The Gift Of The Empty Hand (edit #3)

[ellajam]

[quote='milo' pid='201476' dateline='1450648144']
I have not read either the poems or the critiques enough times to really comment but I would like to say I prefer "unreadable " to illegible. I can expound if you would like or you can just dismiss it until I apply enough work to the whole.

I'm with you on illegible, wouldn't be me without some bad edits. Despite some encouragement here I'm not really sure this piece has what it takes, I just thought it might be fun to work on, your choice whether or not you'd enjoy taking further time with it.

ok, so here is an elongated explanation of my preferring "unreadable" to illegible.:

First, let's examine what we have - we have books on a book shelf.  Some, specifically named, are Twain, Cayce, Eliot - these have no descriptive - then we have the generalized religious tomes which are described as illegible.  From what you have given us, we can conclude that either the tomes are too old, faded, or damaged to be read but are kept anyway.  So, why mention them alongside the others and why are they kept.  There is really nothing for a reader to do with this information.

"unreadable", otoh, has multiple meanings.  It /can/ mean that the text is indeed illegible though this would be unlikely.  Things can be rendered unreadable by their complexity but, more likely in this case i think, by their contrast with the other books on the shelf.  I have an old history of the American civil war I have been meaning to read for at least 10 years.  For some reason it is unreadable - why? - because there has been too much Twain, Cayce and Eliot available in m y life.  

For me, with the choice of unreadable, I get a narrator that finds religious tomes important but reading for pleasure preferable.  i find this interesting in a poem as it does character development without ever actually "telling" me about a character.

Anyway, that is the elongated version of why i would prefer 1 word over the other.

Good luck, thanks for posting.

Thanks milo, a very interesting reading and what in fact I was hoping to do with the list, it is about people, not things. So now I look at the original:

religious tomes in languages
the rest of us couldn't read

It explains one why but closes off other options which you came to with less definition, that fuzzy illegible, and which in fact is a fine direction for the reader to go. I had been considering going back to the original but now I think I'll try to work with unreadable or something like it. Thanks for taking the time to explain, milo, a big help.