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| Courtesy of Dunechaser |
Face it, you ain't no Gregory Peck. So when it's your turn to read at MDM17, you can leave out the hoarse shouts and fake English accent.
We at Ahab Beckons thank you for your restraint.
Showing posts with label how to be a good reader. Show all posts
Showing posts with label how to be a good reader. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Get it out of your system...
We at Ahab Beckons thank you for your restraint.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
How to Be a Good Moby-Dick Marathon Reader, Part 3
Reading aloud involves a continuously repeated series of steps. The reader receives visual stimuli (printing on a page or screen), deciphers the words and phrases represented by the stimuli, determines how to say them, says them, hears himself say them, perhaps also sees or hears the audience's reaction to what he's said, and adds what he's heard himself say (and possibly the audience's reaction) to his determination of how to say the words and phrases that come next. On top of all that, by the time he's saying one set of words, he's already beginning to digest the next set. The psychologist Egon Brunswik devised a model for our processes of perceiving and acting that (in the way social scientists have of describing things) cloaks a familiar experience with rather unseethroughable terminology. In simplified terms, at one end of the model sits the "distal stimulus," such as words printed on a page. The distal stimulus emits "proximal cues" (such as reflected light waves) from which the "organism" (i.e., you or I) selects those cues that are relevant for the organism's present purpose (some marks on a page are relevant to reading aloud, while others, such as finger smudges, are not). From the selected cues, the organism derives an ultimate perception, or "percept" (e.g., the idea that the next phrase to be read is "great, Monadnock hump"). Then there is an "action" process that works somewhat in reverse. It begins inside the organism, with a "central motivational state," on the basis of which the organism chooses "proximal means" to achieve a "distal end."
Depending on your habits of mind, that last paragraph is either helpful or ridiculous. If you're a mental plodder like me, you might be thankful to have handles for the different things that go on when we read aloud. Reading aloud demands the execution of impressively complex behavior, since the reader steadily takes in printing -- proximal cues from a stream of distal stimuli -- while simultaneously producing comprehensible speech -- harnessing proximal means to reach his distal ends.
Given everything that has to happen, most of it inside the reader's head, for someone to read out loud, determining why someone has difficulty reading well is nigh impossible. But I'll venture to say that many marathon readers who perform poorly do so largely because they pressure themselves to read faster than they comfortably can.
All of which leads me to the third principle in our continuing series:
Rule 3: Read at a pace that is comfortable for you, even if it seems too slow.
When a reader pushes herself to read as fast as she can, or faster, two things happen. First, the phrases come out in disjointed spurts. A familiar clause comes out at breakneck speed, then a difficult word or two is stumbled over, then some more familiar words are rushed through, and so on, with phrasing dictated not by Melville's meaning, but by how easy or hard the language is. Second, the reader makes far more mistakes than he otherwise would, prompting constant self-correction as a word is misconstrued, the error is caught, and the word is repeated.
No one expects the text to be read quickly. We're not in a rush to find out what happens in the end; we all know that Darth Vader is Ishmael's father. We listen because we love how Melville wrote. We want to enjoy his artistry. What most of the audience would prefer, therefore, is a smooth, steady reading, at a lazy, conversational pace. In all the hours I've spent listening to marathon readers, I can think of only one who struck me as reading too slowly. And even he was not annoyingly slow. On the other hand, many many readers read (or try to read) too fast.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
How to Be a Good Moby-Dick Marathon Reader, Part 2
Hence the next principle in our ongoing series:
Rule 2: Speak the text, the whole text, and nothing but the text.
Your responsibility as a reader is to pick up where the previous reader left off and to read on until you're signaled to stop, when the next reader takes up the burden. The entire marathon should comprise an unbroken series of different voices that together take us, without frolics or detours, from "Call me Ishmael ..." to "... only found another orphan."
When you read, therefore, you should adhere religiously to what Melville wrote. The words that he set down, in the arrangements he selected, move us and inspire us to sustain this communal experience. Without his text, we are become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
Ideally, nothing in Moby-Dick should be omitted. In practice, however, some things are. The introductory "Etymology" and "Extracts" are deliberately excluded, as I've discussed. The handling of chapter titles and Melville's footnotes varies from reader to reader; some skip them, others do not. I would prefer that readers not skip chapter titles and especially not footnotes. A much more serious matter is the occasional accidental skipping of text. Readers have been known to skip a couple of paragraphs by accident. No one likes that, but it is usually allowed to pass in silence. In 2010, however, one reader skipped so much text (presumably by turning several leaves at once) that the "watch" stopped her and asked her to go back.
By the same token, nothing should be added to what Melville wrote. The audience wants no jocular asides, no dedicatory prefaces, no autobiographical embellishments, no pleas for indulgence, no shout-outs to peeps. The participants in the New Bedford marathon take their Melville straight. He provides more than enough commentary and wit for anyone, and doesn't need our feeble efforts to "improve" upon his work.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
How to Be a Good Moby-Dick Marathon Reader, Part 1
When you register, no one inquires into your qualifications or lack thereof. They don't even ask if you've read Moby-Dick or are a member of the museum. Not unlike a Quaker meeting, where the Inner Light might move anyone to speak, the marathon denies nobody who registers the opportunity to be heard. Eloquence or learning is not a prerequisite.
Just as not everyone is a born preacher, not everyone is a born reader. The quality of marathon readings varies as much as the backgrounds of the volunteers. Still, I believe it's possible to agree on a handful of principles that, if observed, will help you read in a most pleasing manner. We will propose these principles from time to time in a series of posts.
Rule 1: Do not shout.
The podiums at which the readers stand are equipped with sensitive microphones. They will pick up and amplify perfectly well whatever you say in a normal speaking voice. If you come on board "shouting like a boatswain in a gale of wind," the amplified sound will knock the listeners out of their chairs. It's painful. The back row will hear you fine without shouting.
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