Karla Huebner's Blog, page 5
September 24, 2022
Do You "Picture" Things You Read?
Perhaps you're one of those readers who vividly envisions settings and characters when you read. You might even rely heavily on the author's descriptions in order to do so, and feel cheated if there isn't considerable detail about characters' hair and skin color, about what's in their homes, or what kind of vegetation they encounter when hiking.
On the other hand, maybe you're one of those readers who skips past "tedious" description to get to the dialog. You might not even envision any of what's described, or have any expectation that you would truly see something in what we call your mind's eye.
Or, of course, you might be somewhere in the middle of these extremes.
These are all perfectly normal, but very different, ways of experiencing the written word--and life more generally. Humans experience mental pictures (or don't) along a spectrum that goes from seeing nothing at all (aphantasia) up to envisioning things as if they were watching an amazingly detailed movie (hyper-phantasia). The same sort of variation is true for mentally conjuring up sounds, smells, taste, and touch/movement, but it appears that the most study has been devoted to visualization and its lack. Indeed, study of any form of aphantasia or hyper-phantasia is a pretty recent phenomenon, because it's been only relatively recently that people seem to have begun to realize that what they themselves experience in terms of visualization or other imagined sensory experience isn't necessarily what their siblings or their friends experience. The internet is now full of people with aphantasia telling how surprised they were to learn that many people actually do see something in their mind's eye--that it's not just a figure of speech.
I don't have either aphantasia or hyper-phantasia, but when I first heard of aphantasia, I was deeply intrigued. Despite being an art historian, my ability to call up a visual image is extremely limited. I'm good at identifying works by artists I'm familiar with--I can easily walk into a room at a museum and start pointing at artworks across the room and tell you which one is by Romaine Brooks or Archipenko or Jacob Lawrence. But that doesn't mean I can summon up artworks in my mind in anything but the vaguest way. I have a general sense of what Matisse's Blue Nude looks like (horizontal, blue body, fairly abstract), but that's about as clear as I can get. I don't know whether her head is to the right or the left until I refresh my memory by looking at a photo of the painting.
This led to a somewhat embarrassing moment in my PhD orals, in fact. We were discussing collage, and at some point Terry Smith, who was on my dissertation committee, expected me to remember what Picasso's Still Life with Chair Caning looks like. It wasn't unreasonable of him to expect me to know this work, because it actually is quite important in the history of collage. I did know that I was generally familiar with it and could probably identify it if I saw it, but at that point in my studies I hadn't fully realized its historical significance; to me it was just one of many works that Picasso and Braque made around 1912 that combined painting and collage or assemblage. But Terry seemed to think he could gradually lead me to visualize the thing, which I really couldn't do. Even now, after having taught this artwork many times, the best I can do is summon up a horizontal oval framed by a piece of rope. I'm aware that Picasso collaged a print of chair-caning onto the thing, but although I can sort of recall the pattern of the chair-caning, I can't attach that to the oval framed by the rope, or recall just what Picasso painted onto the print except that it was the sort of standard table-top items Picasso liked to put in his still lifes at that period in his career. So... probably a newspaper and a bottle or glass or cup and maybe a plate. This kind of detail just does not remain in my visual memory.
Likewise, while I have a clearer visual recollection of Girodet's painting Endymion, which I've also often taught and which is the basis of the more psychedelic-looking figure on the cover of In Search of the Magic Theater, I couldn't tell you offhand where the dog in the painting is located. I get a fairly good mental image of the overall painting--it's dark, with Endymion reclining across it and Cupid entering from the upper left, but while I know the dog is in the lower part of the painting, is it to the left or the right? I just can't see the dog at all. (Granted, the dog is not a very important figure, but most pictures of the sleeping Endymion do include his dog and so does this one.)
As you might guess, therefore, writing visual description is not something I'm uniformly good at. It's not that I can't do it, but I often have a very hard time recalling enough about things I want to describe.
Maggie Giles, another of the 2022 Debut novelists, is a writer who has full-blown aphantasia. She doesn't see anything at all in her mind's eye. She discusses that and other aspects of her writing in this Instagram Live interview with Dara Levan. Among the things Maggie says about her writing process: first, she writes a draft that emphasizes dialog and plot, and then she goes back and fills in description, often with the help of photographs.
What about the reader's perspective? What do readers want?
I have read that readers want and expect lots of visual information because they rely on this to form their mental movies of novels. I daresay some of them do, but I also have to wonder whether some of those readers simply lack imagination, that they can't come up with their own mental movie without a ton of help from the author. I myself enjoy rich description but it doesn't produce any sort of mental movie for me, and I don't miss rich description if it's not there--I form my own impression of characters and setting even if it's not particularly visually rich or detailed.
I've also read that readers with aphantasia may find detailed description a waste of time. Does this mean that those people not only can't picture things but don't get any sense of place or costuming or whatnot from the descriptions given? After all, many people with aphantasia are actually visual artists, so it isn't like having aphantasia means that a person necessarily lacks visual skills, they just don't see things in their mind's eye. I'll bet some of those artists with aphantasia could come up with illustrations for what they've read. And--a different question--are Ivy Compton Burnett's novels especially appealing to readers with aphantasia because they consist almost solely of dialog and are nearly devoid of visual description? Inquiring minds want to know!
I haven't even touched upon aphantasia and hyper-phantasia in senses other than the visual. All of this varies enormously from person to person. For instance, I can have extremely strong sensory recall of some kinds of touch and motion, but that doesn't mean that if I read about velvet I actually feel like I'm touching velvet. I can imagine touching velvet if I make the effort, but I don't have any emotional connection to touching velvet, so I'm not much inclined to imagine touching velvet, whereas I have a strong emotional connection to the memory of my late Rex rabbit Mikko (aka Mr. Velvet-coat) and can instantly recall the sensation of his fur.
Want to learn more about aphantasia? Check out www.aphantasia.com. The Aphantasia Network was founded by Tom Ebeyer and has lots of interesting information on the subject.
On the other hand, maybe you're one of those readers who skips past "tedious" description to get to the dialog. You might not even envision any of what's described, or have any expectation that you would truly see something in what we call your mind's eye.
Or, of course, you might be somewhere in the middle of these extremes.
These are all perfectly normal, but very different, ways of experiencing the written word--and life more generally. Humans experience mental pictures (or don't) along a spectrum that goes from seeing nothing at all (aphantasia) up to envisioning things as if they were watching an amazingly detailed movie (hyper-phantasia). The same sort of variation is true for mentally conjuring up sounds, smells, taste, and touch/movement, but it appears that the most study has been devoted to visualization and its lack. Indeed, study of any form of aphantasia or hyper-phantasia is a pretty recent phenomenon, because it's been only relatively recently that people seem to have begun to realize that what they themselves experience in terms of visualization or other imagined sensory experience isn't necessarily what their siblings or their friends experience. The internet is now full of people with aphantasia telling how surprised they were to learn that many people actually do see something in their mind's eye--that it's not just a figure of speech.
I don't have either aphantasia or hyper-phantasia, but when I first heard of aphantasia, I was deeply intrigued. Despite being an art historian, my ability to call up a visual image is extremely limited. I'm good at identifying works by artists I'm familiar with--I can easily walk into a room at a museum and start pointing at artworks across the room and tell you which one is by Romaine Brooks or Archipenko or Jacob Lawrence. But that doesn't mean I can summon up artworks in my mind in anything but the vaguest way. I have a general sense of what Matisse's Blue Nude looks like (horizontal, blue body, fairly abstract), but that's about as clear as I can get. I don't know whether her head is to the right or the left until I refresh my memory by looking at a photo of the painting.
This led to a somewhat embarrassing moment in my PhD orals, in fact. We were discussing collage, and at some point Terry Smith, who was on my dissertation committee, expected me to remember what Picasso's Still Life with Chair Caning looks like. It wasn't unreasonable of him to expect me to know this work, because it actually is quite important in the history of collage. I did know that I was generally familiar with it and could probably identify it if I saw it, but at that point in my studies I hadn't fully realized its historical significance; to me it was just one of many works that Picasso and Braque made around 1912 that combined painting and collage or assemblage. But Terry seemed to think he could gradually lead me to visualize the thing, which I really couldn't do. Even now, after having taught this artwork many times, the best I can do is summon up a horizontal oval framed by a piece of rope. I'm aware that Picasso collaged a print of chair-caning onto the thing, but although I can sort of recall the pattern of the chair-caning, I can't attach that to the oval framed by the rope, or recall just what Picasso painted onto the print except that it was the sort of standard table-top items Picasso liked to put in his still lifes at that period in his career. So... probably a newspaper and a bottle or glass or cup and maybe a plate. This kind of detail just does not remain in my visual memory.
Likewise, while I have a clearer visual recollection of Girodet's painting Endymion, which I've also often taught and which is the basis of the more psychedelic-looking figure on the cover of In Search of the Magic Theater, I couldn't tell you offhand where the dog in the painting is located. I get a fairly good mental image of the overall painting--it's dark, with Endymion reclining across it and Cupid entering from the upper left, but while I know the dog is in the lower part of the painting, is it to the left or the right? I just can't see the dog at all. (Granted, the dog is not a very important figure, but most pictures of the sleeping Endymion do include his dog and so does this one.)As you might guess, therefore, writing visual description is not something I'm uniformly good at. It's not that I can't do it, but I often have a very hard time recalling enough about things I want to describe.
Maggie Giles, another of the 2022 Debut novelists, is a writer who has full-blown aphantasia. She doesn't see anything at all in her mind's eye. She discusses that and other aspects of her writing in this Instagram Live interview with Dara Levan. Among the things Maggie says about her writing process: first, she writes a draft that emphasizes dialog and plot, and then she goes back and fills in description, often with the help of photographs.
What about the reader's perspective? What do readers want?
I have read that readers want and expect lots of visual information because they rely on this to form their mental movies of novels. I daresay some of them do, but I also have to wonder whether some of those readers simply lack imagination, that they can't come up with their own mental movie without a ton of help from the author. I myself enjoy rich description but it doesn't produce any sort of mental movie for me, and I don't miss rich description if it's not there--I form my own impression of characters and setting even if it's not particularly visually rich or detailed.
I've also read that readers with aphantasia may find detailed description a waste of time. Does this mean that those people not only can't picture things but don't get any sense of place or costuming or whatnot from the descriptions given? After all, many people with aphantasia are actually visual artists, so it isn't like having aphantasia means that a person necessarily lacks visual skills, they just don't see things in their mind's eye. I'll bet some of those artists with aphantasia could come up with illustrations for what they've read. And--a different question--are Ivy Compton Burnett's novels especially appealing to readers with aphantasia because they consist almost solely of dialog and are nearly devoid of visual description? Inquiring minds want to know!
I haven't even touched upon aphantasia and hyper-phantasia in senses other than the visual. All of this varies enormously from person to person. For instance, I can have extremely strong sensory recall of some kinds of touch and motion, but that doesn't mean that if I read about velvet I actually feel like I'm touching velvet. I can imagine touching velvet if I make the effort, but I don't have any emotional connection to touching velvet, so I'm not much inclined to imagine touching velvet, whereas I have a strong emotional connection to the memory of my late Rex rabbit Mikko (aka Mr. Velvet-coat) and can instantly recall the sensation of his fur.
Want to learn more about aphantasia? Check out www.aphantasia.com. The Aphantasia Network was founded by Tom Ebeyer and has lots of interesting information on the subject.
September 22, 2022
Just a Still Life
Canadian author J. Ivanel Johnson's 2022 Debut Just a Still Life, which launches September 22nd, is a cozy mystery with an unusual back story: it was first drafted 75 years ago by the author's grandmother, the original Ivanel. It's 1971 and Inspector Philip Steele, recently transferred to Fredericton,New Brunswick, takes a well-deserved holiday with his godmother in her quaint Victorian village just north of the capital. But when a bank robbery and the murder of a teenage boy initiate a string of even more shocking events, wreaking panic in the quiet community, Phil must return to long days of investigation, and while his godmother prepares her annual harvest moon ritual to trap the murderer, Phil has fallen in love with the accused.
September 21, 2022
Toyen turns 120
Hard to believe, but Toyen, the subject of my book Magnetic Woman: Toyen and the Surrealist Erotic (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020) turns 120 today. Toyen was born at 6pm Central European time, so this post will go up just a little bit before that.
Toyen was born in Prague (or technically Smíchov, which wasn't yet incorporated into Greater Prague then) and joined the avant-garde Devětsil group in 1923 with her friends the fellow artists Jindřich Štyrský and Remo. She and Štyrský later became founding members of the Prague surrealist group; they were among the most significant Czech artists of the first half of the twentieth century, a period when Czechoslovakia was a hotbed of artistic, literary, theatrical, and musical creativity. While Štyrský did not survive the Second World War (his health was poor), Toyen helped hide a surrealist of Jewish descent, Jindřich Heisler, from the Nazis and the two later moved to Paris to join the surrealist group there.
You can listen to a New Books Network podcast episode in which John Raimo interviews me about Toyen. I'll also be presenting a paper on Toyen at the 2022 SECAC conference in October.
Toyen was born in Prague (or technically Smíchov, which wasn't yet incorporated into Greater Prague then) and joined the avant-garde Devětsil group in 1923 with her friends the fellow artists Jindřich Štyrský and Remo. She and Štyrský later became founding members of the Prague surrealist group; they were among the most significant Czech artists of the first half of the twentieth century, a period when Czechoslovakia was a hotbed of artistic, literary, theatrical, and musical creativity. While Štyrský did not survive the Second World War (his health was poor), Toyen helped hide a surrealist of Jewish descent, Jindřich Heisler, from the Nazis and the two later moved to Paris to join the surrealist group there.
You can listen to a New Books Network podcast episode in which John Raimo interviews me about Toyen. I'll also be presenting a paper on Toyen at the 2022 SECAC conference in October.
Perils of Sea and Sky
Norwegian author Lilian Horn's steampunk Perils of Sea and Sky is a 2022 Debut launching September 20th. Discovery of anti-gravity technology in the early 1700s has led to a remarkable leap in the aero-ship trade. But no sky captain dares to venture into the Grey Veil, an inhospitable fog threatening the lives and sanity of all who enter. With the Veil under a strict travel ban, most pilots avoid it. Captain Rosanne Drackenheart, however, makes a pretty penny conducting her smuggling operation through the very edge of the mysterious fog. Yet when she is blackmailed into searching for a lost warship, she is forced to venture into the untraversed bowels of the Veil...
September 20, 2022
Three Muses
Three Muses, by Martha Anne Toll, launches September 20 from Regal House.
From the Regal House website:
From the Regal House website:
Three Muses is a love story that enthralls; a tale of Holocaust survival venturing through memory, trauma, and identity, while raising the curtain on the unforgiving discipline of ballet. Pulitzer-prize winner Paul Harding calls Three Muses a “meditation on history, music, the catastrophic inheritances of the Holocaust, and the so common, painful hiddenness of hope itself… [it] captivates the reader from the first page to the last.” In post-WWII New York, John Curtin suffers lasting damage from having been forced to sing for the concentration camp kommandant who murdered his family. John trains to be a psychiatrist, struggling to wrest his life from his terror of music and his past. Katya Symanova climbs the arduous path to Prima Ballerina of the New York State Ballet, becoming enmeshed in an abusive relationship with her choreographer, who makes Katya a star but controls her life. When John receives a ticket to attend a ballet featuring Katya Symanova, a spell is cast. As John and Katya follow circuitous paths to one another, fear and promise rise in equal measure. Three muses—Song, Discipline, and Memory—weave their way through love and loss, heartbreak and triumph to leave readers of this prize-winning debut breathless.
September 17, 2022
The Net Beneath Us
Carol Dunbar's The Net Beneath Us is a 2022 Debut launching September 13th. Elsa Arnasson never dreamed of living in the woods, let alone off the grid, in a house her husband is building from the trees he fells by hand. But there she is, and when a logging accident changes everything for their budding family, Elsa has more questions than answers about how to carry on in the unfinished house. Ultimately, she must learn how to forge her own relationship with the land and accept help from the people and places she least expects.
September 16, 2022
This Saturday at Joseph-Beth in Cincinnati!
Don't forget, I'll be signing copies of
In Search of the Magic Theater
this Saturday, September 17th, at the Joseph-Beth bookstore in Cincinnati! I'll begin signing at 11 a.m. and the bookstore has a nice cafe if you'd like to catch brunch or lunch along with your book shopping.
Why, the young cellist Sarah wonders, should her aunt rent their spare room to the perhaps unstable Kari? While Kari’s busy leaving her marriage and meeting a young man she calls Endymion, Sarah’s wrestling with her hatred for her dead mother and getting into challenging emotional situations. Their stories collide when Sarah attends Kari’s play after having just met her probable father.
September 15, 2022
In the Shadow Garden
Liz Parker's contemporary fantasy In the Shadow Garden is a 2022 Debut launching September 13th. Yarrow, Kentucky, is a magical place. The three witches of the Haywood family are known for their shadow garden—from strawberries that taste like chocolate to cherry tomatoes with hints of basil and oregano. Their magic can cure any heartache, and the fruits of their garden bring a special quality to the local bourbon distillery. But twenty years ago, the town lost more than one memory for the year; they forgot an entire summer. One person died. One person disappeared. And no one has any idea why. The only clue Irene Haywood has is in her tea leaves: a stranger’s arrival will bring either love or betrayal…
September 14, 2022
Notorious Sorcerer
Notorious Sorcerer, a 2022 Debut by Australian author Davinia Evans, launches September 14. Ever since the city of Bezim was shaken half into the sea by a magical earthquake, the Inquisitors have intensively policed alchemy. Nothing too much like real magic is allowed–and the careful science that’s left is kept too expensive for any but the rich and indolent to tinker with. Siyon Velo, a glorified errand boy scraping together lesson money, doesn’t qualify. But when Siyon accidentally commits a public act of impossible magic, he’s catapulted into the limelight... which isn't a good place to be!
September 13, 2022
The Make-up Test
Jenny L. Howe's 2022 Debut The Make-up Test is a contemporary rom-com set in the world of academe and launching September 13th. Competitive Allison Avery has been accepted into her dream Ph.D. program, studying medieval literature under a professor she’s admired for years. Classes are intense, her best friend is drifting away, and her students aren't eager to discuss The Knight’s Tale—but she’s doing fine until her ex-boyfriend shows up. Colin Benjamin might be the only person who loves winning more than Allison does, and when they’re both assigned to TA for the same professor, the game is on. But are they better off competing or getting back on the same team?
