“The object we call a book is not the real book, but its potential, like a musical score or seed,” writes Rebecca Solnit in The Faraway Nearby. As Solnit observes, it’s true that a book is just an inert object on a shelf that takes on a new life when opened: “A book is a heart that only beats in the chest of another.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Book Potential”
Here’s a great quote from Rebecca Solnit. She’s the one who wrote Men Explain Things to Me. And this is about books. She writes,
The object we call a book is not the real book, but its potential, like a musical score or a seed. It exists fully only in the act of being read, and its real home is inside the head of the reader, where the symphony resounds, the seed germinates. A book is a heart that only beats in the chest of another.
Ooh, I like that, right? Yeah. I love that, that this inner thing on the shelf takes new life when the reader’s eyes light upon the page. Exactly. Yeah, and I love the analogy with the symphony and the seed.
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C.S. Lewis wrote something similar in his book, An Experiment in Criticism. He wrote that “Books on a shelf are only potential literature.”