Friday, November 30, 2012

Novel Love



Rushdi sees the novel as pretty much the best thing out there. His line saying that it feels the god shaped holes makes it seem like he has replaced religion with novels. I love a good novel so I get where he is coming from to some extent. There is something wonderful about a well written novel. The ability to enter another world through someone else’s eyes can teach lessons in ways that are impossible to learn through your own eyes.

The point that he makes that we discussed in class about because the interpretation and understanding of the novel happen within the mind is a little bit of a slippery concept for me. I understand it and agree at the same time I feel like I need to disagree with him a little bit. It is true that the formation of the novel is within the writers head and that affords all kinds of freedom that isn’t possible in many other ways, and you will have different people read the exact same novel and have different interpretations and understandings because it was processed in their own brain. Even the same person reading the same novel at different times can get something new and great out of it the second time around. However it is not an impermeable paradise that Rushdie seems to think it is. What we think is influenced by the world around us and the people we are in contact with. Still it’s a cool thing to think about that we get to interact with the novel solely on our own terms.

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