I read about this book some time ago. I didn't think it would be of interest to me at the time, but I bought the book anyways, as the topic piqued my curiosity enough so that I figured I might be interested later. True to form, I gained interest in the subject over time because of my interest in cognitive sciences. As I became more interested in how our brain learns, I came to appreciate the complexities of how human do what we do, which led to my interest in reading and this book, as reading is one of the most complicated skill to acquire.
Parenthetically, I was also reading Mortimer Adlers’ How
to Read a Book
Returning to this book, Proust and the Squid is split
into three parts. Part One describes how our civilization developed language; a
critical point that Wolf makes clear is that human brains were never designed to read. The ability to
read evolved as our brain adapted to synthesize many different parts of our neuro
structure to integrate invented written language into our cognition. We learned
to use the parts that had other principal functions that are necessary for survival
and recruiting the disparate parts of
the brain for the purpose of becoming better at reading and to gain better
understanding of what we read and write. We were able to take the original
functions of those parts of the brain and synthesize them into developing coherent
systems of writing and reading. This was
an extremely clever and significant development in our evolution; different
cultures developed these abilities independently, as the different cultures
were isolated from one another, which was surprising and serves to give ample
proof to the concept of neuroplasticity. A sampling of different languages shows that
some are pictographic in nature, others are based upon sounds, and other
languages are based on assigning meaning to the writing rather than just be
based on the sound or appearance, which demonstrates how powerful our brain is
in adapting to differing cultural needs. This section naturally leads into
Parts Two of the book.
Part Two is a tutorial on how the brain learned to read over
time. This was the main reason for my interest in reading the book. Chapters Four
through Six told the story of how reading developed throughout history and how
the brain developed and evolved into the reading and thinking machine. The key
point that Wolf drummed into the reader as she beautifully told the story of
reading is the fact that as we read more, the better we can think; and the
better we are able to think, the better we are able to read and the more we can
understand through reading. A positive feedback loop between reading and
thinking. abilities. Yet another important point within the Part 2 is that we
are shaped by what we read and how we read; which also affects how well we can
understand and analyze what we read, a symbiotic relationship.
Part 3, on dyslexia — what happens when the reading brain of
some people does not work the same way for the rest of us — was the part of the
book that I was the least enthusiastic about tackling. Dyslexia and reading
problems were never on my radar, it never piqued my interest, yet I found this
part of the book, Chapters seven and
eight, fascinating, it is almost my favorite part of this book.
I had never studied dyslexia, how the brain deviated from its usual reading process when
people are dyslexic. I had thought of it as being somewhat mysterious, being an
electrical engineer, I always thought in
terms of a short circuit somewhere. Part 3 of this book not only delineated all
of the results from the theories and studies about dyslexia, it also reflected back
on Part 2 of the book: how we learned how to read. The referral to Part 2 made Part
3 understandable, and Part 3 reinforced the narrative that Part 2 told. The two
parts created a cohesive picture. I could not help but be riveted.
Chapter 9 is the conclusion chapter, which is where the
author explains herself: the reasons for writing the previous eight chapters.
She lays out the specific issues that raised alarms for her as a researcher in
psychology and cognition, as well as a public intellectual that is alarmed
about where our society and culture is
heading as far as reading and writing are concerned.
The first eight chapters set the stage by telling the reader
the story of how we came to be readers and writers. The final chapter interlaces the major themes
and details of the fist eight into a well-knit argument, which served to be a
warning about where our reading evolution is headed and by implication, where
our ability to think is headed.
This book changed my mind about many things; I learned all that I could handle about how
closely coupled thinking and reading are and the extrapolation of that coupling
could lead us in the future if our reading skills continues undisturbed down
this present path.
I am just a very interested amateur in the neurosciences,
and this book allowed me to take a giant leap forward in my knowledge and made me more
conversant in the research results and the structures of how our brains deal
with reading, at least well enough to become a very committed amateur to
learning more. I now have a scaffolding to hang onto as I continue to explore
this area of study. Which is why I decided to read Readers Come Home.
Go and read this book. It is very important and it is
delightful reading.
1. References
Adler, M. (1972). How to Read Science and
Mathematics. In C. V. Mortimer Adler, How To Read A Book (pp.
255-269). New York: Touchstone, Simon and Schuster.
Manguel, A. (1996). A History of Reading. New
York City: Penguin Putnam Inc.
Wolf, M. (2018). Reader, Come Home: The Reading
Brain in a Digital World. NYC: Harper Collins Books.
