How do we study?

Of course, to enjoy freedom, we must control ourselves. We can't abuse our rights and lose energy in ignorance, just like spraying half a shed to water a small rose bush. We must "start at once" and cultivate our energy and intelligence properly and solidly. This may be the first of many difficulties we have to face in the library. What is "start at once"? What we are facing may just be a mess. The bookshelves are crowded with poems and novels, history and biographies, dictionaries and blue books, and books with different tastes written by men and women of different races and ages in different languages. Outside, donkeys are braying, women are chatting by the well, and ponies are flying happily across the field. Where do we start? How can we sort things out in the noise and chaos and find the deepest and widest happiness from reading?

Undoubtedly, books can be divided into many categories, such as novels, biographies, poems and so on. We can draw different nutrients from different kinds of books. In fact, only a few people can treat books correctly and learn everything they can give. People often ask novels to be true, poems to be false, biographies to be full of praise, and history to strengthen our prejudice with vague views that are contrary to the author's views. It would be a good start to get rid of these preconceptions when reading. We should not be too hard on the author, but should be integrated with the author and try to be his thought companion and entourage. If you hesitate and find fault before opening the page, it will affect you to get the most useful value from reading. However, if you open your heart, you can enter a landscape that others can't appreciate from the tortuous sentences at the beginning of the book and the subtle signs and beautiful hints between the lines. Immerse yourself in it and savor it. Soon, you will find that the author has given you, or tried to give you, far more than a certain meaning. The thirty-two chapters of a novel-if we think about how to read it first-are like a fixed and controlled building, but words are more elusive than bricks. Compared with watching, reading is certainly a longer and more complicated process. Perhaps the fastest way to master and understand the elements of novelists' creation is not reading, but writing, trying to challenge the difficulties and risks in language. Recall an incident that happened to you with a unique impression: on the street corner, you met two people talking. At that time, the surrounding scene may be: trees swaying in the wind; Street lamps are swaying; The tone of the conversation was mixed with sadness and joy; At that moment, the scene seemed to blend in.

However, when you try to reproduce this scene in words, you find that it has become a fragmented and hundreds of conflicting impressions, some of which should be briefly described while others should be emphasized. As you put it in words, some feelings at that moment have disappeared. Put aside those fragmented impressions and turn to the works of masters, such as Defoe, Jane Austen or Hardy. At this time, you can appreciate their literary talent better. We are not just standing in front of different masters-Defoe, Jane Austen or Thomas Hardy. In fact, we are in a completely different world. In Robinson Crusoe, we walk on a long and smooth road, and events follow one after another, and the order of details is enough to constitute a masterpiece. If outdoor and adventure are everything to Defoe, it has nothing to do with Jane Austen. What is important to her is the living room, which reflects the character through various dialogues in the living room. If we get used to Austin's living room and the consciousness reflected through it, and then turn to Hardy, it seems that our heads are even more dizzy. We are in the wilderness, and the stars shine above us. At this time, the other side of our hearts appeared-the dark side revealed from loneliness prevailed, not the bright side shown in communication places. What is displayed here is not the relationship between people, but the relationship between people and nature and destiny. Three writers described three completely different worlds, and their respective worlds were a harmonious whole. They all carefully follow their own rules of observing things. No matter how strong a writer's point of view is, it will not confuse readers, and it will not write two completely different facts into the same book as some mediocre writers often do. Therefore, from one great novelist to another-from Jane Austen to Hardy, from Pickcock to Trollope, from Scott to George meredith-it's like a thread, being thrown around. Reading novels is a difficult and complicated art. To make full use of what novelists-great artists-give you, you should not only have keen insight, but also have a very bold imagination.

There are books from major publishing companies on the bookshelf, which are dazzling and messy. At first glance, we know that the authors of these books are rarely "great artists" and their works are not "works of art" at all. We refuse to read those biographies and autobiographies that are closely related to novels and poems, such as those great men, those long-dead and forgotten biographies and autobiographies, just because they are not real "works of art"? Or can we read it, but in different ways and for different purposes? Can't reading such biographies satisfy curiosity? When night fell, we lingered in front of a house. The lights in the room are on, the blinds are still on, and all floors show different aspects of people's lives, so our curiosity is drawn out-servants are gossiping, gentlemen are eating, girls are dressing up for dinner, and old ladies are knitting sweaters by the window. Who are they? What kind of people are they? What are their names? What are their occupations? What are they thinking? What kind of experience have they had?

Biographies and memoirs can answer these questions, light up countless families and tell us that people are doing some daily things: working hard, success or failure, eating and drinking, loving and hating until death. One day, we saw the house disappeared, the iron fence disappeared, and we were lost at sea; We hunt, go out to sea and fight; We shuttled between barbarians and soldiers; We took part in this great movement. If we want, we can stay in England and London until we feel that everything around us has changed. The streets are narrower, the houses are narrower, the windows are fragmented and full of unpleasant smells. We saw a poet, such as Donne, running out of such a house because the walls of the house were too thin to resist the screams of the children. Through the path paved with words in the book, we followed him to Vikner; Came to Ms. Bedford's park, where a famous nobleman and poet met. Then we went to Wilton, a famous house at the foot of the mountain, and listened to Sidney read Acadia for her sister. Then strolling in a swamp, I saw the romantic scene composed of herons and birds; Then travel north to see Ms. pembroke and Saint Anne Clifford, whether in the wild or in the city; We will be very happy to see gabriel harvey in a black suit and Spencer discussing poetry. Nothing in this world is more fascinating than exploring the alternation of darkness and glory in Elizabethan London. But we can't stay here Temple and Swift, Harley and St. John, these families are calling us; After a few hours, we can get rid of their quarrel and identify with the characters they created; Tired of them, we moved on, passing a lady wearing diamonds and black, and came to samuel johnson, Goldsmith and garrick. If you like, we can skip all this and see Voltaire, Diderot and the Marquise Fond. Similarly, you can go back to England and Vikner-some specific places and names are always repeated, how often! On the way to walpole's home in Strawberry Hill, which used to be Mrs. Bedford's park and later became the residence of the Pope. Walpole introduced many new faces to us. Here, we will visit countless houses and ring countless doorbell. This number is so huge that we hesitate at some point. For example, when standing in front of Miss Bray's house, we saw Sacri's door again; He is walpole's beloved friend; So, from this friend to that friend, from this garden to that garden, from this house to that house, we will go from one end of English literature to the other. If we can still distinguish between the present and the past, we can clearly realize that we have returned to the present. Of course, this is also one of the many ways we read biographies and letters; We can make them light up many windows in the past; We can see the daily habits of those famous dead people; Sometimes I fantasize that I am so close to them that I can accidentally discover their little secrets. Sometimes I will take out their plays or poems and read them in front of the author to see what is different. But it will also cause other problems. We have to ask ourselves how much influence the author's life will have on his works-how reliable will it be if people are allowed to interpret the author's intentions? In the face of what the author wants to arouse our sympathy or disgust, to what extent will we resist or give-language is so sensitive that it is easily influenced by the author's personality. These are many questions that come to mind when we read these biographies and letters, and we must answer them ourselves, because nothing is more deadly than being influenced by other people's personal preferences.

Of course, we can also read these books with another purpose, that is, we don't want to clarify literary works, and we don't want to get familiar with those celebrities, just want to improve and exercise our creative ability. Isn't there an open window on the right side of the bookshelf? Stop and see how pleasant it is outside! How exciting the unconscious, subtle and eternal movement of this scene is-horses galloping in the fields, women drawing water by the well, donkeys raising their heads and wailing, giving out long, harsh moans. Nothing in any library is more important than recording the fleeting moments of men, women and donkeys in the world. Once a thing of the past, any kind of literature will pile up old books, and those lost and forgotten moments of life recorded in fragile language will be crushed under the wheel of history. However, if you are interested in these old books, you will be surprised at the remains of human life that no longer exist during reading. In fact, you have been conquered. Maybe it's just a letter-but what kind of imagination will it give us? Maybe just a few words-but what prospect do they offer us? Sometimes, I come across a story full of fun and appeal, which seems to be written by a great novelist. However, this is just an old actor, such as Tate Wilkinson, recalling the strange experience of Captain Jones. Perhaps the young adjutant who served under arthur wellesley fell in love with a beautiful girl in Lisbon; Maybe Maria Allen threw away her wool in the empty living room and sighed, it would be great if she had listened to Dr. Bernie's advice instead of eloping with her Reese. All these things are worthless, even insignificant, but so attractive: when horses are running in the fields, women are drawing water by the well, donkeys are howling loudly, and we occasionally rummage through the pile of old books and find some rings, scissors and broken noses.

However, we will eventually get tired of these works. We are tired of looking for something to supplement the half-truths provided by Wilkinson, banbury and Maria Allen. They don't have the control of artists to reduce complexity and simplify complexity; They can't tell the whole story of their life; They even tore the whole story to pieces. What they can provide us is only factual materials, and this is only the lowest form of the novel. Therefore, desire swells in our hearts, so we should stop this incomplete expression and approximate estimation, stop looking for subtle differences in human nature, and enjoy the pure charm of novel abstraction and creation. So, we created a situation, strong and * * *, emphasizing details, while emphasizing the atmosphere with some regular beats, and these natural expressions are poems; Should we read poetry? When we can almost write poetry.

Zephyr, when will you come?

In order to rain?

God, if my lover can come back to my arms,

I want to sleep again!

The influence of poetry is so strong and direct that at some moments, we can't feel anything except the poem itself. We are immersed in a profound situation at once! Here, we can't catch anything and nothing can stop us from soaring. The fantasy of the novel is gradual, and its effect is prepared in advance; When reading these four poems, we will stop and ask who wrote them, or fantasize about Donne's house or Sidney's secretary; Or are they immersed in the complicated past and the process of human reproduction? Poets will always be our contemporaries. When we read poetry for the first time, our emotions are severely impacted and our energy will be concentrated. Then, this feeling will gradually spread throughout the brain and extend to distant meanings; So we began to discuss and comment rationally, and then we also realized those echoes and reflections. Strong poetry can greatly affect our mood. We just need to compare the power and directness of this poem:

I should fall down like a tree and find my own grave.

All I remember is that I was sad.

Regulate unstable emotions:

The hourglass records time,

An hour passed, and the time was scattered.

You wasted our lives and we watched it;

Come into this world while enjoying your age,

Finally, die sadly; But life,

Tired of riots, just counting every grain of sand in the hourglass,

Sigh bitterly until the last grain of sand falls,

So sum up all the remaining disasters.

Or let people calm down and meditate:

Are we still young,

Our destiny, our hearts and homes,

Is infinite, just stay there;

Once you have hope, it won't disappear.

Effort, expectation and desire,

There is something consistent.

Next to it are countless favorite things:

The moon rises in the sky,

No place to stay:

She stood up slowly,

Several stars are shining around her.

Or is it just a beautiful fantasy:

People wandering in the forest continue to wander.

In a clearing in the distance,

The great world is burning,

The raging fire rolled in,

From his observation,

Like crocuses in the shade.

Imagine the different arts used in poetry;

His ability is to let us become actors and audiences at once.

His ability is to create different characters with his own hands.

As if they were his gloves,

So Falstaff and King Lear were born.

His ability is to generalize, extend and expound,

Once, but forever.

We are "just comparing", which admits the complex mystery of reading. The first step mentioned just now is to understand and feel as much as possible, which is only half of the reading process. If you want to get all the happiness it can give from a book, you have to complete the whole process, that is, to judge and identify all kinds of feelings and consolidate the changeable impression into a clear and solid feeling. But don't be too impatient, wait patiently for the dust to settle and the contradictions and doubts to subside; Might as well go out for a walk, chat with friends, pick up dead petals on rose leaves, or take a nap. In this way, inadvertently, naturally, completely unaware of the situation, completed its transformation process, books have brought us new meaning. It floats in our hearts with complete meaning. A complete understanding of the whole book is completely incomparable with understanding only a few words. The details in the book are also in place, and we can see its overall image from beginning to end: this is a barn, a pigsty, or a church. Now, we can compare books, just like comparing different buildings. This comparison means that our attitude has changed. We are no longer the author's friends, but his judges. Just as we must be full of friendship as friends, we must be strict as judges. Can't the author of a book that wastes our time and feelings be considered a criminal? Aren't the authors of books full of fallacies, forgeries, decay and diseases the most sinister enemies of society, decadent people? We must make a harsh judgment; Compare each of their books with the best of their kind. Fortunately, we have deeply understood and evaluated the characteristics of Robinson Crusoe, Emma and The Return of the Native. Compare those novels with them-even the latest and most humble novels can be compared with these best novels and evaluated. The same is true of poetry. When the intoxicating rhythm is forgotten, when the brilliant words have disappeared, a visual image will appear in our minds. We might as well compare it with King Lear, Feider and The Princess. Instead of comparing, we should compare with other works that we think are the best or similar. It is true that the novelty of newly created poems and novels lies in their superficiality. We just need to change the criteria for judging past works slightly, not completely.

It would be foolish to think that the second stage of reading, that is, the stage of judgment and comparison, is as simple as the first stage, just opening your mind and sorting out countless impressions that are pouring in rapidly. It is difficult to read without books. Only by comparing various impressions in your mind, reading widely and fully understanding can the comparison be vivid and vivid. If such a requirement is added, it will be even more difficult. "It is not only this kind of book, but also has some value; So, it failed here and succeeded there; This place is terrible and that place is wonderful. " To be such a reader, you must have extraordinary imagination, insight and knowledge, which is very difficult, even the most confident people find it difficult to find their potential. Then, would it be more wise to leave out the process of reading and let the critics and well-dressed masters in the library decide the absolute value of books for us? That's not true! We can emphasize the value of induction; We can forget our identity in reading. But we know that we can't completely empathize with others, and we can't completely forget ourselves. There always seems to be a demon whispering in our hearts: "I hate, I love!" " "We can't shut him up. It is this love-hate relationship that makes us so close to poets and novelists that we can't tolerate the appearance of another person. Even if opinions differ from people and judgments are wrong, in reading, our taste, the feeling that shocked us, undoubtedly inspired us deeply. We acquire knowledge through emotion, and suppressing personality will lead to its exhaustion. Over time, we can cultivate our own tastes and control them. When we greedily eat all kinds of books-poems, novels, history, biographies-and stop reading, and face a wider space, that is, a life world full of contradictions, you will find that your taste has changed, and you will stop being greedy and start to meditate. It not only allows us to evaluate specific books, but also tells us the similar characteristics of some books. It will say: pay attention to what these characteristics are. It will lead us to read King Lear and then Agamemnon, thus discovering this similarity. Therefore, taste guides us, we can go beyond specific works to find the characteristics of book classification, and then name these characteristics, and thus construct rules to help us recognize. Only in this way can we get deeper and more precious pleasure. However, the rules will be more vital only if they are constantly broken in the process of connecting with books. Therefore, nothing is easier and more ridiculous than making rules that are divorced from the facts. In order to accomplish this arduous task steadily, we might as well turn to those unique writers who let us know that literature is art. Coleridge, Dryden and Johnson showed amazing appropriateness in their cautious comments, and poets and novelists showed amazing appropriateness in their reckless language expressions. They illuminate the vague thoughts rolling in the clouds and fog in our hearts and shape them. But when you ask them for advice, your heart must be full of questions and opinions honestly accumulated in reading, and you will gain something. If you just blindly obey its authority, like a sheep lying in the shade of a fence, you can't expect help. Only when their rules collide with ours and conquer us can we understand.

If this is the law of reading, if reading requires the most precious imagination, insight and judgment, you may come to the conclusion that literature is really a very complicated art, and even after reading it all your life, it is difficult to make a valuable contribution to literary criticism. After all, we are still readers, and we don't have to force ourselves to have the noble glory that only a few critics can get. But as readers, we still have our own responsibilities and important position. The standards we put forward and the judgments we make are virtually part of the air that writers breathe when they create. Our creative demands, although not published, will also have an impact on writers. Literary criticism is still in an unresolved state. As long as it is infectious, distinctive and sincere, it is precious. Books are criticized, just like animals entering the shooting range. Critics have only a short time to reload, aim and shoot. If he treats rabbits as tigers, eagles as poultry, or misses the target at all, or accidentally hits a cow grazing quietly in a nearby field, he can get our forgiveness. If the author can feel another kind of criticism besides criticism, and feel the views of ordinary readers who read slowly because they love reading-these comments are sometimes sympathetic and sometimes harsh-can't this improve the quality of the work? If we try to make books more influential and colorful, it will be a goal worthy of our efforts.

Of course, who always thinks about what to achieve when reading? Are some professions not worth pursuing in themselves? Isn't the pursuit because of your own pleasure, not the final result? Isn't reading one of these pleasures? I sometimes fantasize that the world judgment day is finally coming, and those great conquerors, lawyers and politicians will receive the awards-crowns, laurels and names engraved on immortal marble. When Almighty God saw a reader approaching with a book under his arm, he could only turn around and say admiringly to Peter, "Look, these people don't need to be paid. We have nothing to give them here. They love reading all their lives."