Can you read a book wrong? (Poll and discussion)

[Macarenaoftime]

• Yes
• No

Vote now!Show results

[artamazon]

I have a friend who will read the ending of a book to see if she likes it enough to read the rest of it, lol.

[domisotto]

No, the moment the book is in the public domain, everyone who reads it forms their own opinion. They can express it in any way they can, so long as it is not directed personally against the writer.

I—no joke!—saw a writer with millions of reads calling out her readers and organizing a campaign to forbid them from using a specific adjectives in their comments to describe her plot points because in her opinion their were wrong about her narrative. That’s just unacceptable to me

[joannekwan]

Jokes aside, comics certainly. Bubble placement can sometimes get confusing and because there could be instances in which the text makes sense either way one reads it, the reader could be none the wiser. But they are reading it out of order in the 'wrong' way.

As for reading something and interpreting it wrong, then it boils down to the age-old discussion of death of the author. And then the answer depends on which camp you're in.

[therosesword]

It depends on what you mean as "wrong."

Quite often people will form their own ideas regarding what a book is about and they'll put all their own personal agenda's into every nuance. If, at some point they're open minded enough to have someone explain what the book is really about, that's good. But most of the time they're not and they'll (possibly) recommend it to someone else as being about X and the other person will read it and find it's something entirely different. (this kind of thing happens with art all the time)

I find it funny (in an annoying way) when someone tells an author what they wrote and the author tries to set them straight but the person tells them they just don't know what they really wrote. I've actually seen some heated arguments like that with some pretty nasty trolling resulting from the reader going after the author.

[WillowTree]

I do this a lot with fanfiction! If the tags leave me unsure on what kind of ending I can expect, I go to the last chapter and read the comments then skim the chapter to see if it has a happy ending or not. Especially if it's a longfic! I'm not reading 300k+ words just to have a sad/tragic ending!

[elpenor]

it's complicated. the relationship between the text and the audience and the author is one of the main foci of literary theory, and there are plenty of equally reasonable ideas about this. most commonly, you might hear about the "death of the author," which means that the text stands completely on its own and the audience wholly creates the meaning of the text through argumentation and textual evidence. but that's hardly the only theory, and several take into consideration the context of the text's creation and the context of the author's life. some use psychoanalysis, some use symbolism, some connect the text to a current context and claim that its meaning is fluid. some even give the author continued authority after the text is published, which is the exact opposite of the death of the author

I voted "no" because I'm post-structuralist, meaning I believe that the "meaning" of the text shifts regardless of the author's intentions and the most solid argument for the meaning of a text incorporates both phenomenology (the experience of the text) and structuralism (the systematic elements that inspired the text - in other words, the context). specifically, I tend to be a deconstructionist, which means that I think the fundamental ideological elements of a text are too complex to be reduced to simple dichotomies and fully-conscious human intent

man I haven't read a book in years

[WillowTree]

I don't think there's a wrong way to read a book.

If you're reading specifically with the mindset of trying to improve your writing, then there are better ways to read and focus on certain parts of stories, but just generally, no, there's no wrong way to do it

[Undertaildoof34]

Some people "there is no wrong way to read a book"
Me exists (i have dyslexia and sometimes ill read it and think someone wrote backwards. Its easer for me to read comics. But i even have trouble at times with them to.) So ill inturpert at times as times as or I like waffles as waffles like me......

[gmaximin]

If the question was “can audience read a book wrong?” I’d probably agree with @domisotto. Once the work is out there, words have a life on their own...

But as a reader, multiple reads of the same work sometimes bring different perspectives, even to the point that I thought to myself: “damn, I read that all wrong...”

[domisotto]

Changing opinions doesn't mean that one reading is necessarilly more valid than the other. The way one reads a book depends on how/who they are at that point in time...

[gmaximin]

Yep, so extending the logic, I know now that I’m never reading anything right (because that concept cannot exist)... but ok, not necessarily wrong either...

[domisotto]

Kind of? More of a live and let live, including to your past and future self, heh. In our days and times, I am always worried about Internet witch hunts in the matters of taste and opinion.

[Akhdas]

I like the way your friend think

[DokiDokiTsuna]

In sci-fi (probably not just sci-fi, but that's where I live) there's a common problem of people reading/consuming these stories with blatant messages about imperialism, consumerism, discrimination, and individuality, and ignoring basically the entire plot in favor of 'spaceship go brrr'.
I would definitely say that is an example of reading a book wrong. T_T

Like, there's nothing wrong with liking spaceships and all the other sci-fi gilding; there isn't even anything wrong with enjoying it more than the story itself. But when you go as far as deciding that it's the only thing that actually matters, and the rest is just 'political junk' and 'up to interpretation' (9 times out of 10 the author's morals are pretty damn obvious) you've crossed a line. That's just cherrypicking, not reading.

[artamazon]

lol you guys are crazy

[NickRowler]

What do you mean by "read"?

Do you mean the physical act of reading words? Or read as in "how one interrupts a story"?

[Macarenaoftime]

What do you mean by "read"?

I don't know, depends on how you interpret it. ;v

[therosesword]

But they are reading it out of order in the 'wrong' way.

Can't help but think of House of Leaves. following those spiral texts, the pin holes leading to the next pages, the jumps between stories and the fake/real footnotes not to mention the different sized fonts changing color... oh what a ride

[DasIstWunderblyat]

I remember I used to read things upside down to challenge myself. I am typing this upside down.