Completed: How to Read Literature Like a Professor

How to Read Literature Like a Professor
Thomas C. Foster
2003

…the professor, as the slightly more experienced reader, has acquired over the years the use of a certain ‘language of reading,’ something to which the students are only beginning to be introduced. What I’m talking about is a grammar of literature, a set of conventions and patterns, codes and rules, that we learn to employ in dealing with a piece of writing. Every language has a grammar, a set of fules that govern usage and meaning, and literary language is no different. It’s all more or less arbitrary, of course, just like language itself.” (Introduction, “How’d He Do That?”)

Ok, I confess: I’ve been finished with How to Read Literature Like a Professor for nearly three weeks, and I’ve simply been too lazy to post anything. Pure, blatant laziness. Hey, it’s summer, right? (Or close enough…) Of course, this may also be partially a reflection of my feelings of antipathy towards the book: the manner in which Foster reads literature just simply isn’t the manner I prefer to read.

I don’t mean that I’m afraid that all the joy of reading will be taken away if I start to focus on symbolism and “whenever you see X you know it means Y” sorts of things (which are the predominant focus of the book), just that I’d rather focus on different things—the story (a very guilty reading for the plot reader), the themes, the how and why, perhaps some of the more writerly aspects. I suppose I was hoping for a book that would tell me more about these, although to be fair, looking at the symbolism can illuminate these things. I think this is why I ended up in some of the “arguments” I had with the book—we had different ends in mind.

It started in the first chapter “Every Trip is a Quest (Except When It’s Not).” I have no problem with that specific statement. Huckleberry Finn—quest. Lord of the Rings—quest. No, my problem is why does this matter? Foster indicates that the real goal of any quest—not the stated one—is the protagonist’s self-knowledge. Here’s my problem—I understand self-knowledge to be a characteristic of character growth, and character growth to be one of those things that a good reader should be looking for anyway—whether they’re reading “like a professor” or not. I just don’t get the point of needing to define a quest with all its attendant parts. Maybe my problem here is that this seems much too obvious to me, too easy—it may not be so clear-cut for a less practiced reader.

It seems that my issues with the direction of this book are that I’m looking for big picture while a lot of the focus is on tiny parts. I’m wondering –I have no background in literary analysis, so this merely speculation—is this one of those areas where there are different perspectives on the understanding of books and Foster is representing one school of thought? I.e., I’ve heard of approaching books from a feminist lens or a deconstructivist lens; is this just another lens in which literature can be approached?

Now, while it can be terrible fun to have a good book-argument (especially since the book has a hard time arguing back, especially if you close your eyes and don’t read it), I don’t want to give the bad impression that the entirety of my reading session with How to Read Literature was a long drawn-out argument. There is one major point I’m taking away from How to Read Literature Like a Professor that I think is really the key to reading just about anything in depth: know your sources. That’s not how Foster words it, he divides this into separate chapters: “When in Doubt, It’s from Shakespeare…,” “…Or the Bible,” “Hanseldee and Greteldum,” and “It’s Greek to Me,” as well as within others. The point: much of Western literature (all?) has in it references to literature of the past, the big ones being Shakespeare, the Bible, fairy tales, and Greek myth. This is one of those concepts that I think just about every reader picks up on at some point, consciously or not. What I hadn’t thought about before was the manner in which these references can add depth to/inform the story at hand. Nor had I considered that (duh) there must be similar “essential texts” in other cultures:

Still, no matter what your religious beliefs, to get the most out of your reading of European and American literatures, knowing something about the Old and New Testaments is essential. Similarly, if you undertake to read literature from an Islamic or a Buddhist or a Hindu culture, you’re going to need knowledge of other religious traditions. Culture is so influenced by its dominant religious systems that whether a writer adheres to the beliefs or not, the values and principles of those religions will inevitably inform the literary work.” (Chapter 14, “Yes, She’s a Christ Figure, Too”)

At some point in time, I would like to read more literature from outside my western-dominated comfort zone. Some of the classics of Japanese and Chinese literature really sound interesting, and I would really like to read some more African authors (to date, I’ve only read Things Fall Apart, which I think is the default African book for American readers). I just never considered that to fully appreciate such works might require additional work on my part to learn more about the culture and context they come from. It’s one of those things that is really obvious once it’s stated, but not something I’m used to doing. I may not live in the same era/country as the western authors I read, but I’ve had enough history to know something of their times and the references they make are more likely ones that I have a familiarity with.

I don’t have time right now to really dig into a reading project (which of course means that all I seem to want to do is read), but after reading Foster’s book I would love to spend some time with all those classic reference points. Probably most especially the Greeks—Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes—but also more Shakespeare (I’ve forgotten most of what I have read of his), and maybe even a quick survey through the Bible. I’ve read the entire Bible once before and good chunks of it multiple times, but there is so much in it that there are entire stories I don’t remember (usually the really odd ones). And then, maybe I’d feel qualified to start reading novels again! Not that I’d let this stop me from reading novels in the meantime of course. I’m neither that disciplined nor that actually concerned about it!

Completed: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
Kate Douglas Wiggin
US, 1903

Only two hours!” she sighed. “That will be half-past one; mother will be at Cousin Ann’s, the children at home will have had their dinner, and Hannah cleared all away. I have some lunch, because mother said it would be a bad beginning to get to the brick house hungry, and have Aunt Mirandy have to get me something to eat the first thing. It’s a good growing day, isn’t it?”

“It is, certain; too hot, most. Why don’t you put up your parasol?”

She extended her dress still farther over the article in question as she said: “Oh dear no! I never put it up when the sun shines. Pink fades awfully, you know; and I only carry it to meetin’ cloudy Sundays. Sometimes the sun comes out all of a sudden, and I have a dreadful time covering it up. It’s the dearest thing in life to me; but it’s an awful care.” (Chapter 1)

Rebecca Rowena Randall is charming. She is enthusiastic, eager to please, loyal, driven, able to captivate (most) all of those around her. Not quite an orphan—Rebecca’s mother is living, but with seven children is barely able to make ends meet—young Rebecca is sent to live with two spinster aunts who will raise her and see to her education. Rebecca enchants her driver as she makes her way from the train station to her new home in Riverboro, makes a lifelong best friend in Emma Jane, occasionally runs afoul of the hard-to-please Aunt Miranda, and manages to make loyal devotees of more than one adult resident. It is not hard to see many similarities with Anne of Green Gables—an orphan sent to live in a new home among strangers, who enchants those around her, gets into many scrapes, and has boundless enthusiasm. (Although the two are hardly identical—there is no “Gilbert” in this book, for one.) Published five years after Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, it is tempting to compare Anne with Rebecca but to make the comparison may be unfair to the earlier novel.

I found Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm to be enjoyable reading, but a bit uneven. An early chapter made up entirely of Rebecca’s letters to her mother—although it is cute to see Rebecca’s childish misspellings, and works as a method of moving time forward—sticks out oddly in a largely narrated story. Had this method been used more consistently, it may not have seemed so odd to me. I was also disconcerted by the difficulty in determining the rate of the passage of time or Rebecca’s age throughout most of the novel. I can’t even say with certainty her age at the beginning (I believe it is ten), and the jumping from episode to episode was made without reference to how long Rebecca had been in Riverboro or how old she now was. This improved in the latter portion of the book, and once Rebecca left her local one-room schoolhouse for high school, it was always clear how old she was, which season it was, how much schooling she had left. Both Anne of Green Gables and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm are episodic, covering roughly the same number of years and ages of their protagonists, but in my editions, Anne is about 50 pages longer than Rebecca. Without actually rereading both to verify, I suspect that those 50 pages make the difference in the evenness of moving from event to event–Montgomery has just a bit more room to smooth the transitions.

As a children’s book, I understand why Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm is not as well-known as Anne of Green Gables. Between the jumps in time and uneventful episodes such as a grammar lesson towards the beginning, I don’t think it would capture the attention of a child as well as Anne, although this is unfortunate as Rebecca herself is every bit as interesting as Anne. I also noticed little touches of subtle humor (my favorite: Rebecca’s father’s name was Lorenzo de Medici Randall and his twin brother Marquis de Lafayette Randall) that I’m pretty sure would go over the heads of most children (I certainly didn’t know who Lorenzo de Medici was at age 10).

Oh dear. I feel like I’ve been far more critical of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm than I intended to be, for I truly did enjoy reading it. I think it safe to say that if you have enjoyed reading Anne of Green Gables you would likely enjoy Rebecca. However, if I had to choose between the two, I would pick Anne. Which brings me to wonder—when is it fair to compare two books? I don’t wish to wander off into a lengthy tangent on this post, so I shall end here with a teaser for the next post (soon—it’s mostly written!) in which I shall discuss my opinions on comparisons. And hopefully justify those above … 😉

At Last, a Finish

A few years back I took a work-related test that was rather intense in the “you will pass this test only if you memorize every fact in this 300 page book” sort of way, and since I didn’t wish to waste my boss’s money by not passing it the first go, I studied so much that I can’t remember October of that year. I’m feeling rather that way about May this year. The first half of the month became an intensive study fest and the second half is turning into intensive recovery session. By which I really mean, for the past week or so I’ve abandoned all pretext of studying or anything else “not fun” and spent my time blog reading, TV watching, and finally, finally for the first time since mid-February (eek!) I’ve finished a completely “fun” book. (I really can’t consider How to Read a Book as fun reading. Informative, yes. Fun, not so much.)

The completed book was not, unfortunately, Conversation in the Cathedral, which had to be returned to the library, but Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, which remained a delight to the end. I’ll have more on that later this week. I’ve also put a good dent in How to Read Literature Like a Professor, but my progress on that one has been somewhat stalled by my tendency to argue with it. More on that once I’ve finished the book. (And more on why I blame my dad for the arguments—how’s that for a teaser?)

Part of me can’t believe that we’re over halfway through May and I have only finished 3 books this year! I think I’ve spent more time talking about reading than actually reading. Which may be part of the problem… I’d like to say that I’ll be spending more time reading in the near future, but I have one teeny little problem—other than How to Read Literature Like a Professor, I have no idea what I want to read. (Well actually, I know I want to reread Pride and Prejudice, but I’ve promised myself that as my reward for getting through the next test.) Rereads in general might be just right at the moment. Then again, one of the chapters I haven’t argued with in How to Read Literature Like a Professor makes me want to read some Shakespeare. One of his comedies might be just the thing. At any rate, it’s very up in the air—which is perhaps one of the most exciting things about reading—that thrill of possibility of what might be just around the next corner.

Completed: How to Read a Book

How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent
Reading Completely Revised and Updated for the 1970’s
Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren
1972 edition

Enlightenment is achieved only when, in addition to knowing what an author says, you know what he means and why he says it. (11)

The main premise behind How to Read a Book is learning how to read difficult materials—of any sort, not just books—and gain understanding of what is being read. Adler and Van Doren focus most of the book on expository, or non-fiction material, devoting only two chapters to “imaginative” literature: novels, plays, and poetry.

The limited discussion of imaginative literature was disappointing to me, for it is in the reading of imaginative literature that I feel weakest as a reader. In contrast, the reading for some of my college classes really forced me into making my own discovery of many of the principles for reading analytically, which discussion takes up the bulk of the book. In fact, at one point I was making my own notes in a nice little outline format and had to laugh because the chapter I was in the middle of was offering guidelines for outlining!

So, I would say this isn’t for everyone. I do think that if not this book itself, at least the principles it outlines should be taught to every college-bound high school student. It definitely contains excellent guidelines for anyone who will be doing research, especially anything requiring reviewing many sources. If your primary interest is reading fiction better, however, I just didn’t find it as helpful. It should be noted, however, that the ability to read analytically and syntopically is incredibly valuable, not just in college-level work, but also for the analysis of any sort of material which is trying to sway us–almost everything we read.

Not to say I found this a waste of my time. Sometimes it is useful to see things you’ve done instinctively clearly delineated. The section on “Inspectional Reading” was also new to me, and the chapters on imaginative works were related back to the analytical section—I just would have preferred to see these fleshed out some more.

Adler and Van Doren categorize four levels of reading: elementary, inspectional, analytical, and syntopical. Elementary is the sort of reading we all should theoretically master by the time we start high school, or during our early teens—the basic understanding of printed words and the ability to use context to work out unfamiliar words. (Unfortunately, this is not always achieved, as evidenced by the need for remedial courses in colleges.) Inspectional reading is the ability to pick up a book and in a short time analyze it to determine its value. It involves the systematic skimming of the book at hand, including reading through any preface or introduction, the table of contents, the index(!), and skimming through the book itself looking for critical points. First, this is not meant for imaginative literature, so anyone who hates “spoilers” can breathe easy. Second, this actually seems like a very practical method of reviewing books prior to an actual read to ensure that they won’t be a waste of time. By the time an inspectional read is finished, we should theoretically know what the book is about and what the author’s main premise is. We should be able to determine if it is a book that will increase our knowledge, or if it is one we will just get mad at!

Analytical reading is the process of really digging in and gaining a complete—or as complete as possible—understanding of the book. There are four questions the reader should be able to answer at the end of an analytical reading:

1. What is the book about as a whole?
2. What is being said in detail, and how?
3. Is the book true, in whole or part?
4. What of it? (What is the significance?)

The last step of analytical reading, the “what of it,” refers to when we voice informed criticism: agreement, disagreement, or a suspension of judgment (due to insufficient argument by the author). Adler and Van Doren emphasize that the book must be understood before any criticism can be made, and that all criticism must come from solid reasoning. It should be noted that it is the reader’s responsibility to put in the necessary effort to come to an understanding. (Adler and Van Doren do acknowledge the existence of “bad books” which cannot be understood by their rules.)

Finally, syntopical reading, a term coined by the authors refers to the comparison of many different sources on a topic. This is perhaps the least applicable to readers outside of an academic setting or those who are particularly interested in research on a given topic.

Imaginative literature primarily pleases rather than teaches. It is much easier to be pleased than taught, but much harder to know why one is pleased. Beauty is harder to analyze than truth. (204)

Although I was disappointed in the brevity of the discussion of imaginative literature, Adler and Van Doren made some interesting points. Whereas expository books can be judged by their truth and clarity of thought, imaginative books are much harder to judge. However, just as with expository literature we must have an understanding before we criticize, so with imaginative literature: “…don’t criticize imaginative writing until you fully appreciated what the author has tried to make you experience” (213). This is really interesting to me, because I think many readers have a tendency to judge a novel or a play or a poem by our emotional reaction to it. Adler and Van Doren don’t discount this, saying explicitly not to resist the effect a work has, but they contend that our criticism should be based on what is good or bad, rather than like or dislike.

Finally, for anyone who was curious if the authors really meant for us to reread all of the “great” or even “good” books we pick up, their answer is no. When something is too difficult to understand with only one reading, then certainly yes. In general, however, they only suggest rereading those books which you will go back to again and again and find something new every time: the great books.

On Progress (24-hour Read-a-thon)

Unsurprisingly to me at least, I got off to a bit of a sluggish start this morning, aka I slept in. However, once I finally got started, I’ve been happy with my progress.

Hour 5 (noon) update:
Time spent reading: 2 hrs, 15 min.
Book(s) read: How to Read a Book (Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren)
Pages read: +/- 27
Thoughts: Not a lot of pages, but a lot of thinking involved. I also grabbed another book to try out some of the “Inspectional Reading” techniques listed in chapter 4 of Adler & Van Doren’s book, so that took some time. I’ll switch over to fiction sometime this afternoon, but for now I’m trying to continue to progress through the library book. (I’ve already maxed out the renewals!)

Up next: more of How to Read a Book followed by either Conversation in the Cathedral (Vargas Llosa) or Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (Wiggin).

Hour 10 (5:00) update
Time spent reading (since last update): about 2-1/2 hours actually reading (breaks for food, blogging, etc.)
Books read: How to Read a Book and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
Pages read (since last update): 18 pages of How to Read a Book to finish out Part I & 30 pages Rebecca…
Thoughts: hmm…I’m spending too much time not reading! It’s not going to get better in the short term, what with dinner, etc., but I have no plans after that. Also, must find more comfortable way to sit.

Up next: Probably more of Rebecca…, and hopefully switch over to Conversation this evening.

Hour 16.5 (11.30 p.m.) update
Time spent reading (since last update): 4-1/2 hours more or less
Books read: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
Pages read (since last update): 107 pp.
Thoughts: So much for the library books, the book I own (Rebecca…) has caught my attention. It’s actually the perfect book for a read-a-thon as it’s not at all heavy and very enjoyable.

Up next: I’m getting sleepy, so most likely this is it for this spring’s read-a-thon. If I should manage to eke out a few more pages, they will be from Rebecca….