“We seem to find, in book after book, the traces of our lives.”

(Manguel, 1996, p. 10)

This quote from Manguel’s article, the Last Page, for me really emphasizes the way in which the texts that we read mediate our experience of reality. He tells us that “I found more reality in the idea than in the thing” (p.10). From my own experience with literature as well as my affinity for literary theory his observations in this article mesh well with what I understand about text.

            First of all Manguel’s notion of what constitutes text is expansive and inclusive: He tells us that even a “lover blindly reading the loved one’s body at night” (p.7) constitutes a kind of reading and I have a tendency to agree with him. Reading and representing is what we do as humans. On a date, at a job interview, even walking down the street the kinds of things we say, the way we say them, what kinds of clothes we wear, the way we walk, even our hair style, tells some kind of story about who we are and when we look at others we interpret (or read) them based on these criteria or some others. In this way, all human interaction is in some way an exercise in reading and interpreting. Thus, the stories that we read not only reveal “traces of our lives” but also leave traces. They become a part of the way we see the world.

            As a new generation of students grows up into a world where printed text and linear stories become less prolific, Manguel’s article gives me hope that it is not a degeneration of the act of reading but rather a transformation. Students will find “traces of their lives” in the digital realm – on Facebook, in videogames, in blogs, and on Twitter. There has always been something magical and evanescent about the imaginary world – the world of stories and the digital realm – the one that does not exist, and yet is also somehow more important. Perhaps the greatest storyteller ever would have been nothing if it where not for his use of “nothing.” Think of how much of the action and “reality” of Shakespeare’s plays are based around what doesn’t exist:

-         The plot in King Lear is set into motion by the King’s statement that “Nothing will come from nothing.”

-         In Othello, Iago’s evil plot is based on “trifles light as air.”

-         Much Ado About Nothing, like Sienfeild, is a play about nothing.

-         A Midsummer Night’s Dream is about the interplay between the real world and the dream world – the nothing world. (One could imagine a modern adaptation where instead of the fairy world it was the digital world and Oberon is a computer hacker.)

-         The tragedy of Hamlet is driven by the words of an apparition – the ghost of Hamlet’s dead father.

-         Macbeth, similarly to Hamlet, is driven by the prophecy of temporal witches.

In almost all his plays one can find that it is the unseen and the unreal that drives what is real. As Manguel tells us, there is “more reality in the idea” – in the illusionary and unreal world of books and stories – “than in the thing.” This is why I have a tendency to disagree with Birkerts’s assessment of the digital generation and his vision of an apocalyptic fate for reading in the electronic age.

            Birkerts tells us that “the self must change as the nature of subjective space changes. And one of the many incremental transformations of our age has been the slow but steady destruction of subjective space” (1994, p. 130). I find Birkerts article slightly naïvely nostalgic – as though he is longing for a past which perhaps never existed. His romantic notion of “the solitary self… [becoming] ever less tenable” (p.130) I would argue is incorrect. Although our generation may have more distractions we also have unparalleled disposable time. Throughout history it was only a small number of people who where able to enjoy the kind of pastoral solitude that Birkerts reveres. Long before the internet Karl Marx was making the argument that work is what destroys the subjective spaces. Therefore, I find myself aligned against Birkerts in believing that the changing text will not destroy language, subjectivity and our soul but rather transform it – not better or worse just different. 

Reference:

Manguel, A. (1996). A history of reading. Toronto, ON: Vintage Canada.