explain why (for example) most jazz seems so tiresome to me.(2) My friend is capable of both: heart and head, with will (i.e. years and years of patient mastery and study) to tie them together.
I suspect "bad reader" lacks granularity: perhaps one should say, "less accomplished reader" and only apply "bad" to the reader who imagines that personal identification is a fine stopping point.
My musical education is slow and unlikely to be very great, but the starting point: I know what I don't know and - more to the point - I keep in mind how much I'm likely to be missing, is solid. Which is why I'm sympathetic to those who want just to respond to what moves them--so long as they don't pretend that this is "just as valid" as the experience that an educated mind an ear + the capacity for emotional involvement bring to the experience.
It's not. It's just not (in an of itself) a bad thing-- indeed, for those who lack the time and talent, it's a fine starting place, and much, much better than nothing.
1. Why yes, I'm bragging, she's amazing :-) 2. Self-indulgence: at best mildly annoying, at worse, torques me off
Re: Music might be a better analogy than you know--osprey_archerMay 10 2010, 02:43:02 UTC
Why is taking personal identification as a stopping point for the reading experience necessarily bad? It's insufficient if a reader wants to write critically or have serious discussions about books, but some people don't want to do that. As long as they don't insist that their gut reaction is just as logical, valid, and worthy of consideration as someone else's carefully considered critique, I don't think that's a problem.
...actually, looking at your next paragraph about music listeners who just want to respond emotionally, I think we mostly agree.
This seems to be the same dichotomy, and the way the writer views what they are doing may not necessarily be the same way that most of their readers do. There's an analogy in music, too; Holst despised emotional reactions to music, but I don't think most listeners see the "Planets" suite as an intellectual exercise.
I don't think that I actually identify with characters; in fact, I'm not totally sure what it entails. I can get deeply involved with them, without feeling much contact with them or that there is much in common, at any level, between them and me. Indeed, I have a particular liking for getting inside the head of someone very different from me. I don't write much fanfic, but the fun for me is seeing if I can get deeply enough into someone else's character's head to make them behave appropriately.
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This is why I linked to coneycat's post--I thought she described the types of identification really well with regard to The Diary of Anne Frank.
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She's the cognosceniti; I'm the yokel who "just responds" to the music. She's the one who is capable of finding "more music" for me to like; she's the one who can explain why (for example) most jazz seems so tiresome to me.(2) My friend is capable of both: heart and head, with will (i.e. years and years of patient mastery and study) to tie them together.
I suspect "bad reader" lacks granularity: perhaps one should say, "less accomplished reader" and only apply "bad" to the reader who imagines that personal identification is a fine stopping point.
My musical education is slow and unlikely to be very great, but the starting point: I know what I don't know and - more to the point - I keep in mind how much I'm likely to be missing, is solid. Which is why I'm sympathetic to those who want just to respond to what moves them--so long as they don't pretend that this is "just as valid" as the experience that an educated mind an ear + the capacity for emotional involvement bring to the experience.
It's not. It's just not (in an of itself) a bad thing-- indeed, for those who lack the time and talent, it's a fine starting place, and much, much better than nothing.
1. Why yes, I'm bragging, she's amazing :-)
2. Self-indulgence: at best mildly annoying, at worse, torques me off
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...actually, looking at your next paragraph about music listeners who just want to respond emotionally, I think we mostly agree.
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