The Pleasures of Reading in an Ideological Age

Rating:
Summary: is this book really out of print??????????????????
Review: I almost always underline/jot-notes-to-myself-in-the-margins when I read a book. This book, however, is so meticulously written, that I am breathless in the hand. My copy is spotless, just as Alter's polemic/ecstatic statement is without flaw. This book is endlessness, and I will let it inform me for the rest of my life.

Rating:
Summary: is this book really out of print??????????????????
Review: I almost always underline/jot-notes-to-myself-in-the-margins when I read a book. This book, however, is so meticulously written, that I am breathless in the hand. My copy is spotless, just as Alter's polemic/ecstatic statement is without flaw. This book is endlessness, and I will let it inform me for the rest of my life.

Rating:
Summary: A Remarkable and Truly Insightful Examination of Literature
Review: I found a copy of this book second-hand at the Strand in New York, and bought it on the basis of its title. Once I began reading it, however, I found the title to be slightly misleading. By "Reading," Alter does not so much mean the phsyical act of sitting down and reading a book (though he does touch upon that in his introduction). He is more concerned with issues of "reading" in the context of interpretation. His opening chapter is a refutation of certain modern cabals of lit-crit, after which he goes on to examine the very things that make literature literature: Metaphor, Allusion, Structure, Perspective, etc. His marvellous use of examples, his insightful analysis of these same examples, all make for a great reading experience. This book is not only for scholars, but also for anyone interested in looking more closely at literature. One feels awed at Alter's enormous breadth of reading. This book is truly a classic, and it's a shame it's generally unavailable. Perhaps Alter's little book is not "modern" (i.e. trendy) scholarship, but it is clear, straightfoward and eminently cogent. In a perfect world, this book would be read in every high school english class.

Rating:
Summary: A Remarkable and Truly Insightful Examination of Literature
Review: I found a copy of this book second-hand at the Strand in New York, and bought it on the basis of its title. Once I began reading it, however, I found the title to be slightly misleading. By "Reading," Alter does not so much mean the phsyical act of sitting down and reading a book (though he does touch upon that in his introduction). He is more concerned with issues of "reading" in the context of interpretation. His opening chapter is a refutation of certain modern cabals of lit-crit, after which he goes on to examine the very things that make literature literature: Metaphor, Allusion, Structure, Perspective, etc. His marvellous use of examples, his insightful analysis of these same examples, all make for a great reading experience. This book is not only for scholars, but also for anyone interested in looking more closely at literature. One feels awed at Alter's enormous breadth of reading. This book is truly a classic, and it's a shame it's generally unavailable. Perhaps Alter's little book is not "modern" (i.e. trendy) scholarship, but it is clear, straightfoward and eminently cogent. In a perfect world, this book would be read in every high school english class.

Rating:
Summary: The pleasures of interpreting literature
Review: Robert Alter is a lover of literature who reads and interprets it for pleasure. In this work he criticizes the academic practice of focusing on literary theory and babbling in abstract terms rather getting down to reading and enjoying the texts themselves. In this work he shows what he means by reading by reading some of the world 's great literature including the Bible, Shakespeare, Stendhal, Dickens. His book is structured into discussions of fundamental aspects of literature, character and its connection with reality, style, structure, allusion and what he calls 'perspective.'Alter is a brilliant ' close reader' and he continually illuminates the text in language which is clear and free of technical jargon. This is his conclusion," Reading is a privileged pleasure because each of us enjoys it, quite complexly, in ways not replicable by anyone else. But there is enough structured common ground in the text itself so that we can talk to each other, even sometimes persuade each other, about what we read: and that many- voiced conversation, with which, thankfully, we shall never have done, is one of the most gratifying responses to literary creation, second only to reading itself.