On the physicality of words

Verlyn Klinkenborg wrote in yesterday's New York Times about "the lost art of reading aloud." About listening to a book being read aloud and reading it aloud yourself, he says:

Both are good ways to learn something important about the rhythms of language. But one of the most basic tests of comprehension is to ask someone to read aloud from a book. It reveals far more than whether the reader understands the words. It reveals how far into the words -- and the pattern of the words -- the reader really sees.

Reading aloud recaptures the physicality of words. To read with your lungs and diaphragm, with your tongue and lips, is very different than reading with your eyes alone. The language becomes a part of the body, which is why there is always a curious tenderness, almost an erotic quality, in those 18th- and 19th-century literary scenes where a book is being read aloud in mixed company. The words are not mere words. They are the breath and mind, perhaps even the soul, of the person who is reading.

Over the course of my married life, I have occasionally been called to account for my shortcomings as a mate. The last time this happened, I suggested that we shouldn't cherry-pick the downsides without considering the wholeness of what I bring to a relationship. So I started listing the upsides. I ran through the predictable Men are from Mars qualities and then surprised myself with a heartfelt "and when I'm reading a book I think you'd like, I read it aloud to you, page after page, late into the night, until you fall asleep--hell, that alone is worth cutting some slack on a few character flaws." As I reached the "that alone" part I had convinced myself that this was powerful stuff. Well it may have been.