Recently, while he and I were traveling together, my son Miles (12) came up with an experiment: he read a book backwards, just to see what it was like. (The book he chose was Ivy and Bean and the Ghost That Had To Go, by Annie Barrows, which I had bought for his sister Luisa.)
His conclusion: if you read a book forwards, it is like looking out a window and seeing something happen. But if you read a book backwards, it is like looking at the window itself.
His conclusion: if you read a book forwards, it is like looking out a window and seeing something happen. But if you read a book backwards, it is like looking at the window itself.
3 comments:
Now you have me curious. I think I will have to try it myself!
Did he read the words backwards, the sentences or the chapters (if you know what I mean)?
His brilliant conclusion sounds like the sort of thing French Postmodernists came up with!
There's always Martin Amis' Time's Arrow. It would be interesting to read that backwards. :)
He read the chapters backwards. When I correct translations, sometimes I read the paragraphs backwards.
Your question, Dominic, reminds me of this post on Language Log recently, which also discussed various senses of what "saying something backwards" might mean:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3738
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