Ingredient - A Good Reader

Being hearing impaired, I read a lot. I read the TV and movies. I read books. I read the news. I pretty much read everything. I also have a smattering of various degrees, so I always thought I was a good reader - that I understood the way words were communicated and the ideas they formed. Then I realized after 10 years of college courses and 3 degrees, "I'm not a good reader."

I wasn't a good reader because I didn't appreciate the words and how authors constructed ideas for readers. Good writers very deliberately choose their words and good readers are able to recognize the author's construction of ideas. Roland Barthes is a good writer and his text Mythologies is an excellent exploration of the meaning of words in things. My epiphany, that I need to become a good reader, occurred when I read this line:

“Glazing, in Elle, serves a background for unbridled beautification chiseled mushrooms, punctuation  of cherries, motifs of carved lemon, shavings  of truffle, silver pastilles, arabesques of glace fruit: the underlying coat  (and this is why I call it a sediment , since the food itself becomes no more than an indeterminate bed-rock) is intended to be the page on which can be read a whole rococo cookery (there is a partiality for a pinkish colour)."

Okay, you may be thinking the whole doctoral exams preparation have fried my synapses and I need to take a vacation. That's not the case. Look closely at the words. 

unbridled = equine term

chiseled = sculpture term

punctuation = grammar term

motifs =design term

shavings = carpentry term

silver = metallurgic term

arabesques = ethnic term

coat = clothing term

sediment = geology term

bed-rock = geology term

page = bibliophile term

read = cognitive term

rococo = design term

Rolling the words together in the above phrase creates an enticingly descriptive thing, which is the result of careful construction - an architectural creation of language. Barthes uses language or words which belong to different classes of academics or professions unrelated to cookery in unexpected pairings while able to communicate an engaging concept. Barthes is a good writer and if I want to be a good writer, I need to be a good reader. I need to identify other good writer's and develop a better understanding of how they construct their ideas.

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