Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The joy of reading books you don't understand

reactormag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 263 posts

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#51

Post by 2143 »

jyunwai wrote: post #10

A useful habit that I've begun to follow with more complicated books—especially when reading them out of personal interest—is to actively avoid taking notes or worrying about background material on a first read. I've recently read and greatly enjoyed a historical fiction novel called "Augustus" written by John Edward Williams and published in 1972. On the surface level, it's about the events of the life of Augustus C…

I see so many comments about taking notes while reading. I didn't even know that was a thing. I'm not even sure if I would want to do it, because it would interrupt the reading. My own personal belief (which I came up with just now) is that reading novels should be a smooth relatively easy affair. Because I read simply for the fun of it. This may not be the case with academic books however. I just, start reading.

I have in fact stalled on books before though off the top of my head only SICP and Anna Karenina come to mind. I'll reattempt both of them in the near future. Stalling on SICP was probably due to me not having the sufficient math background, which I'm slowly working on fixing. The post you wrote gives me hope.

There's a possibility that I've been doing things the wrong way all these years.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#52

Post by constantinum »

senkora wrote: post #17
jyunwai wrote: post #10

A useful habit that I've begun to follow with more complicated books—especially when reading them out of personal interest—is to actively avoid taking notes or worrying about background material on a first read. I've recently read and greatly enjoyed a historical fiction novel called "Augustus" written by John Edward Williams and published in 1972. On the surface level, it's about the events of the life of Augustus C…

I finished Infinite Jest without taking notes. I definitely missed a lot of stuff but I loved the experience and it ended up being one of my favorite books. I think Infinite Jest is a great example for this sort of thing because I later realized that I had completely missed the entire main plot. By the author: > There is an ending as far as I’m concerned. Certain kind of parallel lines are supposed to start convergin…

The best thing about reading(and finishing) Infinite Jest is that you are not sure. Not sure if the book has ended, not sure about anything. I've read and listened to multiple interpretation of the book. But that is what makes it a different experience(because of varying perspectives)

I wrote a small blog on how I did read Infinite Jest > https://www.prasannakumarr.in/journal/reading-infinite-jest

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#53

Post by sfink »

This reminds me of something that I heard once from a Chinese teacher. I can't vouch for the accuracy of it, but he was definitely on to something: In the West, it is assumed that it is the speaker's job to make himself understood to his listeners. In the East, it is the other way around.

In recent times, it seems like we've gotten even more extreme. The speaker or writer must not only spoon-feed the understanding, they also have to provide the motivation and the entertainment. Which I find sad, because some things you can't get unless you go to the effort of extracting them yourself. (See many reproducible psychology findings about retention being highly correlated with depth of processing, for example.) It's like the information equivalent of highly processed food.

I find myself falling into this trap on sites like this. An interesting but difficult article will be posted, I won't immediately know what to think or where I stand on the topic, and I'll flip to the comments so that I can get some part of the collective to tell me what to think and how to feel about it. Which is also sad.

In paintings, it is known that the viewer can get out more than the painter put in. It used to be the same with writing, but it feels like that is becoming more rare and less acceptable. If a reader can't follow the argument, it's automatically the author's fault and a waste of the reader's time. Heaven forbid the reader might need to exert some effort and grow in the gleaning.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#54

Post by spacephysics »

sfink wrote: post #53

This reminds me of something that I heard once from a Chinese teacher. I can't vouch for the accuracy of it, but he was definitely on to something : In the West, it is assumed that it is the speaker's job to make himself understood to his listeners. In the East, it is the other way around. In recent times, it seems like we've gotten even more extreme. The speaker or writer must not only spoon-feed the understanding,…

I find a similar trend with education in general. Some states have phased out programs for gifted students.

Instead, many of them aren’t stimulated enough and end up going down a troubling path (worst case) or they don’t really reach their full potential during those formidable years.

Teachers are expected to make the content match the lowest denominator, outside of the occasional exceptional teacher

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#55

Post by jjmarr »

sfink wrote: post #53

This reminds me of something that I heard once from a Chinese teacher. I can't vouch for the accuracy of it, but he was definitely on to something : In the West, it is assumed that it is the speaker's job to make himself understood to his listeners. In the East, it is the other way around. In recent times, it seems like we've gotten even more extreme. The speaker or writer must not only spoon-feed the understanding,…

I read this comment before the post, and now I feel bad.

I watched a spy movie from the 1960s recently with someone. We got 20 minutes in before she was confused about why the movie is just about a depressed drunk who lost his job in a spy agency, before my movie-watching accomplice looked up the plot of the movie on Wikipedia. Spoiler alert, there's a twist, and the movie didn't tell the viewer that.

It's interesting that modern movies have to make you think you understand something, before they pull the curtain back and reveal there's a twist. Otherwise people will get disengaged and stop watching before the twist occurs.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#56

Post by renewiltord »

sfink wrote: post #53

This reminds me of something that I heard once from a Chinese teacher. I can't vouch for the accuracy of it, but he was definitely on to something : In the West, it is assumed that it is the speaker's job to make himself understood to his listeners. In the East, it is the other way around. In recent times, it seems like we've gotten even more extreme. The speaker or writer must not only spoon-feed the understanding,…

You'll see this often on the Internet: proof? Proof? Citation? Boy, no one's going to do any work for you. If you believe the wrong thing, the consequences are your own.

In fact, only people with no better use for their time will spend their time teaching you. This means you're being taught only by people whose time is worthless or for whom it is useful for you to believe in something.

If you're not paying for the knowledge, you're not the customer, you're the product. I never elucidate for those beneath me in understanding. I only discuss with peers.

Perhaps the only capable person I know who does different is Taleb but his pleasure appears to be in calling someone "imbecile" after proving them wrong.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#57

Post by wozniacki »

renewiltord wrote: post #56
sfink wrote: post #53

This reminds me of something that I heard once from a Chinese teacher. I can't vouch for the accuracy of it, but he was definitely on to something : In the West, it is assumed that it is the speaker's job to make himself understood to his listeners. In the East, it is the other way around. In recent times, it seems like we've gotten even more extreme. The speaker or writer must not only spoon-feed the understanding,…

You'll see this often on the Internet: proof? Proof? Citation? Boy, no one's going to do any work for you. If you believe the wrong thing, the consequences are your own. In fact, only people with no better use for their time will spend their time teaching you. This means you're being taught only by people whose time is worthless or for whom it is useful for you to believe in something. If you're not paying for the kn…

I was waiting the whole time I read this to find a /s somewhere. Anywhere. Yikes.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#58

Post by troad »

2143 wrote: post #51
jyunwai wrote: post #10

A useful habit that I've begun to follow with more complicated books—especially when reading them out of personal interest—is to actively avoid taking notes or worrying about background material on a first read. I've recently read and greatly enjoyed a historical fiction novel called "Augustus" written by John Edward Williams and published in 1972. On the surface level, it's about the events of the life of Augustus C…

I see so many comments about taking notes while reading. I didn't even know that was a thing. I'm not even sure if I would want to do it, because it would interrupt the reading. My own personal belief (which I came up with just now) is that reading novels should be a smooth relatively easy affair. Because I read simply for the fun of it. This may not be the case with academic books however. I just, start reading. I h…

I think taking notes while reading fiction would be relatively unusual (outside fields like literary criticism), but taking notes while reading non-fiction is quite common, especially when grappling with denser material.

For example, I kept extensive notes while reading Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy. The work assumes you're internalising as you go along, which is somewhat inescapable given the nature of the material. The author can't stop to re-explain some finer point of Aristotle's every time it is engaged with in the subsequent two thousand years.

Pausing to take notes helps one reflect on the material and solidify their understanding, but also gives them a quick reference later if necessary. I just use my phone's Notes app, to keep the barrier as low as possible.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#59

Post by djmips »

malux85 wrote: post #16

When I was about 14 years old, my parents saw my interest in electronics and computers and went to a university professor they knew and purchased 6-7 books on various topics. (Mostly electrical engineering and some programming) They were designed for 2nd or 3rd year university students, and they were way wayyyy beyond me, but I used to read them, over and over, and slowly parts of them were becoming clearer to me, ev…

Same but for computers. As a child I got the engineering books for the 6502 from my father ( he was a power engineer).and they were like a foreign language. But I persisted and read them over and over like I was trying to decode an ancient cipher. And like you, eventually they became clearer and my understanding flourished. Such a cool experience.
Post reply on HN