May 17, 2011 22:36
I am not even one Kindle-dot into Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book, and I already find myself wanting to squeal with delight. He describes something that I have been thinking about, but which only few people ever mention. In his vocabulary, it is the difference between reading for information and reading for understanding.
If you read a book and understand it perfectly without even trying, you have hopefully gained new information. But you have not gained new understanding. The author's mind and yours were basically the same, both before and after, only information was copied from one mind to the other.
If you read a book and don't understand it, although it seems to make sense, then is your chance to increase your understanding. This means the author thinks in ways that you don't. When you have cracked the code of his thinking, you have expanded your understanding: You have added to your toolbox of ways of thinking.
Well, actually he does not say it that clearly, at least yet, but it is very encouraging to see it mentioned at all. I thought it was only a few of us who knew this, but evidently this book used to be fairly popular at one time.
Some authors just pour more into your glass, while some make your glass bigger. Mortimer Adler seems to belong in the second category. This is a high pleasure.
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