What type of reader are you?

[BeaAndBen]

I was talking with some friends about favourite books and the topic of visualisation came up. Two of us said we picture the room, or space, or environment quite specifically and three of us said they don't form any mental images at all.

I also 'hear' inflection as I read, and have a strong sense of place - Hamnet, as a relatively recent example, had feeling like I was right there in that house, brushing the dusty yard or laying on a mat on the worn wooden floor.

My friend said she pictures the characters or costumes but not the locations so much, and our other friends said they just hear it like a radio play without images. One admitted to skipping the descriptions and focusing on the dialogue!

What kind of reader are you?

I have a very strong sense of place and people in my head. It’s a perfectly formed world. However it’s largely from my imagination as I am guilty of skipping long descriptions to get to the plot and dialogue.

I'm the sort of reader who doesn't get off trains at the correct station because I get so absorbed with what I'm reading! I just seem to be able to blot out the rest of the world! I once found myself heading for Kent when I should have got off the train in Hampshire . . . . .

I see it like a movie in my head, I can clearly see the places and the characters and imagine myself right alongside them. Having said that I don’t think I picture their faces so I guess I maybe don’t imagine quite as much as I think I do.

What an interesting question.

Thinking of the last book I read, I formed vague images of the people, their characteristics, places etc . Maybe not actual facial details, but more as if you were viewing them from afar.

I struggled with Brigerton at first because I’d just read the book, and the people didn’t really match my images. For example, Daphne was a much stronger, feisty person in the book compared to the screen play.

I think it depends on the writing - some authors are better at visual depictions than others, some are better at characterisations, some are great at both - Emily Brontë for example. It's their talent that draws you into how you interpret and experience their writing.

But in general, I tend to get more into characterisation, not saying that I feel how they feel, but more that I 'get' how they feel and it makes the reading of the story that much richer for me. I cannot read: "You said I killed you, haunt me then! Be with me always, take any form, drive me mad, only do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you!" without a tear escaping. I'm crying writing it!

I hear the words in my head, including accents. I don’t really visualise anything but I have a very good idea of how l think a character looks and film and tv adaptations usually get them wrong in my opinion. I also have synesthesia, which affects both music and words. One of my favourite words is romance because I get a wonderful awareness of the scent of roses.

I don't really visualise a face or a location, but I try to 'hear' a character's voice and 'see' their gestures - I sometimes try alternative readings aloud or make the gesture myself just to bring them more alive. (I get some strange looks from people.)
Having said that, if I see a film/TV adaptation of a novel and the characters just look or sound wrong, then I have to reread the book to get it right again.

Like @Silverbirchleaf, I get a vague visualisation of the appearance of characters - but the settings are quite detailed. I read every word, and feel I would miss a major part of a book if I skipped the descriptive passages. The only voice I hear in my head is my own, really.

• I'm a poor visualizer. I think that's why I have never been able to finish The Divine Comedy. It demands a powerful, vivid, 3-dimensional imagination.

• At heart I'm a bit of an aesthete. The first thing I look for in any work of art is beauty. I love Evelyn Waugh, Virginia Woolf, P. G. Wodehouse, Anthony Burgess and Oscar Wilde for the beauty of their language.

• I'm interested in people and what makes them tick, which is why I'm drawn to writers who excel at character. The General Prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, for example, or Dickens' David Copperfield, or Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, are favourites because of the vivid characters who loom up off the page.

• I like ideas, and I love dialogue, so I'm naturally drawn to writer-philosophers like Iris Murdoch and Aldous Huxley, who excel at both.

• I loathe anything surreal or bizarre. It unnerves me. Can't be doing with magical realism, for example, or Kafka. And I've never liked Alice in Wonderland.

@Arlanymor - whereas that makes my blood run cold. Heathcliffe is a monster.

@Dappy777 - I can cope with magical realism, the aesthetic I really cannot cope with is Gothic. All the melodrama and weirdness. I agree about Alice's Adventures In Wonderland. I want to be able to like The Nightmare Before Christmas but I just can't.

I also agree with beauty. I don't like the nasty, grubby, vicious stories, I want to be uplifted or swept along. Ballard, Coetzee, William S Burroughs - just no.

@Silverbirchleaf and @mathanxiety - When I said I visualise, I don't ever see faces. Just a general impression of physicality, style and movement. I'm not inventive enough to see whole people.

@QuietlyWonderful - if I love a book, I won't watch a film or TV version. I don't want the images in my mind overwritten with the strong visuals of the film. I still haven't seen Life Of Pi and it took me 15 years to be ready to watch Gregory Peck as Atticus in TKAM.

It's interesting listening to other people's experiences.

@BeaAndBen Oh I don't like him as a character at all!

No minds eye over here, so I don't visualize a thing.
I enjoy well used language, and get into the emotion and pace of a story. I enjoy descriptions and find they can build atmosphere and feeling for me.

I have a theory that somewhere in my brain a picture is being created but its outside of my consciousness. Often movies of books are all wrong. I know my brain can make images because I dream in 'pictures' and can recognize faces etc. I think its a processing failure.

I only realised fairly recently that I really strongly visualise places when I read. I have very clear images of the houses in Diary of a Provincial Lady and in The Paying Guests for example. But the people are much more shadowy to me. Their faces are just an outline mostly. No idea why or what this means.

I see what I'm reading as a movie. I was an early reader and I could always visualise very easily if I like the book. I was probably an adult when I realised that not everyone does the same.
It's not just reading that I visualise. I basically see what's in front of me and also a video running in my mind's eye constantly. I can also imagine a static image and flick between it and the moving image in my mind.

Yes, I visualise places and landscapes much more than people and yes to those two books, I actually had to think for a second if I'd seen a TV series of The Paying Guest, the house is such a presence in that book.

I visually see the entire thing playing out in my head like watching a film. When I get into that reading flow state when the world melts away I feel as though I'm just sitting and watching the show in my head and don't really notice that I'm actually reading.

Audiobooks have an even stronger effect on me since you have the bonus of all characters having different voices (if it's a good narrator!) and no pauses in action as I turn pages/work the cramps out of my hands/neck. I often think I've been listening for around 45 mins only to find it's been 6+ hours and I'm actually desperate for the loo and incredibly thirsty!

I visually see/hear everything, like watching a film- so much so i have actually gone to pause my kindle before putting it down 😂

I have, more than once, put a book down because "there is an interesting part happening and I need to concentrate" only to be momentarily confused at why the film in my head stopped.