The traveler, the tower, and the worm : the reader as metaphor / Alberto Manguel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Manguel, Alberto, author.

Contributor:

ProQuest (Firm)

Series:

Material texts

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literature and anthropology.

Literature and society.

Signs and symbols.

Books and reading--Philosophy.

Books and reading.

Philosophy.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (141 pages) : illustrations.

polychrome

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2013]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

The book is many things. As a repository of memory a means of overcoming the constraints of time and space, a site for reflection and creativity, an archive of the experience of ourselves and others, a source of illumination, happiness, and sometimes consolation, a chronicle of events past, present, and future, a mirror, a companion, a teacher, a conjuring-up of the dead, an amusement, the book in its many incarnations, from clay tablet to electronic page, has long served as a metaphor for many or our essential concepts and undertakings.... It is not surprising that such a miraculous instrument should appear in the mind or early readers as the metaphorical manifestation of other miracles, of the inconceivable universe, and of their unintelligible lives. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 The Reader as Traveler: Reading as Recognition of the World 7

2 The Reader in the Ivory Tower: Reading as Alienation from the World 51

3 The Bookworm: The Reader as Inventor of the World 89.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [121]-135) and index.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest, 2015. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest affiliated libraries.

OCLC:

859160750

Publisher Number:

EBC3442118

Access Restriction:

1 online resource