Dipping into this book can lead a person on an adventure into the “in jokes” in our society, just as the reader above experienced when the Bartleby remark appeared on TV. It is a joy to participate in society at large!

I look forward to reading this reviewed book.

I’m glad you’re enjoying your reading. It’s a little prescriptive, and definitely theoretically problematic from various perspectives, but it might be worth trying out Harold Bloom’s How to Read and Why.

The premise of the St. John’s university is those interested in scientific study start by reading the treatises of ancient scientists and mathematicians, and keep working their way forward. In fact, you end up being much more thoroughly grounded in the discipline when you study it this way, since you are studying the actual proofs and studies upon which each successive generation of mathematicians and scientists based their inquiry.

DB

Of course, you can add a liberal dose of non-Western classic reading to the mix. That would be excellent. A lot of it is hard to “get down” too.

DB

It also helped me to know that, for example, I would take a year or so reading classical literature, and then maybe a year in the medieval period/Renaissance, a year in the Enlightenment and a year in the modern period. This way I don’t let myself get freaked out that I’m not “making progress”, and I know that it’s a big job, not a weekend project :-)

Taking the time to do this for yourself is a fabulous, fabulous investment.

However, the howto section of the book is great, and good enough to justify purchasing the book (or reading it in the library) even if you can’t get through the fiction.

–Michael

Once though, I had no choice but to read a short story called “Bartleby the Scrivener.” I hated that I had to read it, I hated reading it, and when I finished, I hated the story. Not more than a week later I was watching a favorite show of mine and one character, a teacher, said to a returning student “Ah, come back to take another crack at Bartleby?” And the student replied “I would prefer not to.” It was a great line from the story that would have completely gone over my head had I not read the story.

I felt like I had been let in on sort of an inside joke. Nobody else who was watching the show with me picked up on it. It was great.

Still, I’d rather have 30 mins. back.

The beauty is — you are also experiencing the classics in a form closer to the way many people experienced them through most of history, when there was no such thing as compulsory education. Instead, there was a whole culture (albeit confined primarily to the leisured in society) around reading, writing about, and discussing the best works.

Trent, if this sort of thing is at all interesting to you, and especially if your children show a proclivity to the classics, when the time is right look for schools (college but also for younger grades) that teach according to “Great Books” methods. If I had my college experience to do over, I’d head for St. John’s myself (in Santa Fe — the classical education St. John’s, not the military academy).

DB