Far from being "unprecedented" (VII), as it falsely proclaims, Seeing & Writing follows in a definite academic tradition, identified by Fred Morgan as that popularized in Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality by Frederick S. Perls, Ralph F. Hefferline, and Paul Goodman (tell me more). Here and Now was a very popular and widely used composition textbook in the late sixties and early seventies, but has been out of print for almost 30 years. Nonetheless, a comparison of these two composition readers (an analytical approach much favored by both) instructively illustrates their shared credo that "Good writing stems from good observation, poor writing from poor observation" (Morgan 2). Anyone whose classroom experience has already discredited this belief as an organizing principle for a composition textbook or course of instruction, should skip that comparison and go directly to the Re-View.

Like all good coffee table books, Seeing & Writing is visually and emotionally appealing, weighty (over 2 pounds) but not intellectually demanding, large (563 pages), impressive, and expensive (suggested price = $38.95). The "flexible" (IX) (= arbitrary) arrangement of this "compilation" (= from Latin compilare "to heap together") of 55 "verbal texts" (= words) and 175 "visual texts" (= pictures) allows it to be thumbed through (granted, with some difficulty because of its weight and square shape) at random or juxtaposed through pairings, portfolios, and retrospects. Indeed, the lack of an index that offers more than names and titles for the verbal and visual texts, and a somewhat overwhelming (8-page) and capricious "Table of Contents" invite such an aleatoric reading.

Tehabi Books, publishers of "fine coffee table books at a discount," is a good source of more information about this genre.

Get me back to the beginning.