16th May Saturday 4-6pm

Seth Guy
Reading and Listening Group

“I dip the pen into the inkwell, then watch the black shapes form as I move my hand slowly from left to right. I come to the edge and then return to the other side, and as the shapes thin out, I stop once more and dip the pen into the inkwell. So it goes as I work my way down the page, and each cluster of marks is a word, and each word is a sound in my head, and each time I write another word, I hear the sound of my own voice, even though my lips are silent.” [1]

The LiteraryMix is not a narrative in the traditional sense. It consists entirely of excerpts from authors’ works of fiction which describe sound and sonic events. Meticulously edited and arranged, The LiteraryMix is composed of three hundred and seventy pages, including classic, modern, postmodern and contemporary fiction from over one hundred authors. These excerpts have been edited in such a way as to maintain the narrative thread by linking sounds that they describe and themes related to listening and reading. Through shifting narrative points of view sympathetic to the narrative voice in each, such as location, time, and nominative case, readers are offered choices as to what to ‘readlisten’ to next. Similar in format to the Choose Your Own Adventure series popular in the Eighties, The LiteraryMix invites readers to explore a labyrinth of fiction from a sonorous perspective.

Using a specially created preview PDF of The LiteraryMix the Reading and Listening Group may consider and discuss the following questions:

a) If when we write we ‘hear’ our own voice how might we discuss a text’s transformation into the voice of the reader? What similarities and differences are there when we, or someone else reads aloud?

b) If we accept that when we read we visualise what we read through the formation of images, how do we visualise sonic events and what images do we see through reading about Sound?

c) What role does memory and our imaginations play in this visualising? And how might we discuss these in relation to the aural images that result?

d) If reading involves visualising then what might we gain through examining texts from a sonorous perspective, or indeed from that of any other sense? It is expected that there will be approximately 40 minutes devoted to reading time and making notes followed by approximately 80 minutes for questions and discussion.

[1] Travels In the Scriptorium, Auster, Paul, and The LiteraryMix, Guy, Seth, 2015.

Please note, participants should bring their own laptops to view the PDF

Contact: seth_guy@ymail.com