Some books can be tasted, some books can be swallowed, and some books have to be chewed and digested. In other words, some people only need to read part of it, some people just need to dabble in it, and a few people have to read it all. When reading, they must be absorbed and tireless. You can also ask someone to help you read this book, but only if the subject matter is inferior or the value is not high. Otherwise, the book classics are as tasteless as distilled water.
(This was translated by Wang Zuoliang. The original English text is: some books are to be tested, some books are to be swallowed, and some books are to be chewed and digested; In other words, some books are to be read in parts; Others read, but not curiously; A few books can be read completely, and they should be diligent and dedicated. Some books can also be read by others and extracted by others; But that will only appear in unimportant arguments and books; Otherwise, refined books are just like ordinary distilled water, and they are flashy things. )
Those books that should be chewed and digested should at least have the original works of those excellent works.
As for which original works to read, I won't mention them in this article. Many awesome people have listed some bibliographies or put forward some basic general ideas. For example, it is listed in Liang Qichao's Reading Guide, Jin Kemu's Finished Reading and Kong's Fifty Books China People Must Read Today. As for what classics are worth rereading or even rereading in each major, if you don't know, then look for a book on the history of thought and theory of that subject, and you will know what important classics have great influence in this field at least.
In a word, the bibliography listed by those cattle people is more valuable for reference. However, cattle people also have shortcomings and preferences, just look at Liang Qichao's criticism of Hu Shi's bibliography. Therefore, it is also good to look at several kinds. Books listed in the same way in different bibliographies are generally books that need to be reread and read repeatedly.
On the other hand, there is basically no need to read the so-called required books for a certain university on the Internet. Mainly because there are too many lies. Some so-called compulsory books for a university, at first glance, feel that the people who listed the books probably haven't read any books, and they are basically dirty bestsellers, but they are still under the banner of some famous universities, and I don't know who compiled them.
Then why read the original?
There are many reasons. Just say two.
In short: taste the original flavor; Prevent being bullied.
First of all, the so-called "original" here refers to works that have not been adapted, and further refers to works that have not been translated into other languages. Any work adapted, summarized or relayed shall not be the original; Sometimes, because you can't understand foreign languages or old sayings, you need to read articles translated from foreign languages into your mother tongue, or articles written in old sayings into modern languages, which is not as good as the original. If necessary, the original should prevail, but it is best to refer to multiple versions.
Let me talk about two reasons first:
First, taste the original flavor.
In the 4th and 5th centuries, there was a great translator named Kumarajiva. He has translated many Buddhist scriptures into Chinese. Ordinary people have probably heard of the Diamond Sutra, the Amitabha Sutra and the Goblet of Fire.
Although he has led his disciples to translate many works, and the translations are very classic, a story recorded in A Biography of a Monk compiled by Liang Huijiao can give us another inspiration.
There is a proud pupil named "Rui", who is smart and knowledgeable and follows around. Kumarajiva talked with him about the rhetoric of India and its neighboring countries and the similarities and differences between China at that time. He said that Tianzhu attaches great importance to the ceremony of art and literature. When he meets a king or Buddha, he always sings praises, and the eulogy in Buddhist scriptures is an important part of this ceremony. But after translating into Chinese, the general idea can come out, but the sense of style is too lost. So he used a metaphor to say that the result of this translation is like chewing rice, which is not only tasteless, but also disgusting.
Kumarajiva may have fallen in love with Buddhist scriptures before he translated them into Chinese. But we can try to understand this heart and its truth.
When we look at the poems translated from foreign countries, we often have no wonderful feeling, probably mainly because after the language conversion, various rhetorical devices, such as pronunciation, vocabulary and collocation, which are used to make full use of the characteristics of the language itself, are inevitably omitted, and many aesthetic feelings of the original text are also omitted.
Therefore, even assuming that translation or free translation basically conforms to the content and spirit of the original text, it is generally not as authentic as reading the original text. Only by reading and understanding the original can we better understand the spirit and taste of the original.
Second, prevent being bullied.
There are mainly two kinds of bullying here: clumsy reporting; Interpretation of senior black.
The first kind, clumsy reporting. This is often unintentional, but it is also harmful. Russell said in his History of Western Philosophy:
When a fool repeats what a wise man says, it is always inaccurate, because he will inadvertently translate what he hears into a language he can understand. I would rather have a philosopher who is my sworn enemy repeat my words than a good friend who doesn't understand philosophy.
There is nothing to say about unintentionally reporting mistakes, although it will make some people unhappy. Ha ha!
Generally speaking, you must be careful when you see many books called "Introduction to Great Men's Thoughts". It's quite possible that what you read is that some "fools" called by Russell inadvertently extracted some famous works of those great men, which are delicious to read. From delicious to wax with the same taste, readers can't help tearing books when reading.
What should we do?
Let's give some sympathy to those whose ideological level, understanding ability and language level are far less than those of great men. In many things, greatness is beyond the reach of ordinary people, such as thinking and writing. Those who are interested in building ladders to help us climb the ideological peak more conveniently may have inadvertently built some ugly and rickety hanging ladders. We really can't blame them too much. Let's spend more time reading the original works with rich charm.
Second, the interpretation of senior black. Interpreters can often understand the author's original intention, but because of their different positions from the original author, they deliberately exaggerate, distort and distort the original text in the report, or describe it truthfully and falsely, but in fact they secretly discredit it. In short, by using all possible means, what the audience comes into contact with is quite different from the original intention of the author, which often causes extremely bad reactions, making readers and listeners have a strong aversion to the so-called original author. On the surface, those reporters may also make a strong advocacy of journalists' ideas.
Logically speaking, this can be called "the scarecrow" for people to attack.
Attacking the scarecrow is a logical mistake. Common in all kinds of debates. The general meaning is this: someone said a paragraph and expressed a meaning, but someone deliberately misrepresented the original intention of A, distorted the expression of A, and then attacked its distorted statement. On the surface, it is attacking A, but in fact it is only his forged "A", just like sticking a scarecrow on yourself, then labeling the scarecrow with "A" and then attacking it.
However, if the audience is a little careless, they may really think that he is attacking A. When we listen to some people retelling other people's ideas and believe what they have heard or read, it is easy for us to make a logical mistake to attack the scarecrow because of the narrator's retelling.
This situation is very similar to an insidious wizard who stabbed an ugly villain and said to you: This is XXX. Look how cute he is! Look how great he is! We must listen to him! We must hold high his flag! However, if you love beauty to the extreme and can't tolerate any ugly person, then when you look at such an ugly little person, you may feel sick, and it's not too late, so you can't wait for 10 thousand silver needles to stab it and throw it into the trash can.
The intentional distortion of the narrator of the black senior is the most harmful, because it is often carefully designed and often expresses nothing more than a forgery of the narrator's thoughts that he wants us to mistake for the reporter.
If you don't look at the original work, because of the reporter's intentional distortion, you have a great misunderstanding of the original author, and then you have a fierce attack on the original author. On the surface, it seems that we have surpassed the original author, but in fact it just shows our ignorance and low discrimination.
Since its birth, Marxism has experienced various arguments and dialectical arguments. In the Complete Works of Marx and Engels, he and his friends mentioned to people that Marx said angrily "I am not a Marxist" before his death, because there was a time when a group of people in France called themselves Marxists, but they distorted Marx's meaning and publicized their own ideas. After the death of Marx and Engels, many Marxist schools appeared soon. Today, in some classes in universities, Western Marxism, referred to as "Xima" for short, is enough to tell us how many different interpretations there will be for the same thing and the same person's thoughts.
So, I just read a little bit and I don't know who is talking about Marxism for what purpose. I haven't read the books written by Marx himself, but I am extremely disgusted with Marxism. What I dislike is actually not Marxism, but a scarecrow made by someone who imitates Marxism.
It's a pity that too many people can't tell the scarecrow from the real person in the book, and they are fooled by the seniors. They don't want to read Marx's own books anymore, thus losing contact with Marx's genius, greatness and beauty.
Many other great men from all walks of life have suffered or suffered the same fate.
Many people who don't know how to read some great people's original works patiently have suffered or suffered from experienced black retelling swindlers, but from time to time they use words like "disgusting after reading" to express their hatred that those imaginary great people are actually misled by themselves.
Good works of genius are twisted into disgusting rubbish. What should I do if I am unfortunately rejected?
Read the original text by yourself.
As for the problem that the original is difficult to understand, there are probably only three problems: the text is difficult to understand; The concept is difficult to understand, and the story is unknown. If the text is difficult to understand, use reference books: dictionaries, encyclopedias and translations (this must be cautious, because sometimes translators will misinterpret the original text unintentionally or intentionally). If the concept is difficult to understand, then look for relevant literature, professional dictionaries, introductory books (this one should also be cautious, because there may be clumsy reporting and senior black, and other types are actually more or less caused by this problem, so you should refer to various materials anyway) and related papers. If you don't know the ins and outs of the incident, you must rely on relevant historical documents and historical discourses. In short, we should understand the background on the basis of understanding the text.
This is the same as our daily conversation.
For example, if you meet two people in the street, A has already said: Done? Answer: Yes.
If you haven't studied English and French at all, you may not know what they are talking about.
If you learn a little English and French, you will know that A asks "OK?" B says "hmm".
But you still don't know what they are talking about. However, you can probably judge from the way they communicate. Although they speak different languages, they should be able to understand each other.
But what if you can't see any unusual expressions on their faces?
What exactly did they say?
If you don't know the background before this conversation, you can't judge. Meaning has infinite possibilities.
For example, b goes to the toilet; B to find what he forgot; B has thrown something or someone away (for example, it may have been abandoned); B just killed someone; B just had sex with someone (don't feel beautiful or even impossible. An American journalist and writer named "Mike McIntyre" wrote a book called "The Kindness of Strangers: Crossing America without Money", which recorded his experience of walking all the way from the western United States to the eastern United States without money. On the way, he met a couple, the woman went to the country bar to go to the toilet and do sexual services for temporary clients. When I met this couple, they had a good relationship. They are relatively low-level people with limited means of making a living, which is one of them. Moreover, they are very friendly to the author); There are10,000 possible stories.
All great works are created for the real life and social problems faced by the author at that time. If they are separated from the context, some basic spirits and principles may be beneficial to future generations, but they often need to be transformed by the spirit of the new era and enriched by the specific life content of the new era.
Deliberately taking some concepts out of context, deliberately blurring some concepts, and transforming the concrete and vivid noble feelings in the world into abstract, floating, empty and simplistic rigid concepts is another means used by some people who are good at senior black.
Most people like dynamic, vivid and vivid things, and paraphrasing this wonderful work into dry text arrangement actually damages the vitality of the original work. It's like draining a person's blood and throwing it in front of a person and saying, well, this is the person you want to meet.
It is popular to say "dry goods" now. Some people think that you can understand the original "dry goods" by reading other people's notes, but it is actually a misunderstanding. "Dry goods" can also be flesh and blood. In fact, some works are too beautiful to be summarized, but they are just cramps and bones of a fresh life, which is cruel.
I remember reading a report about an interesting experience that writer Yu Hua once had. In that story, Yu Hua didn't like Lu Xun's works in his early years. Later, a director asked him to change Lu Xun's novel into a script and make a movie. At that time, Yu Hua readily promised, which was too easy. So I went to buy a collection of Lu Xun's novels. As a result, I couldn't stop watching the first diary of a madman, and then I called the director and said, forget it, I can't change a word.
This report seems a bit exaggerated. I haven't had a chance to prove it to Mr. Yu for the time being, but it's probably true. People who really read Lu Xun's novels and feel shocked will probably have similar comments.
Well, it seems that we have said a lot, but in fact we mean the same thing. For those excellent works that have a far-reaching impact on mankind, try to read the original works. If it is difficult, we should use various tools to read it, instead of just reading the abstract or retelling, so as to taste the original flavor and avoid being cheated by the reteller stupidly or unconsciously. However, if you only listen to this sentence, how will it feel different from reading all the previous words?