Blog Response to Prompt 4

The writer writes a book based on a story that came to them. Saying that the story is fiction, the author comes across the idea by some exposure or experience. Through this experience, the author then builds upon it. This is where the author adds a bit of make-believe to the original idea. This all happens because of the writer's creative intelligence building upon what is already real. So when the writer puts this story into a book, he is transforming his ideas into a foundation. This is not a foundation for anyone except the reader. Think of it as what the author went through to come up with this story in the first place. They were exposed to something, then built a story upon it. When someone reads through a book, they don't have the authors prior thoughts on the story. The reader ends up interpreting the story in another fashion than the author did. What might have been a joke in the author's eyes can be an insult in the reader's eyes. With this knowledge, the writing process gets much more complicated. How do you keep everyone on the same page? If words gain multiple meanings from person to person, how do you keep it in a generalized area? There are many things about this concept that make writing a bit worrisome. The nature of reading is an imperfect one. There will never be only one meaning to something. A book can be portrayed in many ways because of individuality. This is what makes up reading and writing.

#6

The symbolic level of a text is all the deeper meanings an author embeds into the story. Authors do not write stories just to entertain, they write stories to impart their life experience onto their audience. Foster presents several archetypal symbols to illustrate this concept, such as a walk to the grocery store symbolizing a quest and characters eating together symbolizing communion. The greatest works are ones that are wholly symbolic, such as the works of Shakespeare or Hemingway.

    Reading at the symbolic level is an acquired skill that is developed over time. You must be constantly considering the author's overall purpose of the story, but also what role each miniscule detail plays in forming that purpose.An additional hurdle in this process is deciding what the symbol means. Symbols, by nature, have multiple interpretation (if they only had one they would be allegories). This factor can both help and hurt the aspiring scholar trying to figure out an author's purpose.

    There are countless ways to read at the symbolic level. Foster gives the example of considering the story within the historical context of the time period it was written in. You could consider he story through political context, cultural context, social context, and so on. Essentially, you must take into account the forces affecting the story not stated within the story.

Blog Response to Prompt #7

7. Where or how does ambiguity come into play in a reader’s experience? How might ambiguity work within a piece of literature (or art of any kind?) How does it impact our understanding, and appreciation of a text?

Ambiguity is involved in a reader’s experience because each part of a text does not only mean one definite thing. Because each reader will have different backgrounds and experiences each reader will get different things out of the same text. This does not mean that only one of the reader’s assumptions are true or correct. In fact, all reader’s assumptions can be correct. This is because ambiguity is a part of literature, which is a good thing. Without ambiguity we could not teach the same texts over and over again. Without ambiguity we could not discuss the various meanings of literature because there would only be one meaning. Ambiguity within a text allows each reader to apply their own experiences and backgrounds to each text they interact with. Because of this, we can each experience a text in different ways, which allows us as a whole to enjoy a text in different ways.

Blog Response to Prompt #4

4. Foster talks about the relationship between the reader and the writer suggesting that “reading is an event of the imagination... a reader’s imagination is the act of one creative intelligence engaging another (the writer’s). How does this occur? What does this suggest about the nature and process of reading and writing?

Reading is an act of imagination because it requires the reader to interact with the text and picture the described scenario. Because of this, reading is highly individual; no two readers will have the same experience from the same book. This is not only due to how readers picture each scenario, it is also due to what each reader gets out of the reading experience. No two readers will have the same literary experience and background. No two readers will have the same personal background. And no two readers will have the same intellectual capability. Because of this, every reader will get something entirely different out of the text. Likewise, each individual reader engages with the author in a different way. Just like the reader, the author’s literary background, personal experience and intellect affect what they put into the text. Despite this however, each reader may not pick up on what exactly the author intended. But when a reader does pick up on these things, it creates a personal engagement between the author and the reader.

Response to prompt #4

4. Foster talks about the relationship between the reader and the writer suggesting that “reading is an event of the imagination... a reader’s imagination is the act of one creative intelligence engaging another (the writer’s). How does this occur? What does this suggest about the nature and process of reading and writing?

When reading, an individual will begin to visualize what they are reading. What they see all varies and depends on the reader. This occurs because naturally it helps the reader come to a better understanding of what the text is about. When you are able to visualize, it draws you in and helps you to read more intellectually. This is overall the best way to read, with an open mind, and letting your imagination flow because it makes the reading experience overall more efficient.

Blog Response to Prompt #4

4.    Foster talks about the relationship between the reader and the writer suggesting that, “reading is an event of the imagination…a reader’s imagination is the act of one creative intelligence engaging another (the writer’s).  How does this occur? What does this suggest about the nature and process of reading and writing?

When an author creates a story it is their own personal experiences and thoughts poured out onto a page generating a story filled with the writer’s own imagination. This imagination that Foster refers to facilitates the interaction between the writer and the reader’s thoughts mixed with the writer’s intent. How to break this process down into simpler terms would be as described as a conversation while having to pick up on someone’s body language. There is a form of underlying communication that comes from the way people use expressions and motions this concept can be translated to be thought of as the writer’s symbolism in the text. In many cases people in conversations are better than others at picking up on these signals but that doesn’t mean they still can’t understand the intended message. The writer and the reader are in this situation of trying to convey thoughts through pages which can be confusing for both parties involved. This idea suggests that interpreting others creative thoughts can be difficult depending upon their own life experiences and personal thoughts.

Foster uses an analogy early on in the book to describe how texts intertwine with each other by explaining how they are like eels swimming around in a barrel. He uses this to describe how stories are similar to one another but I think this also goes for showing how the author’s thoughts intertwine with the reader’s creative thoughts as well. Both factors create a story that is personal. The act of reading isn’t something that can ever be generic or standardized. Even with the simplest of stories people will still paint different mental images of characters and plot lines. The interaction between the author and the reader is something that is different for everyone and cannot be containerized to fit on kind of interpretation which is one of the biggest tings to remember when discussing Foster’s description of the interaction between author and reader.

Blog Response to Prompt #2 (Wood)

Foster’s statement that “all writing and telling belong to one big story” can be interpreted as having two meanings. The first is literal, a play on the saying “once you’ve read the dictionary, everything else is just a remix,” meaning every book is a new selection from, and ordering of, the same set of concepts predefined by the parameters of human communication. The second, Foster’s main point, is more figurative and implies that all stories, even those that are purely fictional, showcase some aspect of the human experience and are therefore all connected under the umbrella of the human condition. As such, phrases, themes, character types, scenarios, and plot points carrying the same meanings and/or implications often carry across different stories. This can range from intentional references to universal concepts. This view of reading materials as pieces of a massive literary puzzle enhances the reading experience by allowing it to develop from an intellectually passive activity of simply sitting back and reading the words at face value to an intellectually active pastime of connecting the elements of the current text to elements of previous texts to better understand the “one big story.”

 An example of the more direct, intentional connections can be seen with the book and hit musical “Wicked,” which works to directly build off of “The Wizard of Oz,” taking the flat characters of the previous text, such as the purely and inexplicably evil witch, and exploring their humanity. Less direct correlations can be seen in the classic Disney princess stories. Whether it’s Snow White or Cinderella,the character formula is the same: threatening, wicked step mother; innocent, beautiful princess; and the dashing prince that sweeps her off her feet. This formula doesn’t just work for princesses though, take Harry Potter: innocent and (internally) beautiful, he serves as the princess of his story, trapped in the custody of the threatening, wicked Dursleys, until one day his prince (in this case, gruff half-giant, Hagrid) quite literally sweeps him off his feet and into the world of magic.