How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading (22 page)

4. Define the problem or problems the author has tried to solve.

I I . 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 important sentences.

7. Know the author's arguments, by finding them in, or constructing them out of, sequences of sentences.

8. Determine which of his problems the author has solved, and which he has not; and of the latter, decide which the author knew he had failed to solve.

I l l. The Third Stage of Analytical Reading: Rules for Criticizing a Book as a

Communication of Knowledge

A. General Maxims of Intellectual Etiquette

9. Do not begin criticism until you have completed your outline and your interpretation of the book. (Do not say you agree, disagree, or suspend judgment, until you can say "I understand.")

10. Do not disagree disputatiously or contentiously.

11. Demonstrate that you recognize the difference between knowledge and mere personal opinion by presenting good reasons for any critical judgment you make.

B. Special Criteria for Points of Criticism 12. Show wherein the author is uninformed.

13. Show wherein the author is misinformed.

14. Show wherein the author is illogical.

15. Show wherein the author's analysis or account is incomplete.

Note: Of these last four, the first three are criteria for disagreement. Failing in all of these, you must agree, at least in part, although you may suspend judgment on the whole, in the light of the last point.

We observed at the end of Chapter 7 that applying the first four rules of analytical reading helps you to answer the first basic question you must ask about a book, namely, What is the book about as a whole? Similarly, at the end of Chapter 9, we pointed out that applying the four rules for interpretation helps you to answer the second question you must ask, namely, What is being said in detail, and how? It is probably clear that the last seven rules of reading-the maxims of intellectual etiquette and the criteria for points of criticism-help you to answer the third and fourth basic questions you must ask. You will recall that those questions are: Is it true? and What of it?

The question, Is it true? can be asked of anything we read. It is applicable to every kind of writing, in one or another sense of "truth"-mathematical, scientific, philosophical, historical, and poetical. No higher commendation can be given any work of the human mind than to praise it for the measure of truth it has achieved; by the same token, to criticize it adversely for its failure in this respect is to treat it with the seriousness that a serious work deserves. Yet, strangely enough, in recent years, for the first time in Western history, there is a dwindling concern with this criterion of excellence. Books win the plaudits of the critics and gain widespread popular attention almost to the extent that they flout the truth-the more outrageously they do so, the better. Many readers, and most particularly those who review current publications, employ other standards for judging, and praising or condemning, the books they read-their novelty, their sensationalism, their seductiveness, their force, and even their power to bemuse or befuddle the mind, but not their truth, their clarity, or their power to enlighten. They have, perhaps, been brought to this pass by the fact that so much of current writing outside the sphere of the exact sciences manifests so little concern with truth. One might hazard the guess that if saying something that is true, in any sense of that term, were ever again to become the primary concern it should be, fewer books would be written, published, and read.

Unless what you have read is true in some sense, you need go no further. But if it is, you must face the last question.

You cannot read for information intelligently without determining what significance is, or should be, attached to the facts presented. Facts seldom come to us without some interpretation, explicit or implied. This is especially true if you are reading digests of information that necessarily select the facts according to some evaluation of their significance, some principle of interpretation. And if you are reading for enlightenment, there is really no end to the inquiry that, at every stage of learning, is renewed by the question, What of it?

These four questions, as we have already pointed out, summarize all the obligations of a reader. The first three, moreover, correspond to something in the very nature of human discourse. If communications were not complex, structural outlining would be unnecessary. If language were a perfect medium instead of a relatively opaque one, there would be no need for interpretation. If error and ignorance did not circumscribe truth and knowledge, we should not have to be critical. The fourth question turns on the distinction between information and understanding. When the material you have read is itself primarily informational, you are challenged to go further and seek enlightenment. Even when you have been somewhat enlightened by what you have read, you are called upon to continue the search for significance.

Before proceeding to Part Three, perhaps we should stress, once again, that these rules of analytical reading describe an ideal performance. Few people have ever read any book in this ideal manner, and those who have, probably read very few books this way. The ideal remains, however, the measure of achievement. You are a good reader to the degree in which you approximate it.

When we speak of someone as "well-read," we should have this ideal in mind. Too often, we use that phrase to mean the quantity rather than the quality of reading. A person who has read widely but not well deserves to be pitied rather than praised. As Thomas Hobbes said, "If I read as many books as most men do, I would be as dull-witted as they are."

The great writers have always been great readers, but that does not mean that they read all the books that, in their day, were listed as the indispensable ones. In many cases, they read fewer books than are now required in most of our colleges, but what they did read, they read well. Because they had mastered these books, they became peers with their authors. They were entitled to become authorities in their own right. In the natural course of events, a good student frequently becomes a teacher, and so, too, a good reader becomes an author.

Our intention here is not to lead you from reading to writing. It is rather to remind you that one approaches the ideal of good reading by applying the rules we have described in the reading of a single book, and not by trying to become superficially acquainted with a larger number. There are, of course, many books worth reading well. There is a much larger number that should be only inspected. To become wellread, 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.

12. AIDS TO READING

Any aid to reading that lies outside the book being read we may speak of as extrinsic. By "intrinsic reading" we mean reading a book in itself, quite apart from all other books. By "extrinsic reading" we mean reading a book in the light of other books. So far we have intentionally avoided mentioning any extrinsic aids to reading. The rules of reading we have set forth are rules of intrinsic reading-they do not include going outside the book to discover what it means. There are good reasons for our having insisted up to now on your primary task as a reader-taking the book into your study and working on it by yourself, with the power of your own mind, and with no other aids. But it would be wrong to continue insisting on this. Extrinsic aids can help. And sometimes they are necessary for full understanding.

One reason why we have said nothing about extrinsic reading up to now is that intrinsic and extrinsic reading tend to fuse in the actual process of understanding and criticizing a book. We really cannot help bringing our experience to bear on the tasks of interpretation and criticism and even outlining.

We must have read other books before this one; no one starts his reading career by reading analytically. We may not bring to bear our experience both of other books and of life as systematically as we should, but we nevertheless measure the statements and conclusions of a writer against other things that we know, from many different sources. Thus it is common sense to say that no book should be, because no book can be, read entirely and completely in isolation.

But the main reason for avoiding extrinsic aids up to this point is that many readers depend on them too slavishly, and we wanted you to realize that this is unnecessary. Reading a book with a dictionary in the other hand is a bad idea, although this does not mean you should never go to a dictionary for the meanings of words that are strange to you. And seeking the meaning of a book that puzzles you in a commentary is often ill-advised. On the whole, it is best to do all that you can by yourself before seeking outside help; for if you act consistently on this principle, you will find that you need less and less outside help.

The extrinsic aids to reading fall into four categories. In the order in which we will discuss them in this chapter, they are: first, relevant experiences; second, other books; third, commentaries and abstracts; fourth, reference books.

How and when to use any of these types of extrinsic aids cannot be stated for every particular case. Some general suggestions can be made, however. It is a common-sense maxim of reading that outside help should be sought whenever a book remains unintelligible to you, either in whole or part, after you have done your best to read it according to the rules of intrinsic reading.

The Role of Relevant Experience

There are two types of relevant experience that may be referred to for help in understanding difficult books. We have already mentioned the distinction involved, when we spoke in Chapter 6 of the difference between common experience and special experience. 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 best example of special experience is an experiment in a laboratory, but a laboratory is not always required. An anthropologist may acquire special experience by traveling to the Amazon basin, for example, to study the aboriginal inhabitants of a region that has not yet been explored. He thereby gains experience that is not ordinarily available to others, and that will never be available to many; for if large numbers of scientists invade the region, it will cease to be unique. Similarly, the experience of the astronauts on the moon is highly special, although the moon is not a laboratory in the ordinary sense of the term. Most men do not have the opportunity of knowing what it is like to live on an airless planet, and it will be centuries before this becomes a common experience, if it ever does. Jupiter, too, with its enormously greater gravity, will remain a "laboratory" in this sense for a long time to come, and may always be such.

Common experience does not have to be shared by everyone in order to be common. Common is not the same as universal. The experience of being a child of parents, for example, is not shared by every human being, for some are orphans from birth. However, family life is nevertheless common experience, because most men and women, in the ordinary course of their lives, share it. Nor is sexual love a universal experience, although it is common, in the sense we are giving the word common. Some men and women never experience it, but the experience is shared by such a high proportion of humans that it cannot be called special. (This does not mean that sexual activity cannot be studied in the laboratory, as in fact it has been.) The experience of being taught is not universal, either, for some men and women never go to school. But it, too, is common.

The two kinds of experience are mainly relevant to different kinds of books. Common experience is most relevant to the reading of fiction, on the one hand, and to the reading of philosophy, on the other. Judgments concerning the verisimilitude of a novel are almost wholly based on common experience; the book, we say, is either true or not true to our experience of life as it is led by most people, ourselves included.

The philosopher, like the poet, appeals to the common experience of mankind. He does no work in laboratories or research in the field. Hence to understand and test a philosopher's leading principles you do not need the extrinsic aid of special experience. He refers you to your own common sense and your daily observation of the world in which you live.

Special experience is mainly relevant to the reading of scientific works. To understand and judge the inductive arguments in a scientific book, you must be able to follow the evidence that the scientist reports as their basis. Sometimes the scientist's description of an experiment is so vivid and clear that you have no trouble. Sometimes illustrations and diagrams help to acquaint you with the phenomena described.

Both common and special experience are relevant to the reading of history books. This is because history partakes both of the fictional and the scientific. On the one hand, a narrative history is a story, having a plot and characters, episodes, complications of action, a climax, an aftermath. The common experience that is relevant to reading novels and plays is relevant here, too. But history is also like science, in the sense that at least some of the experience on which the historian bases his work is quite special. He may have read a document or many documents that the reader could not manage to see without great trouble. He may have done extensive research, either into the remains of past civilizations or in the form of interviews with living persons in faraway places.

How do you know whether you are making proper use of your experience to help you understand a book? The surest test is one we have already recommended as a test of understanding: ask yourself whether you can give a concrete example of a point that you feel you understand. We have many times asked students to do this, only to find that they could not. The students appeared to have understood the point, but they were completely at a loss when called upon to supply an example. Obviously, they had not really understood the book.