Nothing worse than opening up a cool used book and finding out it's all written in. Highlighter all over, lines and lines underlined, useless comments on the side. I hate it. I know some schools teach you to annotate your books as a reading method. It immerses you in the book in a more physical way or whatever. Helps you comprehend more because you're getting involved as you read. But it's ugly and I have to wonder how excessive annotations really just get in the way.
I'm reading Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault, and my new copy has at least ten pages throughout that are overly-underlined. Like at a certain point, did you not stop and have to rest your hand? Two-thirds covered in ink. Practically every sentence. Or like just not one sentence. How did that help? Why not just put a star on the page you like? The worst part is that you've actually made it impossible to casually read. I can barely comprehend those sections. All I can look at are the lines.
But I needed the book and most pages are clean and it's a great book. A pleasure to read. He's talking about how imprisonment used to mean physical, public torture and murder. Then it got reformed into something that aims to punish your soul. Later in the book (I'm 1/3 done) he's also talking about how other places were designed like the prison model--like schools, hospitals, and the military. Uniform lines of people complying and being quiet and following orders. It's hypnotizing.
-Rachel Wagner
