Laura Miller on Angus Fletcher’s ability to read without seeing shit.
Unfortunately for Fletcher, literature is made of culture, not neurons, and any given literary work can’t be fully appreciated if separated from the thousands of cultural, social, political, economic, and historical factors that affected its making. . . In place of the rich and often fascinating cultural contexts that fostered these works, the reader of Wonderworks is served lukewarm potted neuroscience.
Jerry Fodor, on Steven Pinker’s similar treatment of reading:
And here Pinker is on why we like to read fiction: “Fictional narratives supply us with a mental catalogue of the fatal conundrums we might face someday and the outcomes of strategies we could deploy in them. What are the options if I were to suspect that my uncle killed my father, took his position, and married my mother?” Good question. Or what if it turns out that, having just used the ring that I got by kidnapping a dwarf to pay off the giants who built me my new castle, I should discover that it is the very ring that I need in order to continue to be immortal and rule the world? It’s important to think out the options betimes, because a thing like that could happen to anyone and you can never have too much insurance.
Fletcher’s treatment of literature seems worthy of every ounce of that same thick, enjoyable sarcasm.
C.S. Lewis, however, would go a little further in analyzing the problem:
Look at it through microscopes, analyse the printer’s ink and the paper, study it (in that way) as long as you like; you will never find something over and above all the products of analysis whereof you can say ‘This is the poem’. Those who can read, however, will continue to say the poem exists.