評論
打印
Why is marking up a book indispensable to reading? First, it keeps you awake.(And I don'tmean merely conscious; I mean wide awake.) In the second place, reading, if it is active, isthinking, 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 these three points.
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，而思考常常須借助口頭的或書面的語言來表達。作了記號的書，通常是讀者認真思考過的書。最后，寫可以幫助你記住你閱讀時的思想，或作者所表達的思想。讓我進一步就這三點談一談。
If reading is to accomplish anything more than passing time, it must be active.
如果閱讀的目的不僅僅是消磨時間，那就應該是一種積極的思維活動。
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," 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 are capable. You don't absorb the ideas of John Deweythe way you absorb the crooning of Mr. Vallee. You have to reach for them. That you cannotdo while you're asleep.
僅僅讓你的眼睛在書上掃視一遍，你就不可能對所讀的內容有所理解。當然，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回答的偉大著作，則要求你盡可能地進行最積極的閱讀。你不能像欣賞瓦利先生的低聲吟唱那樣，學到約翰·杜威的思想。你得花費氣力方可獲得。漫不經心，是做不到這一點的。
If, when you've finished reading a book, the pages are filled with your notes, you know that you read actively. The most famous active reader of great books I know is President Hutchins, of the University of Chicago. He also has the hardest schedule of business activitiesof any man I know. He invariably reads with a pencil, and sometimes, when he picks up a book and pencil in the evening, he finds himself, instead of 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.
如果當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，是芝加哥大學的校長哈欽斯。他也是我所知道的公務最繁忙的人。他讀書時總是拿著鉛筆。有時，當他在晚上拿起書和鉛筆的時候，發覺自己不是在作有意義的筆記，而是在頁邊空白處畫些他稱之為"魚子醬工廠"的東西，一出現這種情況，他就放下書本。他知道自己太累，讀不下去了，完全是在浪費時間。
