John Miedema

Creative Reading: The Art of Self

12 October 2009 5 Comments

This entry is part 8 of 45 in the series I, Reader

Reading as a Creative Act, Pt. 2

The following is a compilation of related thoughts I have expressed previously in different places in this blog

Creative reading is an art form. There is no external artifact of this art form; no book, no painting, no sculpture; but like all good art, creative reading exercises our imagination to develop interiority, our psychological framework.

Readers shy away from their reputation as introverts, mainly because introverts are stereotyped as passive sorts. Some brain science will make them think twice. Johnson measured the difference in brain activity for introverts as increased blood flow in the frontal lobes and the anterior thalamus. This difference translates to increased engagement of long term memory when introverts process new stimuli. This is a slower process of thinking, explaining why introverts often can only handle limited doses of new experience or socialization. It also explains a preference for quiet places and books as a cooler medium for taking in new information. Still waters running deep.

Engaged reading develops personalities with interiority, an inner landscape vivid enough to rival the outer world. Readers go to another place. Rebecca McClanahan says,

The place I’ve entered is what John Gardner, in his classic book The Art of Fiction, calls the fictional dream. Because the writer has done her job, the world of the book I am reading has become, for the moment at least, more real than the world at my elbow.

Some cognitive theorists will tell you that you cannot really introspect mental events, that consciousness is really just a residue of unconscious mental processes. Others like John Lilly have documented the common experiences reported by people in conditions of meditation and sensory deprivation. It’s true that I cannot see my neurons firing, but introspection does seem to reveal another world, qualitative and symbolic. Like most experiences — inner or outer — we need the proper language as scaffolds for interpretation. Fiction in particular provides that language. It is a mechanism by which creative reading can develop the inner self.

The Art Of Fiction: Notes On Craft For Young Writers; John Gardner

The Deep Self: Consciousness Exploration In The Isolation Tank (Consciousness Classics); John C. Lilly

Johnson et al (1999) Cerebral blood flow and personality: A positron emission tomography study. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 156(2), 252-257.

Word Painting: A Guide To Writing More Descriptively; Rebecca McClanahan

Series Navigation«Creative Reading by anemone achtnichCreative Reading: Thinking with Other Minds»

5 Comments »

John (author) said:

Not getting what you want out of reading? Break a rule. Don’t read what you have always read. Read disalike to your usual patterns. Read a children’s book, read self-help, read erotica, read a classic if you haven’t before, read Christian literature or the Koran.

# 2 November 2009 at 4:18 pm

barbara said:

Excellent idea, John.

The plasticity of the brain is definitely molded by both reading and memorizing/reciting material. There is a difference in the way the brain changes by using creative reading and the way the brain changes by using “the web.” Both reading creatively and employing technology will expand the patterns of the mind.

# 8 November 2009 at 10:29 pm

John (author) said:

Note to self. The interior of self comes in two forms. Both a second life.

One form is healthy, involving reflection, memory, a capacity for solitude, ultimately nurturing the self, making the person seem somehow wiser.

The other form is unhealthy, involving indulgence, escapism, lies, a type of addiction, and ultimately injures the self, making the person a bit creepy.

A sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde phenomenon.

I could have written another theme on addiction issues around reading. After all, the book is an object. Note my new, perhaps temporary, subtitle for the book/blog: “Bibliophilia and Its Discontents”.

# 29 November 2009 at 8:58 pm

John (author) said:

“According to Andrew Piper, romantic writing and romantic writers played a crucial role in adjusting readers to this increasingly international and overflowing literary environment. Learning how to use and to want books occurred through more than the technological, commercial, or legal conditions that made the growing proliferation of books possible; the making of such bibliographic fantasies was importantly a product of the symbolic operations contained within books as well.”

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=6629529

# 30 November 2009 at 8:31 pm

John (author) said:

The interior is first cast by an inability to speak what one is experiencing, later it may be built on withholding, secrets, lies. Sometimes to share it is to dispel it. Like the youth who must hate their parents to leave them.

# 12 December 2009 at 10:30 pm