After the exams and the holidays, it's a good time to read a book. In the matter of reading books, many people have such a feeling: there is too much information pushed in front of them every day, it is difficult to concentrate for a long time, and many books can no longer be read.
You may have some small questions about "how to read", about "how to pick up the book again", about "regaining the joy of reading", here are some small suggestions.
01
Q: When reading a book, I can't concentrate my mind, and I get distracted by my mobile phone after reading a few pages.
Whether in the past, present, or future, readers must learn to build their own "wall of silence", and the world will not help us build it.
02
Q: If you can't read a book halfway through, should I give up or continue?
There are many reasons why a book doesn't make us fun: maybe the fun just comes slower, but I read more and more; maybe I haven't fully adapted to the language style of the book, but after reading it a little longer, I can adapt; maybe the problem is not the book, but my own lack of concentration, because I didn't sleep well last night; or for some reason I don't know, my mind is not very active today...
But we always have to decide: do we want to read it or not?
The first time I gave up reading a book was when I was 20 years old, and after a long period of "mental paralysis" and endured for a long time, I gave up when I reached page 666. I was sad that day and felt forced to leave the noble saints in the book, but when I woke up the next morning, my soul was singing. In any case, while the time I spent on those 666 pages will never come back, the time I should have spent nibbling on the remaining 400 pages is now at my disposal. I treat this time as a pure and thoughtful gift.
I also learned that giving up a book today doesn't mean I can't read it again in the future—and I don't want that either. Everything has the right timing, so in the same way, there must be a wrong timing. Maybe I'll take the time to read the book that I didn't finish at the time, but when that time comes, no one can tell me that I can only rely on myself and my years of reading experience to tell.
03
Q: After reading a particularly favorite book, "book famine", I don't know what to read next?
There's a very simple expedient: we can temporarily turn our attention to "upstream" rather than "downstream" — if you like Tolkien (a British writer who wrote The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, etc.) and Jane Austen, then turn to the works that inspired Tolkien and Austen, rather than staring at the works that imitated and continued their books. After all, Austin became Austin primarily through a lot of reading and accumulation—and that applies to almost all writers.
To get to know Austen more deeply, you'd better read gothic, romance, and epistolary novels a century before her; if you want to better understand Tolkien's work, then you probably should read Beowulf, along with Edda and other Icelandic heroes.
If you look "upstream" and see whose influences your favorite writers are, you'll find a wide variety of attractive and inspiring pieces. Go read the works of the writers you like, and you'll find that your horizons are broader, your thinking is broader, your knowledge is broader, and all of this will greatly narrow the gap between you and your favorite writers.
04
Q: How much reference value does the book list opened by others have?
Every year, many people ask me to help me make a list of books to read for them. I would never accept such a request. There are two reasons for this, both of which concern what I consider to be the value and pleasure of reading.
First, if the questioner simply wants a list of literary masterpieces, they can find them anywhere and most likely already know the contents of those books. So, it should be assumed that they want me to recommend some other books, books that are very important to me, or books that journals call "forgotten masterpieces." But just because I like a book myself, I think that others will find it interesting and helpful, and this is unfounded. Other people's interests, hobbies, or personal needs may not be the same as mine.
Now, if someone says to me, "Here's a list of my 10 favorite books, can you help me recommend a few other books that I might like?" "I might be more willing and prepared to answer his questions."
The 1907 Nobel Prize in Literature and the English writer Rudyard Kipling once said: "Unless a person knows another person very well, he cannot recommend books to the other person, even the best ones." If a person is eager to read, he should humbly seek advice from the elders who know his life experience, listen to their advice, and especially talk to the other person about the books that attracted him the most. "With such friendships and shared hobbies, recommending a book is a pleasure, otherwise it might become a heavy responsibility."
05
Q: Is rereading a waste of time?
I read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina for the first time as a graduate student, and more than a decade later, I read it again while teaching a course in the history of fiction. I taught the course again a few years later, and when I reread it this time, i was shocked by a passage from the book, and even more particularly, I hadn't noticed it before. Actually, I don't remember reading this passage at all.
In the book, Levin and Kitty's first child is born, a son. When Levin faced this little thing that was red and wrinkled, his reaction was even confused to himself:
His feelings about this little thing were completely different from what he had imagined before, and there was no feeling of pleasure or pleasure; on the contrary, he felt a fear of torture and pain. He knew that he had another weakness, and that at first the feeling troubled him so much that he was so worried about the pain that the little man would suffer, so that he was almost unaware of the unconscious joy and pride in his heart when the child sneezed.
The third time I read the book, I saw this passage that I had never paid attention to before, and tears flowed down my face. A few months ago, I became a dad and experienced the feelings that Levin felt. The so-called "weakness" means that from now on, the suffering of this little person will also become the suffering of me.
This example is simple and straightforward, showing that the reading experience can be transformed: I was clumsy for a while, but then I noticed this text. The change in our attitude toward books may be more subtle, more complex, and more difficult to understand than this example.
Those of us who think we have infinite tolerance for literature and are deeply proud of it may be reluctant to admit that our appreciation of literature is limited.
It's unwise for most of us to read too fast, read too much, and not want to reread what we think we already understand. We often mistakenly think that everything will be fine after reading a book once, but re-reading a book often leads to a more important, dramatic, and fresher experience than reading an unfamiliar book.
06
Q: There are so many books, but time is limited; others have read so many books, but I have read so few. How to alleviate this "reading anxiety"?
For some people, they just want to finish the book and all they want is the result – they crave things like "Okay, now I can draw the book off the list". Some people are just looking for proof of an intellectual level, wanting to create a record of their own, so he ruthlessly buries himself in a pile of books that may be meaningless to him.
But it's what and how you read that matter, not how quickly you turn through a book. The original intention of reading should be to communicate with other people's ideas, and should not indulge in their own ideas.
Something like "×× book that I have to read in my life" deviates from the kind of freewheeling pleasure that reading should be—life is short, the list is long, and if you really nibble on the list in the book, then you will probably see reading as a drudgery from now on, and it will not be fun at all.
My advice: read as you like.
The content of the answer is compiled from /"How to pick up the book again" CITIC Publishing House
Author: [Beauty] Alan Jacobs The author is a professor of literature
Photo/Visual China
One writer said, "The first, and most important thing, that reading teaches us is how to sit quietly for a long time and face it squarely. We are energized and fully engaged in this exciting spiritual activity, forgetting time, forgetting the unhappiness and pain in life, and fully immersed in the eternal happiness of the present and present moment. ”
It's really nice to go to a book with pure enthusiasm and interest.
Producer 丨Ma Wenjia Editor-in-Chief 丨 Wang Ruolu
Editor 丨 Yang Yuting Proofreader 丨 Gao Shaozhuo