In anticipation of studying Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition with
via the Brooklyn Institute this July, I’m reminding myself of the key principles I’ve personally discovered for studying great books — big books, important books, books I include in my personal canon because of their enormity of influence on my thinking.I’ve read a lot of big books in my life, including most of the Great Books of the Western World (Adler’s set), plus some eastern classics, especially Confucian, and most of the pre-modern Christian classics — the Church Fathers — in Greek, Latin, and Oriental (Syriac, Coptic, Armenian) traditions, some in the original languages; plus the Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament. There’s no way I can say that I know all these, because there’s simply too much there. I have studied several dozen of them deeply, though, and of those, I probably know a few handfuls inside and out.
Does knowing a text inside and out mean it belongs in one’s personal canon?1 I’m not sure about that. Over time, temper and tastes change. You can be genuinely enamored of a text at one point in life, and find it rather trite or stale later. Or you might get buried in a text for scholastic reasons: you took a class on it, wrote a paper or a thesis on it, published on it, had a professor who was obsessed with it. But later you may find you’re burned out, or maybe you realize you never really liked it that much in the first place, however well you may, now, know it.
Arendt is an instructive and perhaps somewhat exceptional case, in that I really do not always agree with her, and yet I like her work very much. She always, always makes me think, and gives me tremendous material to tackle, grist for the mill. I learn so much from her arguments and ideas, and my pre-existing views are always challenged. I end up at the very least having to take her points seriously, even when I disagree, so that the best of them must be taken into my account, whatever my post-read working view.2 In this sense, she is most definitely in my personal canon. Her oeuvre is fairly vast; some works are more central than others for my list.
Okay, on with the practical tips.3
First, any great book will require multiple readings. Great books are, almost by definition, difficult, dense, full, and ungraspable in their totality on a single read. Thus, do not sweat it on a first, second, or even third read if you don’t understand everything — or much of anything — as long as you’re intrigued and find the topic worthwhile. Go back and read parts ad hoc. Dip in at will. Return periodically to full reads to help put it all together.
It’s best to work with an outline, to keep track of the structure of the whole. Beware imposed divisions and headings made by later editors (like with the Bible). If the author provides chapters, sections, summaries, take them seriously. As you work with a given passage or quotation, take it in context. Do not pull out a sentence out by itself and assume you know what it means. You will likely mis-interpret and mis-apply it. I can’t tell you how often this is done with religious texts, infamously so!
Front matter and back matter are hugely helpful to understanding a book. I had an uncle who would always read the conclusion of a book first. You might not want to do this with fiction — talk about a spoiler! — but with nonfiction, it’s not a bad idea. Forewords, prefaces, and introductions are vital to put a work in its “rhetorical situation” (more on this below). Epilogues tell what an author thinks is most significant to take away from reading, or what ought to come next.
Speaking of front matter, the best Tables of Contents are not made up of artful titles, so that one has no idea what the chapter is about. If it’s a big book, ideally there are further groupings, chapters broken into parts, say. If a text doesn’t come with the author’s own TOC, you may need to construct your own. (This would be the same as the outline.) Within chapters, pay attention to demarcated sections, whether titled or not. Each chapter is a main division of the book as a whole. What is its purpose?
Speaking of end matter, indexes are surprisingly useful. Perhaps the most important use — besides (re-)locating discussions of central topics — is to see who has influenced the author. What other thinkers are cited or discussed the most? Who are the author’s authorities, supporting roles, intellectual opponents? Have a look at the bibliography in conjunction. In topical indexes, see which entries have the most pages cited or the most sub-topics enumerated. Along with the Table of Contents, an index tells a lot about what ideas a book is primarily engaged with.
If a Great Book takes its place within a Great Conversation — and they all do — besides the index you’ll want to figure out what are the core problems being addressed. Ultimately, this takes several readings. At first you’ll guess the problem is one thing. Subsequently, you’ll refine the hypothesis. How was the Conversation set up historically before the present work? How did influential thinkers who came before set up the problem, either according to your own understanding, according to historians of the field or reference works, according to the author? Untangling the knot of The Set-up is perhaps the most crucial point of reading. Then: why is our author writing, and to whom? Who are the anticipated (and actual) readers, the audience, or interlocutor? In other words, what is the rhetorical situation?4 Is there an attempt to influence not just ideas but some action or policy, some public sentiment or opinion?
In addressing the core problem, what argumentative or rhetorical moves are being made, and how are they being made, for example by appeal to authority, by interpreting texts, by citing empirical evidence or data, by speculative picture-painting, by deductive logic based on premises (what premises)? Are these moves familiar or generally acceptable? To whom? Are they familiar to you? If the author’s moves are new or different, original or contested or controversial, how has that come about? Getting a grip on the rhetorical situation or problem (point no. 6) is the most crucial point of reading. The work’s significance is captured by its lasting contribution to the case, its takeaway.
If you’re reading an old text, you can and should consider its reception history. How has it been read down through the ages, to the point it has now come to you? Any famous work’s reception history has probably impacted what you know — or what you think you know — about it, what it is saying, what its purpose is, what impact it has had. One of the best uses of reception history is to debunk your own prior assumptions going in. It’s also useful to see how readers of a different era read the same text. If they lived and read closer in time to the author, or if they were near contemporaries, their reading may be far more context-sensitive than your own could ever be. Be sure to note if they are sympathetic or critical readers.
Finally, if a text has come down through the ages — thus requiring a lot of resources to preserve it over time, presumably indicating its merit to someone who thought it worth preserving — do give it the benefit of the doubt. Don’t criticize, at least not out loud, not yet, until you gain some real understanding. I know we’re brought up to embrace “critical thinking,” but when it comes to a great book, learn to hold your tongue first. (You are more than free to criticize later. I’m not encouraging idol worship or brainwashing or accepting anything at face value!) Realize that gaining some real understanding may take a fair amount of time for a big, difficult, dense, full, and ungraspable-on-the-first-read text. A better practice, if you don’t “get it” or don’t like a work, is to ask questions: “So, if the author is saying this, isn’t that a problem for that other thing?” “Can the author really mean what is being said here? That seems off, and not only to me, living as I do in my time and place, but even for someone living then.” “How is this point, or that argument, or the fact or metaphor or observation being used there part of the larger whole?”5 “What’s being assumed, if this is to make sense? — And let’s assume it does make sense, before too quickly judging otherwise.” “What are the implications here?” “What’s the classification system being rolled out?” And so on.
In short, Pose and Ponder.
Happy reading!
A rough, working definition of a personal canon — as opposed to say an expert or institutional canonical list — is that it comprises the set of works, books, music, art works, places, etc. that are the most formative for you personally.
One never gets to a “final” view — at least I don’t!
Yes, yes, sure, go read Adler’s famous How to Read a Book. There is much there. Some of what follows will overlap because it’s common sense, or a kind of universal wisdom gained from long reading experience.
Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. Great Books generally have the purpose of persuading the reader. The rhetorical situation is thus the context in which the book is working its art, both in its original context, through subsequent impacts on historical readers, and ultimately on you yourself as reader.
A good principle of hermeneutics — the practice of interpretation or establishing meaning — is to work from parts to whole, and then back from whole to parts. Yes, it’s circular. And you’re never finished.
Tracy,
Well done! And you've done something that I'd like to steal: your summary of how you think about Arendt! I couldn't have described my own take on her better than what you've said. And, as you suggest, this could apply to a number of thinkers. BTW, the inside cover of my worn copy of THE HUMAN CONDITION shows that I purchased it on 12 October 1974, about two months after my wife & I were married. So I'll soon be marking the 50th anniversary of two important (but not equally important!) relationships this year.
Not worrying about 'not getting it' is something I've leant on heavily. I rely heavily on lists of characters in Russian books because there are so many of them and I keep getting the names confused! I've not reread much of the recent literature I've been reading but I intend to start doing that soon.