Revisiting How to Read a Book

I first read Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren's How to Read a Book 25 years ago. I was finishing high school. I returned to it occasionally for the book list in the back or to revisit some section. I thought I understood it and even used the reading principles. I hadn't reread the whole thing though. I reread most of it this spring and realized how much I misunderstood.

I was seventeen the first time I read the book; I actually read it twice that year and took extensive notes in the front and back pages-my attempt to practice their method. I just hadn't read it enough. I didn't know enough. I also missed the section on the aims of reading.

Adler and Van Doren are known for their levels of reading. Their aims for reading are the critical part, but it's a short section that is easy to miss. 

Levels

  • Elementary-simple reading straight through.
  • Inspectional-15 minutes of systematic skimming to get the gist of the book.
  • Analytical -careful reading with analysis and notetaking to extract everything from the book.
  • Syntopical-comparative reading between authors.

Aims

  • Pleasure
  • Knowledge
  • Understanding

I misunderstood the difference between reading for knowledge and reading for understanding. Reading for knowledge means you are just gathering facts to fit into your current mental model. You don't change, but you have more information. Reading for understanding means that you believe the author thinks in a way that you don't think yet but that you want to. This type of reading is a type of aspiration-you want to see the way that he sees. 

Because I missed the different types of aims, I thought that Adler and Van Doren were arguing that every book can be read for understanding. I now know that they emphatically don't believe that every book can or should be read that way. You have to decide for yourself who you want to be like-who is above you and worth emulating-and then read her books carefully. They explain in the book that each person's list of books will be different. I see why they say that now. 

I was thinking this spring about what made Charles Spurgeon and J.C. Ryle think they way that they did. I wanted to know the books that formed their way of viewing the Bible and the world so that I could emulate not just their theology but their vision. I think that is what Adler and Van Doren mean by reading for understanding. I want to think the way Spurgeon and Ryle think. Others want to think like Jonathan Edwards or a secular philosopher. Every aspiration is a not equally valid. Every way of thinking is not good or worthy. You can't read for understanding though unless you want your mind conformed to the pattern of the author.

I'm much more comfortable with my reading choices now that I understand and agree with Adler's aims for reading. I will not feel compelled to read so-called great books for understanding. I don't want to think like Virgil, so I won't go to Aeneid for understanding. I might reread it for knowledge because so many other stories that I like allude or reference it. I enjoyed Moby Dick, so I might return to it for pleasure or to figure out the details. I don't feel the burden of making my reading into something that I don't want it to be. I


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