Now, obviously, the reading of a book
is a neurological phenomenon.
It is reading these words on the page
that are triggering certain responses
in our brains, in our neurology.
Obviously, we're reading these things
at a normal reading pace we're reading them in seconds.
But there are quite a lot of tiny things
quite important things that are going on in our minds
during that one and a half seconds.
This was best explained, I think
by the science-fiction writer, Samuel R Delaney
who used the first line of one of his science-fiction novels
to illustrate how each word that we read
will redefine the words that we've already read.
And the sentence was... OK, the first word was "the"
and Delaney said that, OK, to him
the word "the" the definite article
you know something's there
but you don't know what it is yet.
So, he imagined the word "the" as kind of ellipse, an oval.
A grey oval just hanging there in space.
The second word was "red"...
"The red".
OK, his grey ellipse has changed to a red ellipse.
The third word was "sun"...
"The red sun".
So, alright, his red ellipse has now become a circle
and is has risen a little bit higher in his imaginary picture.
The next word, "The red sun is".
OK, this is the present tense.
So, he immediately feels a little bit more engaged
because this is something that's happening right now
whereas if it was the past tense
you'd feel perhaps a little distanced from it.
OK, "The red sun is".
The next word, "high" comma.
OK, so your red circle has now moved right to the top
of your imaginary picture.
The next word, "the".
"The red sun is high, the..."
We've got another grey ellipse.
The next word, "blue".
"The red sun is high, the blue".
So, the grey ellipse has turned blue.
The last word is "low" Full stop.
"The red sun is high, the blue low."
We are immediately transported to an entirely alien landscape
that has two suns, one red, one blue.
They are both casting shadows in different directions
and probably, at the intersection
of those shadows, the shadows are violet.
We are immediately
upon a completely extra-terrestrial planet.
And that is all accomplished
with seven words in the right order.
So, why do words impact with us?
Why do they affect us that much?
I think that this might have something to do
with the phenomenon discovered relatively recently
called mirror neurons.
Apparently, we all have mirror neurons in our brain.
And if we are watching somebody, say, rowing a boat
then it turns out that exactly the same areas in our brains
will light up as if we were rowing a boat.
It's like we get a ghostly echo in our neurology
of the things that we are looking at.
And I suspect that is the same
whether we're looking at this in real life
or if we're looking at it in a film.
For example, with myself, if I'm watching a film
where somebody is in danger
of falling from a great height
if they're on a window ledge
or if they're hanging out of the door of an aeroplane
I will immediately find that my palms start to perspire
until they're dripping wet.
The soles of my feet will start to cringe.
It's a really anxious
and unpleasant physical experience.
Also, even if someone were to write compelling me enough
about such a scene, I would get exactly the same reaction.
And I think that this is all down to mirror neurons.
So, obviously, when we interact with writing
there is something quite unusual going on.
It bring to mind one of the marvellous tricks
that William Shakespeare used
and I don't know how he did this
but, with modern brain-imaging techniques
we have been able to hook up people's brains
so we can see what kind of patterns of activity
are being activated
and then give them some Shakespeare to read.
It turns out that...
one of the things that people like most
about Shakespeare is his wordplay.
There was a phrase, I'm not sure which book
or play this was from.
But, the phrase was
"Wouldst thou lip a bawd?"
Now, what Shakespeare's done here
is he has changed a noun into a verb
i.e. he's used the word "lip"
to mean, kind of, "kiss".
Wouldst thou kiss...
"Wouldst thou lip a bawd?"
"Bawd," he's taken the word "bawdy"
which is an adjective and he's changed it into a noun.
Bawdy, so a bawd, in context
would mean a loose woman, a strumpet
a harlot, something like that.
But when Shakespeare does this stuff
it turns out our neurology goes crazy.
It becomes really excited
because something unusual is being done with language
and practically our entire consciousness
is made of language.
So, by messing about with it
Shakespeare is able to excite our neurons
and he only does this
and he must have done this instinctively
because he didn't have brain imaging technology
but he only does this
just before an important dramatic denouement.
He gets our brains primed with his clever wordplay
so that they're excited, they're up for something.
They want something exciting to happen.
And then he gives us his big dramatic resolutions.
This is the power of language over our minds.
If we alter the mode of the language
if mess about and translate it into something
that we don't quite understand
then we become very neurologically excited.
It's a bit like, say, the writings of James Joyce
where he was doing all of this incredibly intricate stuff
with the actual words themselves.
Or in some ways, it's like...
believers in magic, or magicians.
They will often say that you should
use barbarous names.
What they mean is you should make your spells
in a language that you do not personally understand.
That can be Latin, it can be English, it can be anything.
The important thing is when we're using language
that we don't understand our minds go all over the place.
They enter into a much more receptive state.
As an example, of how say, the writings of James Joyce
can affect our consciousness
I would point out my own experience.
When I was writing my novel Jerusalem
and had, for some reason, decided to do a chapter
all about James Joyce's daughter, Lucia Joyce
when she was confined at a mental institution
in Northampton for the last 40 years of her life.
And I decided to have all of this
in the language of her father
which meant that I was inventing nearly every word in the story.
My spellchecker was having a mental breakdown.
And it took me a couple of months
to write this stuff.
And after I'd finished it
I couldn't even think in proper English anymore.
My mind had become so conditioned
to making up new words out of everything
that I was unable to have a basic conversation.
I had to take 18 months off
publishing an underground magazine
before I could get back to the book
and write in proper English again.
Now, fortunately for you, as a would-be writer
this is not going to be a problem for a long time yet.
Or at least, I would hope so.
But be warned.
This could be waiting for you some point down the line
when you have degenerated to the level
that I have degenerated to.
Now, in thinking about how writing affects our minds
it might be worth remembering
the concept that George Orwell
first introduced in 1984, which was of "Newspeak"
which is a new form of English
engineered by the state with very few words
so that the actual consciousness of the people using the language
is limited, so that they do not have concepts.
They do not have words, they are limited in what they can think.
Now, actually, that sounds pretty true to me.
I think that the less language you have
probably the more easily controlled you are.
But, if that is true and I fear that it probably is
must not the converse also be true?
If you expand your vocabulary
if you expand your use of language
does that not mean
that your consciousness will be expanding as well?
As will the consciousness of your readers.
So, that is something which you might want to think about.