Blog post I

I love history, and I found both texts fascinating. I was especially intrigued by the idea of the written text being a conversation between the reader and the writer. Manguel posits that "[t]he written text was a conversation, put on paper so that the absent partner would be able to pronounce the words intended for him" (51). However, the reading partners would not be able to exchange comments or have a discussion about the written text which makes the conversation somewhat one-sided - if, presumably, the writer is somehow unavailable. Nowadays, we as readers have a luxury of not only discussing the text with our peer readers but contacting the author, either directly or indirectly, and expressing our opinions of the text, making the conversation potentially go further. Another concept that I found interesting is the notion of privacy that silent reading has bestowed upon the readers. A text read silently belonged to the reader only; the reader thus was free from the judging of other readers that reading out loud entailed. Therefore, silent reading gave the reader freedom of choice when it came to sharing thoughts and ideas with others. It also gave the reader a sense of independence from other's opinion, and I can see how the Church perceived such independence as dangerous for it could not be controlled. On a side note, I am battling a rather nasty cold and might not make it to class tomorrow. I will do my best to try though.