"How to Read a Book: Part 1" A summary and commentary

What follows my dear readers is as the title says a commentary on and summary of part 1 of How to Read a Book. Let me preface this by a quick note that this book was last revised and updated in the 1970's so some of its facts and statistics may be a bit outdated but its overall theories and practices are still very applicable.

The book defines a reader as one who wants to gain the majority of his or her information and understanding through the written word. And in an age where TV and radio hand us statistics and facts, making our minds up for us without our realizing, reading has become even more necessary.

I believe we would all agree that reading is an activity ergo the term passive reading is somewhat of a misnomer. In this case it refers rather to less active reading. The more active the reader, the more s/he will demand not only from him/herself but from the text. One could say that reading is much like catching (as is listening) but unlike catching where the ball is either caught or not there are varying degrees of success to catching the words of an author (or speaker). And much like a pitcher wants his ball to be caught the author wants his words understood, though it may not seem like it some times, you and the author are on the same team. It is a matter of both yours and the authors skill how successful the catch is. Though your goal so often enters into it too.

There are in the end three goals when it comes to reading. The first and probably the easiest is to be entertained, the second to be informed and finally to gain understanding or enlightenment. While we allow for the importance of reading to be informed, a recitation of facts can even lead to enlightenment; let us for now stick with the last of these goals. You must struggle with a book at first to hope to reach understanding.You may in fact grasp just enough to know that you are lost. Using the skills taught in How to Read a Book you can with just the difficult book and your own mind "lift yourself from a state of understanding less to one of understanding more" (8)

The book goes on to define the art of reading as "the process whereby a mind, with nothing to operate on but the symbols of readable matter and with no help from outside, elevates itself by the power of its own operations." (8) So in short it is reading a book and through just that book learning about the subject matter. With learning being defined as a deeper understanding and not just the retention of information.

Now if we accept that such learning can only occur guided by those who have better understanding than us. Than we must learn not only to find these better authors, but to read them as demandingly and actively as we can. In order to become informed and move past that state to enlightenment.

Let us allow the being informed is to know the facts of something. To be enlightened is to know the why of the facts. I am having a hard time coming up with an example at the moment but I would be interested if anyone could come up with a complete one.

So if being informed is knowing the facts and enlightened the whys then one would wonder what one could teach and I theorize that while one can discover understanding one cannot be instructed on it. Having tutored some in high-school that moment of understanding seemed always reached on their own. Instruction is where one teaches or leads another, discovery is learned through investigation. It seems that while I instructed on the facts I was merely setting up the information before my pupil for him to find his own path of discovery for it seemed I said nothing when that lightning flash occurred and they understood.

So long as you are reading to understand, the more effort you put in the more you will get out of what you are reading, for it is a art of "guided discovery" to use their term.

Now I have told you to read actively but I have not told you what that means or how to do it. So lets start with what it means to read actively. There are four levels of active reading, they are elementary or rudimentary reading, inspectional reading or skimming systematically, analytical reading, and syntopical reading. Elementary reading is your most basic reading, recognition of words and sentences, not real comprehension of meaning. Inspectional reading is a quick skimming of the book that pigeonholes the book and gives you a structural overview. Analytical reading is a thourough reading, a "chewing over and digesting" to steal a term from Francis Brown its mainly for understanding. Sytopical Reading is a comparative reading of topics across many books. Each level of reading builds off the last.

The book goes on to talk about the four stages of elementary reading. It goes on to make the point that most high-schools and many colleges unfortunately have to have classes get there students to reach the final one of these stages which according to them should have been reached at the end of middle school. Such was the case at my high-school for many of the students. Thus analytical reading was never taught and had to be learned on its own.

However I will assume that you my reader have a solid grasp on elementary reading. If you do not I would suggest some community college English classes to get a better grasp on it if you are not in college.

But onto the second how or the second level of active reading inspectional reading has two parts. As an expirenced reader you can combine them but at the start treat them as distinct important steps. For the first step I am going to ask you to imagine you are at the bookstore and you are looking at a book, the store is going to close in 15 minutes and you are trying to decide if you should buy the book. You have the questions: Do I want to read this book? Will it increase my understanding? Do I read it analytically? You can either buy the book and take it home just to find out it wasn't worth it OR you skim or pre read it following these steps which will not only tell you what kind of book it is but give you an idea of the authors argument.

THE STEPS FOR PRE-READING

1. Look at the title and authors preface
note sub-title
don't read translators or scholars prefaces untill you have read the work
try and pigeonhole the type of book

2. Study the table of contents
Look for its structure

3. Check the index
notice the major topics and argument points

4. Read the publishers blurb if there is one

5. Look at pivotal chapters

6. Turn the pages dip in to read a few paragraphs or pages here or there in non imaginative works read the last few pages

all this should take a few minutes to at most an hour.

The second part is the suggestion of reading a difficult book twice the first time straight through not pausing to look things up or puzzle over difficult passages, leave that for the second reading. They believe that reading it in such a way will not only make it easier to understand the work but also to stick to with it and finish these difficult works. Now I'll admit I have not tried this myself, though when I come to a difficult passage i have started reading it twice, once quickly and then again slowly for comprehension.

A note on speed reading: Different reading materials deserve different reading speeds. Even within books worth reading analytically you do not want to read the whole work at the same pace, but anything worth understanding is worth reading slowly.

So long as your goal is to be a demanding reader you must ask questions. In fact you must ask very specific questions.

What is the work about?
What is being said in detail? How is it being said?
Is the work true?
What of it?


In order to help you read actively I suggest you assemble a tool kit. The book says to mark the book up but knowing that some of you may be borrowing books I will make two sets of suggestions first for the book owner and then for the borrower.



FOR THE BOOK OWNER

The tool kit
-A pencil
-a highlighter
-post-it tabs

Marks
-underlining
-vertical lines in margin
-various marks in margin
 - numbers marking points in argument in margin
-numbers of other pages in margin
-circling key words or phrases
-write in blank space on page
-write on blank pages



FOR THE BORROWER

tool kit
-Sticky notes of various sizes and/or colors
-note book
-pen or pencile

marks
-sticky notes with marks indicating important passages, numbers of points in argument, numbers of other pages or other notes
- notes and quotes in notebook.






So concludes part 1 part 2 to follow.


Work cited.
Adler, Mortimer J., Charles Van Doren. How to Read a Book. revised and updated edition. Simon & Schuster. New York, NY. 1972. Print.

Introductions and first assignments.

I am a Johnnie. Now to those of you who have not heard of St. Johns College that may not mean much but to those who have this blog will not need explanation. I will leave you my dear readers to figure out what exactly St. John's is, it is enough to say that it has left me with a love of learning even if various things made it impossible for me to finish my stint there.  Now years later I am preparing to return to college and my mind is begging for engagement so I am starting my own version of the St. John's curriculum on my own holding discussions with friends and my hope is readers.

The first reading I am doing is The Iliad by Homer books 1-5 (http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwcanoniccom-20&index=blended&link_code=qs&field-keywords=iliad&sourceid=Mozilla-search). I will make a point of not pushing translations with a few exceptions but I will link my readers to the amazon list of the work so they can pick a translator and get the isbn number of the translation they choose and go about getting it however they want. All of these works should be available at you local library.

I will also be working on a novel called Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=sophies+world+jostein+gaarder&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Asophies+world+jostein+gaarder&ajr=3) though that will be with a less structured time table and regularity. This is a book my father read to me when I was young and he and i are reading it again and discussing it. It is the story of a girl discovering philosophy, and a mystery.

I will also be personally working on How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren (http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/0671212095/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1297270146&sr=8-1) and in order to look at how best to examine the works I will be reading.


Anyways it is my hope that many of you will join me on this path of learning and discovery and in the end each make your own decision did the Greats really matter.  It is my hope that everyone can learn something even if they don't follow the readings though you will gain far more if you do read along and participate.





(much thanks for the title owed to Thomas Cahill author of Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Did the Greeks Matter? and my grandparents who gave me the book which will be on the reading list later.)