▇ Answers:
1) awake 2) conscious 3) active 4) express 5) thoughts 6) accomplish 7) understanding 8) relaxation 9) raises 10) demands
▇ Script:
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, that is: ―write between the lines‖. Unless you do, you are not likely to do the most efficient kind of reading. I contend that marking up a book is an act of love.
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 you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it is by writing in it.
Why is marking up a book indispensable to reading? First, it keeps you awake. And I don’t mean merely conscious; I mean wide 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.
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. 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 fundamental questions, demands the most active reading. When you’ve finished reading a book, and the pages are filled with your notes, you know that you read actively.
Reading Efficiently
Part III Read and Explore
Text A
Section A Discovering the Main Ideas
Exercise 1 Answer the following questions with the information contained in Text A. 1 2 3 4 5
What is the difference between the lives of those who read and those who do not? Can reading newspapers be categorized as reading? Why or why not? What is the art of reading according to the author? What does the author think of ―the taste for reading‖?
Can people benefit from reading the same books at different ages? Why or why not?
▇ Answers for reference:
1 According to the author, those who do not read are just like prisoners confined to their immediate world
in respect to time and space. Their life falls into a set of routines and they see only what happens in their immediate neighbourhood with few friends and acquaintances to communicate with. In contrast, those who read have the privilege to escape temporarily from the present world and enter a different country or a different age as soon as they pick up a book. Good books put them in touch with the best minds in history and they are always carried away into a world of thought and reflection. Books broaden their horizons and their life is never a set of dull routines.
2 According to the author, reading newspapers does not belong to the category of reading because the
average reader of a newspaper is mainly concerned with getting reports about events and happenings without contemplative value. The best reading does not merely offer a report of events, but is able to lead readers into a contemplative mood.
3 According to the author, only reading with the object of enriching one’s charm and flavor can be called an
art. The charm here is not related to one’s physical appearance, but one’s inner aura of elegance which can
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only be acquired through reading. And flavor here refers to the flavor in speech, and its cultivation entirely depends on one’s way of reading.
4 The author thinks that taste is the key to all reading and is individual and selective. Each person has his
own taste in the kinds of books he enjoys reading. Forcing one to read books that he dislikes will achieve no positive results.
5 Yes. People can benefit from reading the same book at different ages and get different flavors out of it.
According to the author, people at different ages should read different kinds of books and good books can be read more than once at different ages.
Exercise 2 Text A can be divided into four parts with the paragraph number(s) of each part provided as follows. Write down the main idea of each part.
Part Paragraph(s) Main Idea One 1-3 Two 4-5 Three 6-8 Four 9
▇ Answers for reference: Part Paragraph(s) Main Idea The benefits of reading can be seen from such comparison: Nonreaders are imprisoned in their immediate world, while readers can travel freely in their One 1-3mind to different countries or different ages. And the best reading leads readers into a contemplative mood, not merely occupied with the report of events. The object of reading is to cultivate personal charm of appearance and flavor Two 4-5 in speech, not to ―improve one’s mind‖, which kills the joy of reading and forces one to read with a sense of obligation. The key to all reading lies in taste, which is selective and individual. No one should be forced to read books against his own will and there is no book that Three 6-8 one absolutely must read. It is wise to read books that meet the development of one’s intellectual interest. Benefit from reading relies on the contributions of both the author and the Four 9 reader. The profit will be greater if one is lucky enough to find his favourite author.
Section B In-depth Study
In the following text, Lin Yutang, the Chinese writer, translator, linguist and inventor, shares with us his insight into reading as an art. He not only addresses such questions as why to read, what to read, and when to read, but also convinces us of the beauty and benefits of reading as an art.
The Art of Reading
Lin Yutang
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1 Reading or the enjoyment of books has always been regarded among the charms of a cultured life and is respected and envied by those who rarely give themselves that privilege. This is easy to understand when we compare the difference between the life of a man who does no reading and that of a man who does.
2 The man who has not the habit of reading is imprisoned in his immediate world, in respect to time and space. His life falls into a set routine; he is limited to contact and conversation with a few friends and acquaintances, and he sees only what happens in his immediate neighborhood. From this prison there is no escape. But the moment he takes up a book, he immediately enters a different world, and if it is a good book, he is immediately put in touch with one of the best talkers of the world. This talker leads him on and carries him into a different country or a different age, or unburdens to him some of his personal regrets, or discusses with him some special line or aspect of life that the reader knows nothing about. An ancient author puts him in communion with a dead spirit of long ago, and as he reads along, he begins to imagine what that ancient author looked like and what type of person he was. Both Mencius and Ssema Ch’ien have expressed the same idea. Now to be able to live two hours out of twelve in a different world and take one’s thoughts off the claims of the immediate present is, of course, a privilege to be envied by people shut up in their bodily prison.
3 Such a change of environment is really similar to travel in its psychological effect. But there is more to it than this. The reader is always carried away into a world of thought and reflection. Even if it is a book about physical events, there is a difference between seeing such events in person or living through them, and reading about them in books, for then the events always assume the quality of a spectacle and the reader becomes a detached spectator. The best reading is therefore that which leads us into this contemplative mood, and not that which is merely occupied with the report of events. The tremendous amount of time spent on newspapers I regard as not reading at all, for the average readers of papers are mainly concerned with getting reports about events and happenings without contemplative value.
4 The best formula for the object of reading, in my opinion, was stated by Huang Shanku, a Sung poet. He said, ―A scholar who hasn’t read anything for three days feels that his talk has no flavor, and his own face becomes hateful to look at.‖ What he means, of course, is that reading gives a man a certain charm and flavor, which is the entire object of reading, and only reading with this object can be called an art. One doesn’t read to ―improve one’s mind,‖ because when one begins to think of improving his mind, all the pleasure of reading is gone. He is the type of person who says to himself: ―I must read Shakespeare, and I must read Sophocles, and I must read the entire Five Foot Shelf of Dr. Eliot, so I can become an educated man.‖ I’m sure that man will never become educated. He will force himself one evening to read Shakespeare’s Hamlet and come away, as if from a bad dream, with no greater benefit than that he is able to say that he has ―read‖ Hamlet. Anyone who reads a book with a sense of obligation does not understand the art of reading.
5 Reading for the cultivation of personal charm of appearance and flavor in speech is then, according to Huang, the only admissible kind of reading. This charm of appearance must evidently be interpreted as something other than physical beauty. What Huang means by ―hateful to look at‖ is not physical ugliness. As for flavor of speech, it all depends on one’s way of reading. Whether one has ―flavor‖ or not in his talk, depends on his method of reading. If a reader gets the flavor of books, he will show that flavor in his conversations, and if he has flavor in his conversations, he cannot help also having a flavor in his writing.
6 Hence I consider flavor or taste as the key to all reading. It necessarily follows that taste is selective and individual, like the taste for food. The most hygienic way of eating is, after all, eating what one likes, for then one is sure of his digestion. In reading as in eating, what is one man’s meat may be another’s poison. A teacher cannot force his pupils to like what he likes in reading, and a parent cannot expect his children to have the same tastes as himself. And if the reader has no taste for what he reads, all the time is wasted.
7 There can be, therefore, no books that one absolutely must read. For our intellectual interests grow like a tree or flow like a river. So long as there is proper sap, the tree will grow anyhow, and so long as there is fresh current from the spring, the water will flow. When water strikes a cliff, it just goes around it; when it finds itself in a pleasant low valley, it stops and meanders there a while; when it finds itself in a deep mountain pond, it is content to stay there; when it finds itself traveling over rapids, it hurries forward. Thus, without any effort or determined aim, it is sure of reaching the sea some day. There are no books in this world that everybody must read, but only books that a person must read at a certain time in a given place under given circumstances and at a given period of his life. I rather think that reading, like matrimony, is determined by fate or yinyuan. Even if there is a certain book that every one must read, there is a time for it. When one’s thoughts and experience have not reached a certain point for reading a masterpiece, the masterpiece will leave only a bad
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flavor on his palate. Confucius said, ―When one is fifty, one may read the Book of Changes,‖ which means that one should not read it at forty-five. The extremely mild flavor of Confucius’ own sayings in The Analects and his mature wisdom cannot be appreciated until one becomes mature himself.
8 Furthermore, the same reader reading the same book at different periods gets a different flavor out of it. For instance, we enjoy a book more after we have had a personal talk with the author himself, or even after having seen a picture of his face, and one gets again a different flavor sometimes after one has broken off friendship with the author. A person gets a kind of flavor from reading the Book of Changes at forty, and gets another kind of flavor reading it at fifty, after he has seen more changes in life. Therefore, all good books can be read with profit and renewed pleasure a second time.
9 Reading, therefore, is an act consisting of two sides, the author and the reader. The net gain comes as much from the reader’s contribution through his own insight and experience as from the author’s own. I regard the discovery of one’s favorite author as the most critical event in one’s intellectual development. There is such a thing as the affinity of spirits, and among the authors of ancient and modern times, one must try to find an author whose spirit is akin with his own. Only in this way can one get any real good out of reading.
▇ 课文参考译文
读书的艺术
林语堂
1 读书或书籍的享受素来被视为有修养的生活上的一种雅事，而在一些不大有机会享受这种权利的人们看来，这是一种值得尊重和妒忌的事。当我们把一个不读书者和一个读书者的生活上的差异比较一下，这一点便很容易明白。
2 那个没有养成读书习惯的人，以时间和空间而言，是受着他眼前的世界所禁锢的。他的生活是机械化的，刻板的；他只跟几个朋友和相识者接触谈话，他只看见他周遭所发生的事情。他在这个监狱里是逃不出去的。可是当他拿起一本书的时候，他便立刻走进一个不同的世界；如果那是一本好书，他便立刻接触到世界上一个最健谈的人。这个谈话者引导他前进，带他到一个不同的国度或不同的时代，或者对他发泄一些私人的悔恨，或者跟他讨论一些他从来不知道的学问或生活问题。一个古代的作家使读者随一个久远的逝者交流；当他读下去的时候，他开始想象那个古代的作家相貌如何，是哪一类的人。孟子和司马迁都表现过同样的观念。一个人在十二小时之中，能够在一个不同的世界里生活二小时，完全忘怀眼前的现实环境：这当然是那些禁锢在他们的身体监狱里的人所妒羡的权利。
3 这么一种环境的改变，由心理上的影响说来，是和旅行一样的。不但如此。读者往往被书籍带进一个思想和反省的境界里去。纵使那是一本关于现实事情的书，亲眼看见那些事情或亲历其境，和在书中读到那些事情，其间也有不同的地方，因为在书本里所叙述的事情往往变成一片景象，而读者也变成一个冷眼旁观的人。所以，最好的读物是那种能够带我们到这种沉思的心境里去的读物，而不是那种仅在报告事情的始末的读物。我认为人们花费大量的时间去阅读报纸，并不是读书，因为一般阅报者大抵只注意到事件发生或经过的情形的报告，完全没有沉思默想的价值。
4 据我看来，关于读书的目的，宋代的诗人黄山谷所说的话最妙。他说：“三日不读，便觉语言无味，面目可憎”。他的意思当然是说，读书使人得到一种优雅和风味，这就是读书的整个目的，而只有抱着这种目的的读书才可以叫做艺术。一人读书的目的并不是要“改进心智”，因为当他开始想要改进心智的时候，一切读书的乐趣便丧失净尽了。他对自己说：“我非读莎士比亚的作品不可，我非读索福克里斯的作品不可，我非读伊里奥特博士的《哈佛世界杰作集》不可，使我能够成为有教育的人。”我敢说那个人永远不能成为有教育的人。他有一天晚上会强迫自己去读莎士比亚的《哈姆雷特》，读毕好像由一个噩梦中醒转来，除了可以说他已经“读”过《哈姆雷特》之外，并没有得到什么益处。一个人如果抱着义务的意识去读书，便不了解读书的艺术。
5 所以，依黄山谷氏的说话，那种以修养个人外表的优雅和谈吐的风味为目的的读书，才是唯一值得嘉许的读书法。这种外表的优雅显然不是指身体上之美。黄氏所说的“面目可憎”，不是指身体上的丑陋。讲到谈吐的风味，那完全要看一个人读书的方法如何。一个人的谈吐有没有“味”，完全要看他的
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读书方法。如果读者获得书中的“味”，他便会在谈吐中把这种风味表现出来；如果他的谈吐中有风味，他在写作中也免不了会表现出风味来。
6 所以，我认为风味或嗜好是阅读一切书籍的关键。这种嗜好跟对食物的嗜好一样，必然是有选择性的，属于个人的。吃一个人所喜欢吃的东西终究是最合卫生的吃法，因为他知道吃这些东西在消化方面一定很顺利。读书跟吃东西一样，在一人吃来是补品，在他人吃来是毒质。教师不能以其所好强迫学生去读，父母也不能希望子女的嗜好和他们一样。如果读者对他所读的东西感不到趣味，那么所有的时间全都浪费了。
7 所以，世间没有什么一个人必读之书。因为我们智能上的趣味象一棵树那样地生长着，或象河水那样地流着。只要有适当的树液，树便会生长起来，只要泉中有新鲜的泉水涌出来，水便会流着。当水流碰到一个花岗岩石时，它便由岩石的旁边绕过去；当水流涌到一片低洼的溪谷时，它便在那边曲曲折折地流着一会儿；当水流涌到一个深山的池塘时，它便恬然停驻在那边；当水流冲下急流时，它便赶快向前涌去。这么一来，虽则它没有费什么气力，也没有一定的目标，可是它终究有一天会到达大海。世上无人人必读的书，只有在某时某地，某种环境，和生命中的某个时期必读的书。我认为读书和婚姻一样，是命运注定的或姻缘注定的。纵使某一本书是人人必读的，读这种书也有一定的时候。当一个人的思想和经验还没有达到阅读一本杰作的程度时，那本杰作只会留下不好的滋味。孔子曰：“五十以学《易》。”便是说，四十五岁时候尚不可读《易经》。孔子在《论语》中的训言的冲淡温和的味道，以及他的成熟的智慧，非到读者自己成熟的时候是不能欣赏的。
8 且同一本书，同一读者，一时可读出一时之味道来。其景况适如读某位作者的书，在与其面对面交谈，或见过其相片之后，再读其书，自有更深切的理会。或与其人绝交之后，再读其书，亦别有一番味道。四十学《易》是一种味道，到五十岁看过更多的人世变故的时候再去学《易》，又是一种味道。所以，一切好书重读起来都可以获得益处和新乐趣。
9 由是可知读书有二方面，一是作者，一是读者。对于所得的实益，读者由他自己的见识和经验所贡献的份量，是和作者自己一样多的。我认为一个人发现他最爱好的作家，乃是他的知识发展上最重要的事情。世间确有一些人的心灵是类似的，一个人必须在古今的作家中，寻找一个心灵和他相似的作家。他只有这样才能够获得读书的真益处。
Good Usage (Para. 1)
has always been regarded among… is respected and envied by…
those who rarely give themselves that privilege
Good Usage (Para. 2) falls into a set routine
From this prison there is no escape. takes up a book
enters a different world
unburdens to him some of his personal regrets
a privilege to be envied by people shut up in their bodily prison
Good Usage (Para. 3) is really similar to
is always carried away into a world of thought and reflection leads us into this contemplative mood are mainly concerned with contemplative value
Good Usage (Para. 4)
reading gives a man a certain charm and flavor think of improving his mind become an educated man
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