Page 66 - Critical and Cultural Theory

CHAPTER 5

READING

One of the most important contributions made by critical and
cultural theory to the fields of language and interpretation consists
of its redefinition of the concept of reading. Reading is increas-
ingly regarded as a widespread cultural phenomenon. It is not
simply the act in which we engage when we peruse a written text.
In fact, reading is a process in which we are involved all the time,
as we go about the world trying to understand or decode the signs
that surround us. In this perspective, reading is one of the most
vital mechanisms on which our social existence pivots. We can
only make sense (however tentatively and provisionally) of our
lives and surroundings by incessantly reading the texts supplied by
our spaces and places, by our historical circumstances, by the poli-
tical systems we inhabit, by psychological processes (both
conscious and unconscious) and, of course, by the plethora of
images unleashed by the media, literature and art. 1
Our existence in the world and the act of reading are inextric-
ably intertwined, arguably, for the reason that the world in its
entirety can be metaphorically conceived as a text. This is not a
linear text with a clearly identifiable beginning-middle-end narra-
tive structure. Rather, it is a tangle of stories in which any one
strand constantly loops back upon itself. Nor is it a text that
conveys its plots and themes transparently: some of the most intri-
guing aspects of the stories it tells lie with what remains untold, or
is told elliptically from the periphery of the narrative, in its inter-
stices, or through its silences. According to George Santayana:

1
W This expansive notion of the text is examined in Part I, Chapter 6, 'Textual-
ity'.

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