During the KYW Newstudies program, "The Magic of Radio" was discussed. What is "The Magic of Radio"? Well, it's how you can hear a news report over the radio about a political debate and can picture the sweat rolling down the face of a politician. It's how you can hear over the radio about a car-crash and can picture in your mind the carnage. (Not to be morbid.)
This got me thinking: isn't this the same effect songs like "Shoo Shoo Baby" by The Andrews Sisters or "Pompeii" by Bastille work? "Shoo Shoo Baby" begins: "You've seen him up and down the avenue/ and now he's wearin' the Navy blue/ she had a tear, in the corner of her eye/ as he said his last goodbye."
Tell me how your sailor looks. You can because you were able to picture this heartfelt good-bye by merely hearing its description.
My Mommom and I like "The Faerie Path" series (it was a trilogy until the the author decided to write three more books). We read the same books, but upon discussion of the books we disagreed on the pronunciation of two of the names. I appreciate how we were able to come to our own conclusions about the story, even down to the name-pronunciation, because it allowed us to connect to the story on a deeper and more personal level. We made the characters look like what WE, individually, thought they would look like. I saw scenes play out in my head and they were probably different from the way Mommom saw them.
And that's okay. We're allowed to have differences in how we see stories, that's "The Magic of Stories". We manipulate stories to fit our needs. And it's fabulous. I can guarantee you my vision of the various princes in books like "Ella Enchanted" and"Beauty Sleep" look different than yours. Why? Because I like mine tall, fair, and British, but you may go for the more Prince Caspian-type. And "The Magic of Stories" allows you to manipulate stories to fit your type of anything. Aren't you glad you read this, Mr.Carty?
Perhaps that's why the movies are usually so disappointing, because the director filled in the gaps differently than you did.
Oh, how convenient, here are some prime examples of hot British men.
I have always had trouble visualizing characters in a book. If I think really hard about a scene from a book, I will "see" the background. I can clearly visualize the surroundings where all the action takes place, but the characters, without fail, are featureless silhouettes. This happens even when I read books that have movies. Maybe this says something about me, but I'm probably just lazy or something.
ReplyDeleteI love reading so this post was one of my favorites . A few years ago I read the book "Twilight" and loved it. When the first movie came out, I remember being so mad because it didn't do the justice whatsoever. For me, that's one of the worst things that can happen- a movie doesn't do its book justice. It's like you said in your post about how we picture things in a book. Sometimes movies just don't see eye to eye with our imagination. But then again, neither do other people reading the same book. But that's the beauty of reading isn't it?The author can give us some description, yet at the same time, we as readers have the opportunity to picture things the way we wish to see them.
ReplyDeleteYou're posts Are always so cute! Reading is one of my favorite things to do so I can totally agree! Whenever I read a book, especially ones by Nicholas sparks I can't help but try to picture myself in the scene and doing what the characters are doing. Stories are 100% magical and even if someone pictures a scene differently than you did, they still used their imagination and that's the best part about it! Oh and by the way I love the pictures of the British men!
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