The Art of Reading-Lin Yutang
The importance of being alive
Chapter XII Cultural Enjoyment
Sick. The art of reading
Reading or enjoying books has always been regarded as an elegant thing in a cultivated life, but in the eyes of some people who rarely have the opportunity to enjoy this right, it is something worthy of respect and jealousy. It is easy to understand when we compare the life differences between a non-reader and a reader. People who have not developed the habit of reading are imprisoned by the world in front of them in time and space. His life is mechanized and rigid; He only talked with a few friends and acquaintances, and he only saw what was happening around him. He can't escape from this prison. But when he picked up a book, he immediately entered a different world; If it is a good book, he will immediately come into contact with one of the most talkative people in the world. The speaker guided him forward, took him to a different country or era, or vented some personal regrets on him, or discussed some knowledge or life problems with him that he never knew. An ancient writer asked readers to follow a person who had already died; When he continued reading, he began to imagine what it was like to be a parent in ancient times and what kind of person he was. Mencius and Sima Qian, the greatest historian in China, both expressed the same idea. A person can live in a different world for two hours in twelve hours, completely forgetting the real environment in front of him: this is of course the envy of those who are imprisoned in their own physical prisons. Such environmental changes, in terms of psychological impact, are the same as tourism.
Not only that. Readers are often brought into a realm of thinking and reflection by books. Even if it is a book about real things, there is a difference between what you see or experience with your own eyes and what you read in the book, because what is described in the book often becomes a scene, and the reader becomes a person who looks on coldly. Therefore, the best reading materials are those that can lead us to this state of meditation, rather than those that only report the whole story. I think people spend a lot of time reading newspapers instead of books, because most newspaper readers only pay attention to events or their reports, and meditation is of no value at all.
In my opinion, Huang Gugu, a poet in the Song Dynasty and a good friend of Su Dongpo, said the most wonderful thing about the purpose of reading. He said: "If you don't read for three days, you will find the language tasteless and disgusting." What he means, of course, is that reading gives people a kind of elegance and charm, which is the whole purpose of reading, and only reading with this purpose can be called art, and the purpose of reading is not to "improve one's mind", because when he begins to improve his mind, the fun of reading is completely lost. He said to himself, "I have to read Shakespeare, I have to read Sophocles, and I have to read Dr. Elliott's Harvard World Famous Works, so that I can become an educated person." I dare say that man will never be an educated man. One night, he will force himself to read Shakespeare.
After reading Hamlet, he seemed to wake up from a nightmare. He didn't get any benefit except that he "read" Hamlet. If a person reads with a sense of obligation, he will not understand the art of reading. This kind of reading with compulsory purpose is just like reading documents and reports before a senator gives a speech. This is not reading, but seeking business reports and news.
Therefore, according to Huang Gu's words, reading for the purpose of cultivating the elegance of personal appearance and the charm of speech is the only commendable reading method. This elegant appearance obviously does not mean physical beauty. By "disgusting face", Huang doesn't mean physical ugliness. Ugly faces sometimes have moving beauty, and beautiful faces sometimes make people look annoying. I have a friend in China, whose head is shaped like a bomb, but it will make people happy to see him. According to the western writers I have seen in the pictures, the most beautiful face is Tui Jiston. His moustache, glasses, thick eyebrows and wrinkles between them combine to form a demonic appearance. We only feel that there are many thoughts in that forehead, which will come out from those strange and sharp eyes at any time. That is what Huang calls a beautiful face, a face that is not dressed with powder, but a face created with the power of thought. When it comes to the taste of conversation, it all depends on how one reads. Whether a person's speech has a "taste" depends entirely on his reading method. If the reader gets the "taste" in the book, he will show it in the conversation; If his speech has flavor, he is bound to show flavor in his writing.
Author: Sword Test the World _ 2006-4-20 19:33 Reply to this speech
-
2 the art of reading-Lin Yutang
So I think taste or hobby is the key to reading all books. This hobby, like the hobby of food, must be selective and personal. After all, eating what a person likes is the most hygienic way to eat, because he knows that eating these things must be smooth. Reading is the same as eating. "One person eats tonic, while others eat poison." Teachers can't force students to study according to their hobbies, and parents can't expect their children's hobbies to be the same as their own. If the reader is not interested in what he reads, then all the time is wasted. Yuan Zhonglang said, "Bad books can be read by others."
Therefore, there is nothing in the world that everyone must read. Because our intellectual interests grow like trees and flow like rivers. As long as there is proper sap, trees will grow, and as long as fresh spring water flows out in spring, water will flow. When water meets granite, it bypasses the rock; When the current rushes to a low-lying valley, it twists and turns there for a while; When the water rushed to a pond in the deep mountains, it stopped there; When the current rushes down the rapids, it rushes forward quickly. In this way, although it has no effort and no definite goal, it will eventually reach the sea. No one in the world must read books, just books that must be read at a certain time, place, environment and period of life. I think reading, like marriage, is doomed by fate or yin and yang. Even if a book, such as the Bible, is a must-read for everyone, there are times to read such a book. When a person's thoughts and experience have not reached the level of reading a famous book, that famous book will only leave bad taste. Confucius said, "Learn the Book of Changes in fifty years." That is to say, he is forty-five years old and still can't understand the Book of Changes. The diluted and peaceful taste of Confucius' teachings and his mature wisdom in The Analects of Confucius cannot be appreciated unless the reader matures himself.
And the same book, the same reader, can read the taste of the present. It's like looking at a photo of a celebrity or reading an article about a celebrity. When we don't meet, it's a smell. After meeting and chatting, you can look at his photos, or look at his articles, and there is a deep concern. Or after breaking up with others, it is another taste to look at their photos and articles. Learning to change at forty is one kind of taste, and learning to change at fifty is another kind of taste, seeing many changes in life. Therefore, all good books can gain benefits and new fun through rereading. I was forced to read Journey to the West when I was in college! ) and Henry Emerson (Henry esmond), but although I am a teenager, I can appreciate the benefits of The Journey to the West, but I can't appreciate the real taste of Henry Emerson at all. In retrospect, I doubt that the taste of this book must be much richer than what I could appreciate at that time.
So we can see that reading has two aspects, one is the author and the other is the reader. The reader's knowledge and experience are as much as the author's contribution. When talking about the Analects of Confucius, Mr. Yichuan of Song Rucheng said: "When reading the Analects, there are people who have nothing to do; After reading it, one or two of them are happy; I didn't know it until I finished reading it; After reading it, there are still people who don't know how to dance. "
I think it is most important for a person to find his favorite writer in the development of knowledge. There are indeed some people in the world who have similar hearts. People must look for a writer whose heart is similar to his among writers at all times and in all countries. Only in this way can he get the real benefits of reading. One must find his teacher independently. No one knows who your favorite writer is, maybe not even yourself. It's like love at first sight. People can't ask readers to love this writer or that writer, but when readers find their favorite writers, they will know instinctively. We can give some famous examples about the writer's discovery. There are many scholars who seem to live in different times, many years apart, but their way of thinking is so similar to their feelings that when people read their words in a book, they seem to see their portraits. According to the grammar of China people, we say that these similar souls are the embodiment of the same soul. For example, some people say that Su Dongpo is the reincarnation of Zhuangzi or Tao Yuanming, and Yuan Zhonglang is the reincarnation of Su Dongpo. Su Dongpo said that the first time he read Zhuangzi's article, he felt that he had been thinking the same thing and holding the same thoughts since he was a child. One night, when Yuan Zhonglang found an unknown contemporary writer Xu Wenchang in a small collection of poems, he jumped out of bed and called out to his friends. His friend started reading poems and called them out, so they called them repetition, which confused the servants. Elliott said that when she first read Russo's works, she seemed to be shocked by an electric current. Nietzsche (Nietzsche) is Schopenhauer (Schopenhauer)
Author: Sword Test the World _ 2006-4-20 19:33 Reply to this speech
-
3 The Art of Reading-Lin Yutang
I feel the same way, but Schopenhauer is a grumpy teacher and Nietzsche is a grumpy disciple, so it is natural for this disciple to rebel against the teacher later.
Su Dongpo once did an extraordinary thing: he wrote a whole poem after imitating the rhyme of Tao Yuanming's poems. After these poems in harmony with Tao, he said that he was the reincarnation of Tao Yuanming. This writer is the most admired figure in his life.
Only this kind of reading method, only this kind of reading method meets the writer you like, is beneficial. Just like a man falls in love with his lover at first sight, there is nothing wrong with it. Her height, her face, the color of her hair, her tone of voice, and her laughing and laughing are all just right. A young man got to know the writer without the guidance of a teacher. This writer is just what he wants; His style, his taste, his ideas and his way of thinking are just right. So readers began to read everything written by this writer, because there was a spiritual connection between them, so he absorbed everything and digested it effortlessly. This writer will have magic to attract him, and he will enjoy himself; After a while, his own voice and appearance, with a smile, gradually resembled that writer. In this way, he really immersed himself in the arms of literary lovers and got spiritual food from these books. After a few years, this magic disappeared. He was a little tired of this lover and began to look for some new literary lovers. When he had three or four lovers and ate them, he became a writer himself. There are many readers who never fall in love, just as many young men and women only show off their amorous feelings without falling in love with someone. They can read the works of any writer, and they can also read the works of all writers. They won't achieve anything.
This view of reading art completely breaks the view that reading is a responsibility or obligation. In China, students are often encouraged to "study hard". A well-known scholar who studied hard once took a nap during evening self-study and stabbed his thigh with an awl. There is also a scholar who calls a maid to stand beside him when he is studying at night and wakes him up when he sees him taking a nap. This is really ridiculous. If a person puts a book in front of him and takes a nap while an ancient wise writer is talking to him, then he should simply go to bed. It won't do him any good to stick a big needle in his calf or let a girl wake him up. Such people have completely lost interest in reading. Valuable scholars don't know what "grinding" means
Practice ",also don't know what is called" hard ". They just love books and can't help reading.
After this problem is solved, the time and place of reading can be answered. There is no suitable time and place for reading. When a person is in the mood to study, he can study anywhere. If he knows the fun of reading, he will read whether in or out of school, whether there is a school in the world or not. He can even study in the best schools. Zeng Guofan said in his family letter that his fourth brother planned to go to a better school in Beijing: "If you can stand on your own feet, you can study at home, even in the wilderness and in the bustling places, you can also study, and you can be a herder without pay. If you can't stand on your own feet, you can't study at home, that is, you can't study in a clean country or a fairy land. " Some people put on airs at their desks when they want to read, complaining that they can't stand reading because the room is too cold, the bench is too hard, or the light is too strong. also
Some writers complain that they can't write because there are too many mosquitoes, the manuscript paper glows, or the noise on the road is too loud. Ouyang Xiu, a great scholar in the Song Dynasty, said that all his good articles were based on "three things", namely pillows, horses and toilets. Gu, a famous scholar in Qing Dynasty, is said to have the habit of "reading classics naked" in summer. On the other hand, if a person is not good at reading, there is a legitimate reason for not reading all year round:
Spring is not a day to study; It is best to sleep in hot summer;
It's best to wait until winter comes again in Qiu Lai next year.
So, what is the real art of reading? The simple answer is, when you are in the mood, pick up a book and read it. In order to fully enjoy reading, one must read naturally. He can take a copy of Lisao or Omar Khayyam (Persian poet) and go to the river to read it with his lover's hand. If there are lovely white clouds in the sky, let them read them and forget their books, or read books and white clouds at the same time. It's best to smoke a pipe of cigarettes or drink a good Chaze at rest. Perhaps on a snowy night, sitting in front of the stove, the kettle jingled on the stove, with a box of light tobacco beside it. A man took a dozen books on philosophy, economics, poetry and biography, piled them on the bench, and then picked up a few at leisure. When he found a book he loved to read, he gently lit a cigarette and began to smoke. Jin Shengtan thinks it is the greatest pleasure in life to close the door and read banned books on a snowy night. Chen Jiru (Mei Gong) described the mood of reading as the most beautiful: "The ancients called calligraphy and painting a soft picture scroll, so leisure is the best way to read and open a book." In this state of mind, one can tolerate everything. The writer also said, "Real bachelors don't care about the fish and the sea, good tourists don't care about the bad roads when climbing mountains, people who look at the snow don't care about the instability of bridges, people who live in the countryside don't care about laity, and people who love flowers don't care about bad wine."
I found the best description about the pleasure of reading in the autobiography of Li Qingzhao, the greatest poetess in China (Yi 'an,1081-141). Her husband is a student of Imperial College. When receiving the living expenses every month, he and his wife always go to Suoguo Temple to buy fruits with inscriptions. After coming back, the husband and wife will show off while chewing, peeling fruit, enjoying the inscriptions, or sorting out all kinds of inscriptions while enjoying good tea. He wrote in his autobiography "Preface to the Stone":
I remember that every time I go back to make tea after dinner, it refers to the accumulation of book history, saying that there is something in the first line of the first page of a book, and whether it won or not is the order of drinking tea. Hold up a cup and laugh until the tea turns over, but you can't drink it.
Willing to miss home forever! Therefore, despite the difficulties and hardships outside, I am indomitable. ..... So I listed several cases, such as pillows and pillows, understanding, looking at the gods, enjoying the sound, appreciating the color, enjoying the dog and enjoying the horse. ……
This little note was written when her husband died in his later years. At that time, she was a lonely woman. Because nomads invaded North China, she had to escape the chaos in the south and wander around.