Reading... with Pen in Hand!

The you hear when you read silently is not silent; it is a speaking-out-loud in your head: it is spoken, a is saying it as you read. It's the writer's words, of course, in a literary sense his or her voice but the sound of that is the sound of your voice. Not the sound your friends know or the sound of a tape played back, but your caught in the dark cathedral of your skull, your heard by an internal ear informed by internal abstracts and what you know by feeling, having felt. It is your saying, for example, the word that the writer wrote but the you say is a barn you know or knew. The in your head, speaking as you read, never says anything neutrally-some people hated the barn they knew, some people love the barn they know so you hear the word loaded and a sensory constellation is lit: horse-gnawed stalls, hayloft, black heat tape wrapping a water pipe, a slippery spilled chirrr of oats from a split sack, the bony,filthy haunches ofcows ... And is only a noun-no verb or subject has entered into the sentence yet! The you hear when you read to yourself is the clearest voice: you speak it speaking to you. -Thomas Lux