What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund is a series of visual sound-bites and the result is a lack of substance.
Granted, Mendelsund is a book cover designer and art director; it makes sense he’s interested in the visual aspects. My initial impression was the author would focus on what the imagination conjures as we read. This is not the case; Mendelsund argues authors do not give readers enough information to complete pictures in our minds.
Through a series of references to Moby Dick, Anna Karenina and To the Lighthouse, along with a few other titles, Mendelsund maintains it’s impossible to see characters the same way the writer does. The content is comprised of numerous graphics and limited text. This includes one word on a page, single sentences, a hodgepodge of visual images, brief paragraphs, pages with terms crossed out and an assortment of illustrations, both familiar and not.
The fact that everything, from the cover to the illustrations is in black and white further emphasizes the author’s premise: readers do not get to know a novel’s characters in a true and intimate way. Frankly, I don’t buy it.
Reading is personal even if a book has universal appeal. Granted, my image of Ishmael may be different from someone else’s, but is that a bad thing? When I see a movie based on a book I am almost always disappointed. Why? Partly because the characters in the film are not the way I saw them on the page.
What We See When We Read
Two-and-a-half Bookmarks
Vintage Books, 2014
419 pages
The Blue Page Special 
Too bad because it is a cool cover! Hope you’re doing well.
Jody she/her Jody Alyn Consulting office: 719.385.0211 https://www.alynconsulting.com “All the work we’ve been doing to wake up, grow up and clean up is so we can show up in this moment.” – Corey DeVos
>
Jody, thanks for reading!