When we read, we experience a text as vividly as we do dreams, where images tantalize the senses. Readers experience words first as physical objects. They convey sensory impressions. Like any tangible object, they possess a specific shape and size, based on the font, ink, and vagaries of printing. They have color—even black comes in a range of shades if you look closely. The quality of the paper or screen they appear on gives them texture. Every book exhibits its own particular contrast between the ink—how dark? how thick? sharp characters or curvy?—and the paper—white or beige? matte or glossy? coarse-grained or fine? Paper and ink also produce a scent. I like to stick my nose in the middle of an open book, close my eyes, and slowly inhale to savor the smell. I suppose you can even put the words in your mouth to taste if you want.
We respond to the physical properties of words just as we would to any landscape we enter. We don’t just see the green wavelengths of light reflected from the leaves on a tree or the geometric shapes of a building. These characteristics carry an emotional tonus inextricable from the empirical sensations. The physical properties of words help set the mood in which we read and therefore color our experience of the text, the way we perceive it, and ultimately the meaning we derive from it.
These physical properties shimmer before our sight like dream images. Words engage our senses, but they do not allow us to reach out and enfold them with our arms. They elude us when we try to address them in the direct, tactile way in which we deal with the waking world. Dreams move us more by the sequencing of images and by the emotions that accompany them. In reading, that level of experience emerges from the phonology of words, blending the physical with meaning. Words consist of syllables, or articulate sounds. Some individual syllables coincide with distinct ideas, such as “I,” “run,” and “here.” Most exhibit greater potential for meaning if they combine (kǝm BĪŃ) to form words.
Next time I’ll walk through an example of how readers can convert the experience of a text into meaning.
The Future of Reading 