' Great writers usually take great care to achieve a kind of “mathematical finality” with their sentences. '
That was an excellent way to put it. English classes (literature and composition) that I used to take had a really good teacher who emphasized style. I wasn't taught where she got all those ideas about what would improve writing, such as avoiding adverbs and verb-forms of "to be" because those sentences tend to be less economical about what the writer meant to say. I don't follow all those rules now, obviously, but I remember how that opened up this whole new room of sort of thinking about writing language but mathematically.
This is where the lost art of rhetoric comes in. Since the Romantics, we seem to believe that good sentences are results of great passion and spontaneity, rejecting a more precise practice/learning of how sentences ACTUALLY work and how to perfect them. Thank you for the comment!
Robin, this is an idea I think about a lot for a very particular reason. I worship Nietzsche, so when I came across him saying this in BGE, I knew that I should do this; that books ought to be read aloud. But see, idk... The problem I face is that once I start reading a text alound, the comprehension part of my brain just, shuts down? I mean, my brain just decides to direct my mental capacities to enunciating instead of understanding. I often read texts, both fiction and theory, with friends and at that time I am reading it out aloud, but if an especially complicated part comes about I need to pause and read it silently to comprehend what it means. This just infuriates me...
English is not my native language and although I’m fluent, I still prefer to read novels in english out loud - it just flows better!
Also one time I was reading Sherlock Holmes in polish translation, but this particular translation was a little bit off, so I kind of started to translate the sentences in my head back to english and then imagined Benedict Cumberbatch saying them. Worked wonders! 🙈😅
Interestingly, this whole idea of reading out loud recently came to me when I recently started getting into poetry again. I mean, of course! With hindsight, it is quite obvious: it's poetry - it makes sense you would read it aloud. But, as you wrote, maybe after all those school years, where we were taught to read with your mind's voice, kicked that instinct to the back of our minds.
When i read i do tend to read with my inner voice. Sometimes i read out loud because i want to train my outter voice or the surrounding sounds are so loud that i don't hear what i'm reading. And to my brain outside is more important and thus i have a hard time focusing on inner voice when there is outside noise.
What i also notice that each language has their own melody. The persons tone, volume, speed, vocal mannerisms, pitch changes based on what language they are speaking.
I've been teaching alternative story structures in my creative writing class recently, and we've been delving into the history of how stories came to be structured as they are around the world. Of course, what do they all have in common? An origin in oral tradition. It's really made me think about my own writing going forward, the sort of words and phrasing I use, as I've been told my prose often has a lyrical quality to it. I do wonder how long Scheherazade would have lived if she'd written her stories down for the Sultan rather than told them to him out loud
Great article. Lately I’ve forced myself to begin reading aloud whenever my mind wanders! It’s too easy for our minds to simply gloss over the words and lose the meaning.
' Great writers usually take great care to achieve a kind of “mathematical finality” with their sentences. '
That was an excellent way to put it. English classes (literature and composition) that I used to take had a really good teacher who emphasized style. I wasn't taught where she got all those ideas about what would improve writing, such as avoiding adverbs and verb-forms of "to be" because those sentences tend to be less economical about what the writer meant to say. I don't follow all those rules now, obviously, but I remember how that opened up this whole new room of sort of thinking about writing language but mathematically.
This is where the lost art of rhetoric comes in. Since the Romantics, we seem to believe that good sentences are results of great passion and spontaneity, rejecting a more precise practice/learning of how sentences ACTUALLY work and how to perfect them. Thank you for the comment!
Robin, this is an idea I think about a lot for a very particular reason. I worship Nietzsche, so when I came across him saying this in BGE, I knew that I should do this; that books ought to be read aloud. But see, idk... The problem I face is that once I start reading a text alound, the comprehension part of my brain just, shuts down? I mean, my brain just decides to direct my mental capacities to enunciating instead of understanding. I often read texts, both fiction and theory, with friends and at that time I am reading it out aloud, but if an especially complicated part comes about I need to pause and read it silently to comprehend what it means. This just infuriates me...
English is not my native language and although I’m fluent, I still prefer to read novels in english out loud - it just flows better!
Also one time I was reading Sherlock Holmes in polish translation, but this particular translation was a little bit off, so I kind of started to translate the sentences in my head back to english and then imagined Benedict Cumberbatch saying them. Worked wonders! 🙈😅
Interestingly, this whole idea of reading out loud recently came to me when I recently started getting into poetry again. I mean, of course! With hindsight, it is quite obvious: it's poetry - it makes sense you would read it aloud. But, as you wrote, maybe after all those school years, where we were taught to read with your mind's voice, kicked that instinct to the back of our minds.
When i read i do tend to read with my inner voice. Sometimes i read out loud because i want to train my outter voice or the surrounding sounds are so loud that i don't hear what i'm reading. And to my brain outside is more important and thus i have a hard time focusing on inner voice when there is outside noise.
What i also notice that each language has their own melody. The persons tone, volume, speed, vocal mannerisms, pitch changes based on what language they are speaking.
I've been teaching alternative story structures in my creative writing class recently, and we've been delving into the history of how stories came to be structured as they are around the world. Of course, what do they all have in common? An origin in oral tradition. It's really made me think about my own writing going forward, the sort of words and phrasing I use, as I've been told my prose often has a lyrical quality to it. I do wonder how long Scheherazade would have lived if she'd written her stories down for the Sultan rather than told them to him out loud
Great article. Lately I’ve forced myself to begin reading aloud whenever my mind wanders! It’s too easy for our minds to simply gloss over the words and lose the meaning.
Yes
Also, great essay as always <3