[Review] How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler
Published date:
The below review was posted by me in my goodreads page yesterday. It's the first book review that I write online. This book was recommended by a couple youtubers that I follow, so I read it and had some mixed opinions so I figured I had to share it here, on my personal site. Anyways tkm <3!
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent
Reading
by
Mortimer J. Adler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
How to Read a Book is a 1972 book (originally from the 40s), written by author Mortimer J. Adler, and Charles Van Doren, with the objective of teaching people how to properly read and understand what they are reading. And even though literary works are mentioned and some tips are given, this book focuses mainly on Practical and Theoretical non-fiction books.
There are given four types of reading: Elementary Reading, Inspectional Reading, Analytical Reading and Syntopical Reading. These latter three have some rules and/or steps for accomplishing them.
The first one, Elementary Reading is basic reading, the one we learn in Elementary school, thus the name. We learn to comprehend what we read.
We spend some time learning what the authors mean by understanding and we conclude that knowing something is not the same as understanding it. We can know what something is, but we don't know why or how that is the case. Knowledge =/= as Understanding.
The art of reading is defined in simpler terms as the process when the brain, and the brain alone can process the information acquired and ultimately understand it.
When we can understand something really fast, that means that we most likely already understood it in the first place. If we read something that goes over our heads, that's the time to put effort into reading to understand this new information.
Inspectional Reading is basically a superficial reading of the book. We skim and pry over the pages and information without actually reading the book as a whole. The authors call this "skimming systematically".
We have to look at the title page and its preface, and read it quickly. Read also the publisher's blurb while you are at it. Skim the table of context and index, go to the passages that stick out and skim through the pages. Don't go overboard.
The book also discusses reading speeds and when to use different tempos of 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." Says the authors.
We are given some question to ask when we are in the "Active Reading Stage", like: What is the book about as a whole? The leading theme of the book. What is being said in detail, and how? The main ideas, assertions and arguments. Is the book true, in whole or in part? Make up your own mind about it. What of it? Why do we need to know these things? Are they important? What follows from this information.
There are also some suggestions as to how to make a book our own by writing in the margins, the use of certain symbols and highlighting, etc. Pretty standard for avid or even casual readers.
The book provides us with a summary for Analytical Reading:
I. 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 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.
III. 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.
Here on out the authors talk about how to use different types of aids in reading, such as dictionaries, abstracts, commentaries, encyclopedias, etc.
They also teach how to read practical books according to their category and also how to read imaginative literature, but they don't go in with as much detail, this is not a book for fiction readers, in fact, in some places they are subtly looked down upon, as if reading fiction cannot offer knowledge or start rich and deep discussions.
Then we go into Syntopical Reading and we are given a summary of the rules for it too:
I. Surveying the Field Preparatory to Syntopical Reading
1. Create a tentative bibliography of your subject by recourse to library catalogs, advisors, and bibliographies in books.
Inspect all of the books on the tentative bibliography to ascertain which are germane to your subject, and also to acquire a clearer idea of the subject.
Note: These two steps are not, strictly speaking, chronologically distinct; that is, the two steps have an effect on each other, with the second, in particular, serving to modify the first.
II. Syntopical Reading of the Bibliography Amassed in Stage I
1. Inspect the books already identified as relevant to your subject in Stage I in order to find the most relevant passages.
2. Bring the authors to terms by constructing a neutral terminology of the subject that all, or the great majority, of the authors can be interpreted as employing, whether they actually employ the words or not.
3. Establish a set of neutral propositions for all of the authors by framing a set of questions to which all or most of the authors can be interpreted as giving answers, whether they actually treat the questions explicitly or not.
4. Define the issues, both major and minor ones, by ranging the opposing answers of authors to the various questions on one side of an issue or another. You should remember that an issue does not always exist explicitly between or among authors, but that it sometimes has to be constructed by interpretation of the authors’ views on matters that may not have been their primary concern.
5. Analyze the discussion by ordering the questions and issues in such a way as to throw maximum light on the subject. More general issues should precede less general ones, and relations among issues should be clearly indicated.
Note: Dialectical detachment or objectivity should, ideally, be maintained throughout. One way to ensure this is always to accompany an interpretation of an author’s views on an issue with an actual quotation from his text.
It's not a bad book, on the contrary, if you like to read non-fiction and struggle with digesting it or coming up with a good nuanced discussion on the subject, this book might help you articulate and understand what you are reading.
But also this is a product of its time, and so it's easy to see the flaws in some parts, like for example, the patronizing and condescending tone the authors employ throughout the book. It may sound dramatic but if at worst it is patronizing, at best it sounds snobbish.
There are some places in the book where they tell you to read books almost with no aid the first time to try to comprehend the arguments on your own, but they fail to consider the nuances of the context and time in which some of the works they reference and recommend were written. Being that this attempts to be a guide to beginners and veterans alike, they don't take into account that not all readers might understand the complexity of the Greek and Latin languages or the Shakespearean dialect. Sometimes, readers NEED an aid.
Lastly, I see in some places, as stated before, where the author disregards imaginative literature as something worthy of reading for the purpose of pursuing knowledge and mental gratification. So if you are looking for a good read for fiction enjoyers like myself this is not a good read for you.
Not a bad book, not a great one either. I personally liked it, for what it gave me.