Unit--HOW-TO-MARK-A-BOOK課文翻譯大學(xué)英語四

1、Unit 6 HOW TO MARK A BOOKMortimer J. Adler"Don't ever mark in a book!" Thousands of teachers, librarians and parents have so advised. But Mortimer Adler disagrees. He thinks so long as you own the book and needn't preserve its physical appearance, marking it properly will grant you

2、 the ownership of the book in the true sense of the word and make it a part of yourself. You know you have to read "between the lines" to get the most out of anything. I want to persuade you to do something equally important in the course of your reading. I want to persuade you to "wr

3、ite between the lines." Unless you do, you are not likely to do the most efficient kind of reading. You shouldn't mark up a book which isn't yours. Librarians (or your friends) who lend you books expect you to keep them clean, and you should. If you decide that I am right about the usef

4、ulness of marking books, you will have to buy them. There are two ways in which one can own a book. The first is the property right you establish by paying for it, just as you pay for clothes and furniture. But this act of purchase is only the prelude to possession. Full ownership comes only when yo

5、u have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it is by writing in it. An illustration may make the point clear. You buy a beefsteak and transfer it from the butcher's icebox to your own. But you do not own the beefsteak in the most important sense until you consu

6、me it and get it into your bloodstream. I am arguing that books, too, must be absorbed in your bloodstream to do you any good. There are three kinds of book owners. The first has all the standard sets and best-sellers - unread, untouched. (This individual owns wood-pulp and ink, not books.) The seco

7、nd has a great many books - a few of them read through, most of them dipped into, but all of them as clean and shiny as the day they were bought. (This person would probably like to make books his own, but is restrained by a false respect for their physical appearance.) The third has a few books or

8、many - every one of them dog-eared and dilapidated, shaken and loosened by continual use, marked and scribbled in from front to back. (This man owns books.) Is it false respect, you may ask, to preserve intact a beautifully printed book, an elegantly bound edition? Of course not. I'd no more scr

9、ibble all over a first edition of "Paradise Lost" than I'd give my baby a set of crayons and an original Rembrandt! I wouldn't mark up a painting or a statue. Its soul, so to speak, is inseparable from its body. And the beauty of a rare edition or of a richly manufactured volume is

10、 like that of painting or a statue. If your respect for magnificent binding or printing gets in the way, buy yourself a cheap edition and pay your respects to the author. Why is marking up a book indispensable to reading? First, it keeps you awake. (And I don't mean merely conscious; I mean wide

11、 awake.) In the second place, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to express itself in words, spoken or written. The marked book is usually the thought-through book. Finally, writing helps you remember the thoughts you had, or the thoughts the author expressed. Let me develop t

12、hese three points. If reading is to accomplish anything more than passing time, it must be active. you can't let your eyes glide across the lines of a book and come up with an understanding of what you have read. Now an ordinary piece of light fiction, like, say, "Gone with the Wind,"

13、doesn't require the most active kind of reading. The books you read for pleasure can be read in a state of relaxation, and nothing is lost. But a great book, rich in ideas and beauty, a book that raises and tries to answer great fundamental questions, demands the most active reading of which you

14、 are capable. You don't absorb the ideas of John Dewey the way you absorb the crooning of Mr. Vallee. You have to reach for them. That you cannot do while you're asleep. If, when you've finished reading a book, the pages are filled with your notes, you know that you read actively. The mo

15、st famous active reader of great books I know is President Hutchins, of the University of Chicago. He also has the hardest schedule of business activities of any man I know. He invariably read with pencil, and sometimes, when he picks up a book and pencil in the evening, he finds himself, instead of

16、 making intelligent notes, drawing what he calls " caviar factories" on the margins. When that happens, he puts the book down. He knows he's too tired to read, and he's just wasting time. But, you may ask, why is writing necessary? Well, the physical act of writing, with your own h

17、and, brings words and sentences more sharply before your mind and preserves them better in your memory. To set down your reaction to important words and sentences you have read, and the questions they have raised in your mind, is to preserve those reactions and sharpen those questions. You can pick

18、up the book the following week or year, and there are all your points of agreement, disagreement, doubt and inquiry. It's like resuming an interrupted conversation with the advantage of being able to pick up where you left off. And that is exactly what reading a book should be: a conversation be

19、tween you and the author. Presumably he knows more about the subject than you do; naturally you'll have the proper humility as you approach him. But don't let anybody tell you that a reader is supposed to be solely on the receiving end. Understanding is a two-way operation; learning doesn

20、9;t consist in being an empty receptacle. The learner has to question himself and question the teacher. He even has to argue with the teacher, once he understands what the teacher is saying. And marking a book is literally an expression of your differences, or agreements of opinion, with the author.

21、 There are all kinds of devices for marking a book intelligently and fruitfully. Here's the way I do it:1. Underlining: of major points, of important or forceful statements.2. Vertical lines at the margin: to emphasize a statement already underlined.3. Star, asterisk, or other doo-dad at the mar

22、gin: to be used sparingly, to emphasize the ten or twenty most important statements in the book.4. Numbers in the margin: to indicate the sequence of points the author makes in developing a single argument.5. Number of other pages in the margin: to indicate where else in the book the author made poi

23、nts relevant to the point marked; to tie up the ideas in a book, which, though they may be separated by many pages, belong together.6. Circling of key words or phrases.7. Writing in the margin, or at the top or bottom of the page, for the sake of: recording questions (and perhaps answers) which a pa

24、ssage raise in your mind; reducing a complicated discussion to a simple statement; recording the sequence of major points right through the book. I use the end-papers at the back of the book to make a personal index of the author's points in the order of their appearance.The front end-papers are

25、, to me, the most important. Some people reserve them for a fancy bookplate, I reserve them for fancy thinking. After I have finished reading the book and making my personal index on the back end-papers, I turn to the front and try to outline the book, not page by page, or point by point (I've a

26、lready done that at the back), but as an integrated structure, with a basic unity and an order of parts. This outline is, to me, the measure of my understanding of the work.怎樣在書上做記號“不要在書上做記號！無數(shù)教師、圖書管理員和家長都曾這樣建議。但是莫蒂默·艾德勒并不同意。他認(rèn)為只要你擁有這本書而且不需要保護(hù)它的外觀，做記號將會讓你真正意義上擁有這本書并且使它成為你的一局部。你知道讀書要“深入字里行間，以求最充

27、分的理解。我勸你在讀書過程中做一件同樣重要的事情。我想勸你“在字里行間寫字。不這樣做，你的讀書就不可能是最有效的。你不應(yīng)該在不是你自己的書上做記號。借給你書的圖書管理員 (或你的朋友) 希望你保持書的整潔，再說你也應(yīng)該這樣做。如果你認(rèn)為我說的在書上做記號頗有益處這番話是對的話，你就得自己買書。一個人擁有書的方法有兩種，第一種是花錢取得財(cái)產(chǎn)所有權(quán)，就像你花錢買衣服和家具一樣。但花錢買書只是占有它的前奏。只有在你將它化為你自己的一局部之后，你才完全占有了它。而把你自己變?yōu)闀囊痪植康淖詈梅椒ň褪窃跁袑懽?。打個比方也許可以把這一點(diǎn)說清楚。你買下一塊牛排，把它從肉鋪的冰箱里轉(zhuǎn)移到你的冰箱中。但從最重

28、要的意義上來說，你還沒有占有它，除非你吃下它并將它吸收進(jìn)你的血液之中。我的論點(diǎn)是，書的營養(yǎng)也只有在被吸收進(jìn)你的血液中時，才能對你有所裨益。書籍擁有者可以分為三種。第一種人藏有全部標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的成套書和暢銷書既沒有讀過，也沒有碰過。(這位占有的只是紙漿和油墨，而不是書。) 第二種人藏書很多有幾本從頭至尾讀過，大局部淺嘗輒止，但全都跟新買時一樣整潔光亮。此君很可能想使書真的為其所有，但因錯誤地過分關(guān)注書籍的外觀而裹足不前。第三種人藏書或多或少因不斷使用，每本書都弄成書角卷起，破舊不堪，裝訂破損，書頁松散，全書從扉頁至末頁畫滿了記號，涂滿了字句。此人是書的真正擁有者。你或許會問，將一本印刷精美、裝幀雅致的書

29、保存完好，難道也是不恰當(dāng)?shù)膯?當(dāng)然不是。我決不會在一本初版的?失樂園?上亂涂亂寫，就像我不會把一幅倫勃朗的原作連同一盒蠟筆交給我的嬰孩任意涂抹一樣!我決不會在一幅油畫或一尊塑像上畫記號?？梢哉f，它們的靈魂與其軀體是不可分開的。一部珍本或一本裝幀華美的書的美，同一幅油畫或一尊塑像的美是一樣的。如果你對華美的裝幀或印刷的尊重阻礙你讀書，那就買一種廉價(jià)的版本，將你的敬意獻(xiàn)給作者。為什么在書上做記號對閱讀是必不可少的呢?首先，它會使你保持清醒。我不是僅僅指它讓你神志清醒；我的意思是它能使你全神貫注。其次，如果閱讀是一種能動的行為，那么它就是思考，而思考常常需借助口頭的或書面的語言來表達(dá)。作了記號的書，

30、通常是讀者認(rèn)真思考過的書。最后，寫可以幫助你記住你閱讀時的思想，或作者所表達(dá)的思想。讓我進(jìn)一步就這三點(diǎn)談一談。如果閱讀的目的不僅僅是消磨時間，那就應(yīng)該是一種積極的思維活動。僅僅讓你的眼睛在書上掃視一遍，你就不可能對所讀的內(nèi)容有所理解。當(dāng)然，一部普通的消遣小說，譬如說?飄?，并不需要那種最積極的思維式的閱讀。作為消遣的書，可以輕松地讀而不會有所失。但一本思想豐富、文字華美，試圖提出帶根本性的重大問題并加以答復(fù)的偉大著作，那么要求你盡可能地進(jìn)行最積極的閱讀。你不能像欣賞瓦利先生的低聲吟唱那樣，學(xué)到約翰·杜威的思想。你得花費(fèi)氣力方可獲得。漫不經(jīng)心是做不到這一點(diǎn)的。如果當(dāng)你讀完一本書的時候，書頁上寫滿了你的批注，你就知道你的閱讀是積極的了。我所知道的最有名的采用積極方式閱讀偉大著作的人，是芝加哥大學(xué)的校長哈欽斯。他也是我所知道的公務(wù)最繁忙的人。他讀書時總是拿著鉛