When Suzie introduced Helen, she told the audience that one of the best things about books is that they are an interactive art form: that while the author may describe in some detail how a character looks, it is the reader's imagination that completes the image, making it his or her own. "That's why we so often don't like movies made from books, right?" Suzie said. "We don't like someone else's interpretation of what we see so clearly." She talked, too, about how books educate and inspire, and how they soothe the soul-"like comfort food without the calories, " she said. She talked about the tactile joys of reading, the feel of a page beneath one's fingers; the elegance of typeface on a page. She talked about how people complain that they don't have time to read, and reminded them that if they gave up half an hour of television a day in favor of reading, they could finish twenty-five books a year. "Books don't take time away from us, " she said. "They give it back. In this age of abstraction, of multitasking, of speed for speed's sake, they reintroduce us to the elegance-and the relief! -of real, tick-tock time.Elizabeth Berg
About This Quote
The very first thing that one would see is that she’s right about the readers who love to read. These readers are feeling the same way as her saying that they love books because of their interactive nature. No matter how much time is spent reading a book, you will always be able to go back to the point where you left off. This is because your imagination will drive your reading pace.
You are able to make the book your own by completing the detail of the characters in your head. She continues to say that books are an interactive art form because no matter how much detail the author has put into writing a book, it is what the reader completes on his or her own that makes the book complete. As she said, "That's why we so often don't like movies made from books, right? We don't like someone else's interpretation of what we see so clearly." This means that there is no one set point where you start reading a book and let it take over you.
Having this difference between movies and books emphasizes again the difference between interactive art forms and non-interactive art forms. When movies are made from books, it is not only another person’s interpretation of what you read but also another person’s interpretation of how it should be done.
Source: Home Safe
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