At 3:46 AM -0400 13/12/2000, S.V. van Baardwijk-Holten wrote:
>> There have been no discussions on this list whether one should
>> read a book starting at the beginning and reading sequentially to the end
>> rather than starting from the last page and reading backwards to the
>> beginning i.e. some things we take for granted and because we have no doubts
>> about their veracity, we do not discuss them;
Sure there have been discussions about that; not necessarily in terms of
reading books, literally, but in figurative ways. That is, the assumed
veracity of any given practice or idea seems more open to critique and
analysis now than it ever has been (seems). Common sense is not all that
sensible, we are beginning to see. More on that in the thread on memes and
relativism, I hope.
>Well Arabs might disagree with you here. I wonder, except for Arabic and
>some of
>the orientals are there any other cultures that read in another direction
>as us?
>Hebrew? Or are there even cultures that read from the bottom up or something
>like that? I'm not sure there are.
Arabic and Hebrew are right to left, opposite of English. I have seen
Chinese ideograms in columns (like in one newspaper I saw), though I've
also seen it written left to write on letter paper (I glanced at an old
fellow drafting a letter in a cafe and noticed this -- and I think I saw
it in a strange little book of poems by Mao as well... yes, poems by Mao.
Interesting story in that, btw.) -- and I don't know what is now more
common practice (though I would love to know if anyone cares to share! I
know some people here would be able to answer that question!). I don't,
however, think that the pages in a book in Arabic (or Hebrew) progress
backwards, just that each page is written right to left, line by line. Then
again, it was originally on scrolls, so pages weren't an issue -- it was
just right-left in Latin and Greek, and left-right in Hebrew and Arabic
(and Persian, I think?).
However, as Jean-Louis pointed out, I think Bob's probably talking more
about from the beginning of a story to the end rather than in the opposite.
That doesn't take into account how the storyteller tells the story though:
there is a book, I think by Kingsley Amis (or is it Martin?), which runs
backwards chronologically (I recall it because it has been highly
recommended to me).
I'll have more to say about both Bob's and Darryl's posts on _1984_ later,
maybe tomorrow. Ach! I will have to jump to egroups soon, because I'll be
out of town for Xmas, but I don't want to miss that discussion.
Later!
Gord
