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February 15 - February 25, 2020
As Pascal observed three hundred years ago, “When we read too fast or too slowly, we understand nothing.”
We do not have to know everything about something in order to understand it; too many facts are often as much of an obstacle to understanding as too few.
Reading and listening are thought of as receiving communication from someone who is actively engaged in giving or sending it. The mistake here is to suppose that receiving communication is like receiving a blow or a legacy or a judgment from the court. On the contrary, the reader or listener is much more like the catcher in a game of baseball.
Catching the ball is just as much an activity as pitching or hitting it. The pitcher or batter is the sender in the sense that his activity initiates the motion of the ball. The catcher or fielder is the receiver in the sense that his activity terminates it.
To be informed is to know simply that something is the case. To be enlightened is to know, in addition, what it is all about: why it is the case, what its connections are with other facts, in what respects it is the same, in what respects it is different, and so forth.
Enlightenment is achieved only when, in addition to knowing what an author says, you know what he means and why he says it.
Being informed is prerequisite to being enlightened. The point, however, is not to stop at being informed.
discovery—the process of learning something by research, by investigation, or by reflection, without being taught.
The art of reading, in short, includes all of the same skills that are involved in the art of unaided discovery: keenness of observation, readily available memory, range of imagination, and, of course, an intellect trained in analysis and reflection.
The reason is that listening is learning from a teacher who is present—a living teacher—while reading is learning from one who is absent.
If you ask a living teacher a question, he will probably answer you. If you are puzzled by what he says, you can save yourself the trouble of thinking by asking him what he means. If, however, you ask a book a question, you must answer it yourself.
The second level of reading we will call Inspectional Reading. It is characterized by its special emphasis on time.
Inspectional reading is the art of skimming systematically.
Analytical reading is thorough reading, complete reading, or good reading—the best reading you can do.
a book—the metaphor is apt—and works at it until the book becomes his own. Francis Bacon once remarked that “some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” Reading a book analytically is chewing and digesting it.
Inspectional reading is a true level of reading.
Thus, elementary reading is contained in inspectional reading, as, indeed, inspectional reading is contained in analytical reading, and analytical reading in syntopical reading.
In tackling a difficult book for the first time, read it through without ever stopping to look up or ponder the things you do not understand right away.
There is no single right speed at which you should read; the ability to read at various speeds and to know when each speed is appropriate is the ideal. Great speed in reading is a dubious achievement; it is of value only if what you have to read is not really worth reading.
Every book should be read no more slowly than it deserves, and no more quickly than you can read it with satisfaction and comprehension.
is: Ask questions while you read—questions that you yourself must try to answer in the course of reading.
The questions answered by inspectional reading are: first, what kind of book is it? second, what is it about as a whole? and third, what is the structural order of the work whereby the author develops his conception or understanding of that general subject matter?
RULE 1. YOU MUST KNOW WHAT KIND OF BOOK YOU ARE READING, AND YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS AS EARLY IN THE PROCESS AS POSSIBLE, PREFERABLY BEFORE YOU BEGIN TO READ.
For such persons, “theoretical” means visionary or even mystical; “practical” means something that works, something that has an immediate cash return.
The practical has to do with what works in some way, at once or in the long run. The theoretical concerns something to be seen or understood.
Theoretical books teach you that something is the case. Practical books teach you how to do something you want to do or think you should do.
RULE 2. STATE THE UNITY OF THE WHOLE BOOK IN A SINGLE SENTENCE, OR AT MOST A FEW SENTENCES (A SHORT PARAGRAPH).
RULE 3. SET FORTH THE MAJOR PARTS OF THE BOOK, AND SHOW HOW THESE ARE ORGANIZED INTO A WHOLE, BY BEING ORDERED TO ONE ANOTHER AND TO THE UNITY OF THE WHOLE.
A book is like a single house. It is a mansion having many rooms, rooms on different levels, of different sizes and shapes, with different outlooks, with different uses.
A good book, like a good house, is an orderly arrangement of parts. Each major part has a certain amount of independence.
The main point is that one word can be the vehicle for many terms, and one term can be expressed by many words.
For those of us who are no longer in school, we observed, it is necessary, if we want to go on learning and discovering, to know how to make books teach us well. In that situation, if we want to go on learning, then we must know how to learn from books, which are absent teachers.
Sentences and paragraphs are grammatical units. They are units of language. Propositions and arguments are logical units, or units of thought and knowledge.
“Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.” Sir Walter Scott casts even more dire aspersions on those “who read to doubt or read to scorn.”
The more learned, however, have a right to be critical of errors made by those who lack relevant knowledge. Disagreement of this sort can also be corrected. Inequality of knowledge is always curable by instruction.
Knowledge, if you please, consists in those opinions that can be defended, opinions for which there is evidence of one kind or another.
The first requires the reader to complete the task of understanding before rushing in. The second adjures him not to be disputatious or contentious. The third asks him to view disagreement about matters of knowledge as being generally remediable.
THE FIRST STAGE OF ANALYTICAL READING: RULES FOR FINDING WHAT A BOOK IS ABOUT 1. Classify the book according to kind and subject matter. 2. State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity. 3. Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and outline these parts as you have outlined the whole. 4. Define the problem or problems the author has tried to solve. II. THE SECOND STAGE OF ANALYTICAL READING: RULES FOR INTERPRETING A BOOK’S CONTENTS 5. Come to terms with the author by interpreting his key words. 6. Grasp the author’s leading propositions by dealing with his most
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There is a much larger number that should be only inspected. To become well-read, in every sense of the word, one must know how to use whatever skill one possesses with discrimination—by reading every book according to its merits.
Common experience is available to all men and women just because they are alive. Special experience must be actively sought and is available only to those who go to the trouble of acquiring it.
The first rule of reading any book is to know what kind of book it is. That means knowing what the author’s intention was and what sort of thing you can expect to find in his work.
In short, do not forget that the dictionary is a book about words, not about things.
Expository books try to convey knowledge—knowledge about experiences that the reader has had or could have. Imaginative ones try to communicate an experience itself—one that the reader can have or share only by reading—and if they succeed, they give the reader something to be enjoyed.
That is why it seems right to say that expository books teach primarily, while imaginative books teach only derivatively, by creating experiences from which we can learn.
You have not grasped a story until you are familiar with its characters, until you have lived through its events.
Aristotle said that plot is the soul of a story. It is its life. To read a story well you must have your finger on the pulse of the narrative, be sensitive to its very beat.
don’t criticize imaginative writing until you fully appreciate what the author has tried to make you experience.
In other words, we must remember the obvious fact that we do not agree or disagree with fiction. We either like it or we do not.
Before you express your likes and dislikes, you must first be sure that you have made an honest effort to appreciate the work. By appreciation, we mean having the experience that the author tried to produce for you by working on your emotions and imagination. Thus, you cannot appreciate a novel by reading it passively (indeed, as we have remarked, you must read it passionately) any more than you can understand a philosophical book that way.
A biography can be inspiring. It is the story of a life, usually a more or less successful one—and we too have lives to lead.
