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<\/a>I\u2019ve subscribed to John Warner\u2019s newsletter, \u201cThe Biblioracle Recommends<\/a>,\u201d for some time now. It\u2019s all about reading and writing, a thoughtful source for ideas on how to teach writing and for clear criticism of so-called AI.<\/p>\nHe publishes every Sunday and I set aside time to read his essay carefully because he always gives me something to chew on. With that in mind, I checked his latest book More Than Words<\/i><\/a> out of my library.<\/p>\n I was not disappointed.<\/p>\n Warner writes lyrically about writing in ways that will make perfect sense to all writers. For me, reading this book put a name to many things about writing that I knew but had never put into words.<\/p>\n For example, he says:<\/p>\n If we consider writing as the fully embodied practice that it is, words and sentences are not the basics or base units of writing. To start writing, first you need an idea.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Then he adds, after having spent some time thinking about what he just wrote:<\/p>\n It\u2019s not even a full-fledged idea that\u2019s the base unit of writing. It\u2019s something smaller. Let\u2019s call it a \u201cnotion.\u201d If an idea is the atom, the true building block of writing matter, consider the notion a subatomic particle, perhaps along with the \u201cinkling,\u201d \u201csense,\u201d \u201csuspicion,\u201d and \u201chunch.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n He also quotes from other good writers.<\/p>\n I often feel that I don\u2019t think hard enough about things until I have to write about them. \u00a0<\/a>A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. His chapters on so-called AI are particularly useful. Like most writers, he is well-aware that language prediction software can\u2019t write (or read or think). But as he observes, \u201cwhat if, in our fascination with the new and cutting edge, we lose touch with the genuine article?\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/a>Then he tells a story about, having heard through relentless marketing that astronauts drank Tang, he begged his mother to buy it instead of orange juice.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/a>Tang is, not to put a fine point on it, pretty awful. Warner calls it \u201cperfectly drinkable,\u201d but I would disagree. Of course, the disagreement is a matter of degree and not the point. Then he says:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/a>ChaptGPT is or at least may be Tang. I don\u2019t think we want a world where all we have is Tang, but we may stumble into that reality before we recognize it\u2019s happening if we\u2019re not careful and thoughtful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/a>In part 3 of the book, Warner provides specific ideas about the teaching of both writing and reading, and also addresses the future of writing for money, which, as he notes, has always been problematic. In part 4, he sets out a framework for dealing with AI called \u201cResist, Renew, Explore.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/a>That is, unlike a great many books which point out problems in society, this one actually includes some concrete ideas on what to do about them. As someone who refuses to use LLMs, I found his ideas under resist particularly attractive, particularly the first one which is \u201cresist anthropomorphizing generative AI.\u201d It can\u2019t do what humans do, so don\u2019t talk about it like it can.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/a>In a sentence that sums up much of what the book is about, he writes:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/a>Much of this book is an argument to resist that conclusion [that we will come to value what chatbots produce above other writing] by recognizing what I think are deeper values attached to writing and reading that must be preserved not for the sake of nostalgia but because they are significant to being human.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/a>There\u2019s so much more to this book than what I\u2019ve been able to hint at here. I think anyone interested in reading and writing, and particularly anyone who teaches reading and writing, should read it.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/a>Warner has two earlier books that also look interesting: Why They Can\u2019t Write <\/a>and The Writer\u2019s Practice<\/a>. He also writes fiction as well as his newsletter and book reviews for the Chicago Tribune<\/i>, which is to say that he reads and writes for a living.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/a>In a discussion of his graduate work in writing at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, Warner writes about how the director of the writing program showed him \u201cthat it was not wrong to abandon oneself to writing, to thinking and feeling.\u201d He goes on to say:<\/p>\n
\n—Rebecca Solnit<\/p>\n
\n—Thomas Mann\u00a0<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n