At first glance, it seems like a simple
question; after all reading and writing is something that we do so habitually
that it is taken for granted like air.
Writing students are only too familiar with Barthes’
famous the Author is dead declaration and Derrida’s all text written and
read is sous rature or under erasure all of the time.
So as readers, we are also writing, as writers we
are also reading. This can be seen as we backspace and retyping or erasing and
rewriting as we go about our drafts.
As a writing student we are introduced
and reintroduced with cultural and critical theories as powerful tools to read
and write.
Citing a book that I recently read “What Your
Teacher Didn’t Tell You”, historian Dr Farish Noor talked about the re-writing
and denial of Malaysian history to serve the interest of a government that had
been in power since independence.
No doubt, as a writer, Dr Farish had drawn upon Postcolonial
threory and the idea of countries that were former European colonies
writes to re-establish old cultures, normalizing effects and so forth.
The relationship between reading and writing is
that it is neither finite nor adequate, but at this point of time it is a
necessary discourse, that allows us to question the givens and norms.
On a different note, I find it a reoccurring theme
that writing and reading is described as talking and hearing, penetrating male
and penetrated female, and even cooking and eating.
The relationship is such that one completes the
other.
While many would take for granted air,
we would be better off appreciating it.
No comments:
Post a Comment