大学英语精读听力第四册 unit6

[00:00.00]Book  4  Unit Six--Eight
[00:56.03]Unit Six  Text
[00:58.98]"Don't ever mark in a book!"
[01:01.75]Thousands of teachers,librarians and parents have so advised.
[01:06.30]But Mortimer Adler disagrees.
[01:08.88]He thinks so long as you own the book and needn't preserve its physical appearance,
[01:14.24]marking it properly will grant you the ownership of the book
[01:17.48]in the true sense of the word and make it a part of yourself.
[01:21.42]HOW TO MARK A BOOK Mortimer J.Adler
[01:26.31]You know you have to read "between the lines" to get the most out of anything.
[01:31.04]I want to persuade you to do something equally important in the course of your reading.
[01:36.08]I want to persuade you to "write between the lines."
[01:39.94]Unless you do,you are not likely to do the most efficient kind of reading.
[01:45.04]You shouldn't mark up a book which isn't yours.
[01:48.04]Librarians (or your friends) who lend you books
[01:51.28]expect you to keep them clean, and you should.
[01:54.42]If you decide that I'm right about the usefulness of marking books,you 'll have to buy them
[02:00.45]There are two ways in which one can own a book.
[02:03.69]The first is the property right you establish by paying for it,
[02:07.74]just as you pay for clothes and furniture.
[02:10.69]But this act of purchase is only the prelude to possession.
[02:12.02]Full ownership comes only when you have made it a part of yourself,
[02:16.39]and the best way to make yourself a part of it is by writing in it.
[02:21.19]An illustration may make the point clear.
[02:24.33]You buy a beefsteak and transfer it from the butcher's icebox to your own.
[02:29.29]But you do not own the beefsteak in the most important sense
[02:32.97]until you consume it and get it into your bloodstream.
[02:32.97]I am arguing that books,too,
[02:35.53]must be absorbed in your bloodstream to do you any good.
[02:39.16]There are three kinds of book owners.
[02:42.43]The first has all the standard sets and best-sellers--unread,untouched.
[02:47.29](This individual owns woodpulp and ink,not books.)
[02:51.21]The second has a great many books--
[02:53.66]a few of them read through,most of them dipped into,
[02:57.03]but all of them as clean and shiny as the day they were bought.
[03:00.66](This person would probably like to make books his own,
[03:03.93]but is restrained by a false respect for their physical appearance.)
[03:08.26]The third has a few books or many--
[03:11.11]every one of them dogeared and dilapidated,
[03:14.25]shaken and loosened by continual use,
[03:16.99]marked and scribbled in from front to back.
[03:19.94](This man owns books.)
[03:22.29]Is it false respect,you may ask,to preserve intact a beautifully printed book,
[03:27.96]an elegantly bound edition?
[03:30.39]Of course not.
[03:31.67]I'd no more scribble all over a first edition of "Paradise Lost"
[03:36.24]than I'd give my baby a set of crayons and an original Rembrandt!
[03:40.32]I wouldn't mark up a painting or a statue.
[03:43.06]Its soul,so to speak,is inseparable from its body.
[03:47.13]And the beauty of a rare edition or of a richly manufactured volume
[03:51.81]is like that of a painting or a statue.
[03:54.58]If your respect for magnificent binding or printing gets in the way,
[03:59.15]buy yourself a cheap edition and pay your respects to the author.
[04:03.02]Why is marking up a book indispensable to reading?
[04:06.96]First,it keeps you awake.
[04:08.74](And I don't mean merely conscious;Imean wide awake.)
[04:12.50]In the second place,reading,if it is active,is thinking,
[04:16.55]and thinking tends to express itself in words,spoken or written.
[04:21.41]The marked book is usually the thought-through book.
[04:20.41]Finally,writing helps you remember the thoughts you had,
[04:24.06]or the thoughts the author expressed,
[04:26.60]Let me develop these three points.
[04:28.98]If reading is to accomplish anything more than passing time, it must be active.
[04:34.51]You can't let your eyes glide across the lines of a book
[04:37.96]and come up with an understanding of what you have read.
[04:41.51]Now an ordinary piece of light fiction, like,say,"Gone with the Wind,"
[04:46.22]doesn't require the most active kind of reading.
[04:49.69]The books you read for pleasure can be read in a state of relaxation,
[04:54.26]and nothing is lost.
[04:56.01]But a great book,rich in ideas and beauty,
[04:59.20]a book that raises and tries to answer great fundamental questions,
[05:03.30]demands the most active reading of which you are capable.
[05:07.14]You don't absorb the ideas of John Dewey the way you absorb the crooning of Mr.Vallee.
[05:13.20]You have to reach for them.
[05:15.06]That you cannot do while you're asleep.
[05:17.72]If,when you've finished reading a book,
[05:20.78]the pages are filled with your notes,you know that you read actively.
[05:25.09]The most famous active reader of great books
[05:28.12]I know is President Hutchins,of the University of Chicago.
[05:31.80]He also has the hardest schedule of business activities of any man I know.
[05:36.58]He invariably reads with a pencil,
[05:39.14]and sometimes, when he picks up a book and pencil in the evening,
[05:42.95]he finds himself,instead of making intelligent notes,
[05:46.72]drawing what he calls "caviar factories" on the margins.
[05:51.08]When that happens.he puts the book down.
[05:54.11]He knows he's too tired to read,and he's just wasting time.
[05:58.39]But,you may ask,why is writing necessary?
[06:02.18]Well,the physical act of writing,with your own hand,
[06:06.31]brings words and sentences more sharply before your mind
[06:09.94]and preserves them better in your memory.
[06:12.50]To set down your reaction to important words and sentences you have read,
[06:17.04]and the questions they have raised in your mind,
[06:19.58]is to preserve those reactions and sharpen those questions.
[06:23.89]You can pick up the book the following week or year,
[06:27.18]and there are all your points of agreement,disagreement doubt and inquiry.
[06:32.33]It's like resuming an interrupted conversation
[06:35.83]with the advantage of being able to pick up where you left off.
[06:39.48]And that is exactly what reading a book should be:
[06:42.64]a conversation between you and the author.
[06:46.01]Presumably he knows more about the subject than you do;
[06:49.57]naturally you'll have the proper humility as you approach him.
[06:53.51]But don't let anybody tell you that a reader's supposed to be solely on the receiving end
[06:58.87]Understanding is a two-way operation;
[07:01.61]leaning doesn't consist in being an empty receptacle.
[07:05.76]The learner has to question himself and question the teacher.
[07:09.42]He even has to argue with the teacher,
[07:11.98]once he understands what the teacher is saying.
[07:14.90]And marking a book is literally an expression of your differences,
[07:19.42]or agreements of opinion,with the author.
[07:21.98]There are all kinds of devices for marking a book intelligently and fruitfully.
[07:27.86]Here's the way I do it:
[07:29.59]1. Underlining: of major points,of important or forceful statements.
[07:35.91]2. Vertical lines at the margin;to emphasize a statement already underlined.
[07:42.23]3. Star,asterisk,or other doo-dad at the margin:
[07:47.48]to be used sparingly, to emphasize the ten or twenty most important statements in the book.
[07:53.02]4. Numbers in the margin:
[07:56.00]to indicate the sequence of points the author makes in developing a single argument.
[08:01.01]5. Numbers of other pages in the margin:
[08:01.06]to indicate where else in the book the author made points relevant to the point marked;
[08:06.44]to tie up the ideas in a book,which,
[08:09.11]though they may be separated by many pages,belong together.
[08:13.29]6. Circling of key words or phrases.
[08:17.73]7. Writing in the margin,
[08:20.37]or at the top or bottom of the page,for the sake of:
[08:23.92]recording questions(and perhaps answers) which a passage raised in your mind;
[08:29.41]reducing a complicated discussion to a simple statement;
[08:33.35]recording the sequence of major points right through the book.
[08:37.40]I use the end-papers at the back of the book to make a personal index of the author's points
[08:43.17]in the order of their appearance.
[08:45.45]The front end-papers are,to me,the most important.
[08:49.18]Some people reserve them for a fancy bookplate.
[08:52.52]I reserve them for fancy thinking.
[08:55.22]After I have finished reading the book and making my personal index on the back end-papers,
[09:00.70]I turn to the front and try to outline the book,
[09:03.84]not page by page,or point by point (I've already done that at the back),
[09:09.09]but as an integrated structure,with a basic unity and an order of parts.
[09:14.83]This outline is,to me,the measure of my understanding of the work.