How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
"The idea that Lotaria reads my books in this way creates some problems for me. Now, every time I write a word, I see it spun around by the electronic brain, ranked according to its frequency […] I try to imagine what conclusions can be drawn from the fact that I have used this word once or fifty times." (15.104)
After Lotaria has shown how a computer can read and analyze books for her, Flannery becomes troubled about his own writing. Now that he knows that people like Lotaria are out there reading his novels this way, he stresses about what conclusions a computer would draw from his stories. In this sense, Calvino suggests that the academic approach to reading has a way of infecting what it touches and ruining pleasure for anyone who's interested in stories for their own sake. Lotaria's approach to reading is a form of pollution in this book, and even though Calvino gives her approach some credit for the energy it brings to literature, he ultimately finds that it does way more harm than good.