8/31 Reading Response

"The only advise, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advise, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions" (Woolf, 1). This quote demonstrates the underlining message in Virginia Woolf's composition. As a reader, there are many different ways to approach a literary work. However, ultimately it is up to the reader and how the reader contrues the work. I believe this is the central reoccurring theme. "We must remain readers; we shall not put on the further glory that belongs to those rare beings who are also critics. But still we have our responsibilities as readers and even our importance. The standards we raise and the judgments we pass steal into the air and become part of the atmosphere which writers breathe as they work" (Woolf 12). As an individual reader coming to your own conclusions, you are able to further help authors construct new works of art.

In Never Do That To A Book, I believe Anne Fadiman suggest the differences in reading literary works, by on how one treats their book. "To us, a book's words were holy, but the paper, cloth, cardboard, glue, thread, and ink that contained them were a mere vessel, and it was no sacrilege to treat them as wantonly as desire and pragmatism dictated. Hard use was a sign of disrespect but of intimacy" (Fadiman 38). While some, such as Hilaire Belloc, believe in "preserving it (a book) as your chiefest treasure" others, such as Fadiman and Byron Dobell, believe you should get everything out of a book by writing in the margins and underling words.

There is no right or wrong way to read a book, just as there is no right or wrong way to treat a book. It is up to the reader's own creativity and imagination.