Customer Reviews

Dreaming by the Book

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At the outset, I must say how shocked I am to be the second person reviewing this book. Considering how influential this book has been on my own way of reading, not to mention my mode of living, I am sorry to feel so alone in loving it.

Elaine Scarry's "Dreaming by the Book" is an expansion of an earlier essay she published in Representations, "On Vivacity." The thrust of both is to discover what it is about novels, and, to a lesser extant other forms of writing and artistic representation, that so far surpasses our independent minds in their ability to present us with imagined images.

Though Scarry does ground her analysis on a good amount of empirical research, usually from cognitive psychology, many of her claims stand more on their ability to persuade than their scientific backing. That is not to say Scarry presents us with a work of analytic philosophy. On the contrary, Scarry's book itself reads like a novel. Her ability to turn Aristotle's antiquated physics into vibrant poetry awakens within the reader a desire to similarly animate Scarry's words an grant them voice in the real world - all to frequently I found myself reading parts aloud to others.

Scarry is, certainly, a lyrical writer who begs to be read aloud. But she returns the favor to those she scrutinizes. Locke, Rousseau and even Kant sound like poets when they are revoiced by Scarry.

Perhaps some might be put off by Scarry's overwhelming style, some by her seemingly unconvincing, though abundant, evidence - there isn't, after all, any rigid logic here. Yet the most important claims that Scarry makes seem to require of us very little - attention and appreciation. I, for one, would gladly give anything Scarry wrote both on virtue of this work alone.

It's a wonderful book on a fascinating topic - how is it that the images we form in our minds as we read seem richer and more complete than what we can imagine on our own? What are some of the ways writers create this sense of tangible presence?

I like this book, because has a lot of thought into design aspect. You need to read it.