Notes on "How to Read a Book" Adler and Doren in relationship to The Swerve
When reading, there are three tasks for the first stage (before you critique or respond, you need to understand the argument)
First Stage
1. to find the skeleton in a text, the structure
2. to find the unity, and state the unity of the full work in one sentence (the thesis)
3. find the major parts of the work, how they work together and how they support the overall unity of the book
Second Stage
1. Coming to terms--that is understanding which words the author thinks is important and what those words mean
2. Determining the author's message
3. Evaluating the reasons provided to support that message
In a bad book, it is impossible to do 2 and 3.
You may also want to find out what question or questions the author was seeking to answer. What question was Greenblatt seeking to answer in The Swerve? Something along the lines of, how is it that the enlightenment occurred? Or more specifically, how is it that Lucretius influenced the shift from the dark ages to the modern era? What is the structure of The Swerve? It's an odd structure, clearly it's a history but its recursive, moving from Bracciolini's youth to his old age with many stops in between, showing the context of his time period (15th century) while attempting to decipher his motives in seeking out Lucretius. But, the motives seem rather clear: he was interested in books, which were rare back then. The context is more interesting, so we would see this beginning perhaps as a way to show how horrible things were before we took the swerve.
About 2/3rds of the way into the book we get an outline of Lucretius' philosophy (this is the most interesting and thought provoking part, I found). To sum up: peace of mind is worth more than anything and it is not found in religion or in fantastical fantasies about the soul living forever or an afterlife but in the focus on the daily life, simple pleasures, seeking happiness.
Thesis: Lucretius, through the leg work of Bracciolini, turned the dark ages, dominated by Christian resistance to morality, knowledge and curiosity, to the light.
Support? Mostly evidence of the bad things happening in Christianity for the darkness part, and individual evidence of great learned people using Lucretius.
What can we take from this book today? The need to resist against those who would supplant "science" with fantasy (although, certainly, even though Lucretius thoughts on atoms were pretty true, he didn't discover this through any scientific method that he tested).
Questions to ask:
1. Why is fear so appealing? Or, to put it another way, why do we humans chose fear more than hope?
2. Why does religion or at least Christian versions work better if they resist knowledge, wisdom and thought? Can't the two co-exist?
3. What about this book made it Pulitzer worthy?
4. Are peace of mind and freedom of fear a worthy life pursuit? How would the world be different if these goals were emphasized? Why does religion resist these goals?
Does history hold up this interpretation of the "dark ages"?
Is the book a condemnation of religion? Can we have "The swerve" without all the religious criticism? What other problems were preventing people from seeking out knowledge? Plague? Survival? Attention to winning wars rather than becoming smarter?
First Stage
1. to find the skeleton in a text, the structure
2. to find the unity, and state the unity of the full work in one sentence (the thesis)
3. find the major parts of the work, how they work together and how they support the overall unity of the book
Second Stage
1. Coming to terms--that is understanding which words the author thinks is important and what those words mean
2. Determining the author's message
3. Evaluating the reasons provided to support that message
In a bad book, it is impossible to do 2 and 3.
You may also want to find out what question or questions the author was seeking to answer. What question was Greenblatt seeking to answer in The Swerve? Something along the lines of, how is it that the enlightenment occurred? Or more specifically, how is it that Lucretius influenced the shift from the dark ages to the modern era? What is the structure of The Swerve? It's an odd structure, clearly it's a history but its recursive, moving from Bracciolini's youth to his old age with many stops in between, showing the context of his time period (15th century) while attempting to decipher his motives in seeking out Lucretius. But, the motives seem rather clear: he was interested in books, which were rare back then. The context is more interesting, so we would see this beginning perhaps as a way to show how horrible things were before we took the swerve.
About 2/3rds of the way into the book we get an outline of Lucretius' philosophy (this is the most interesting and thought provoking part, I found). To sum up: peace of mind is worth more than anything and it is not found in religion or in fantastical fantasies about the soul living forever or an afterlife but in the focus on the daily life, simple pleasures, seeking happiness.
Thesis: Lucretius, through the leg work of Bracciolini, turned the dark ages, dominated by Christian resistance to morality, knowledge and curiosity, to the light.
Support? Mostly evidence of the bad things happening in Christianity for the darkness part, and individual evidence of great learned people using Lucretius.
What can we take from this book today? The need to resist against those who would supplant "science" with fantasy (although, certainly, even though Lucretius thoughts on atoms were pretty true, he didn't discover this through any scientific method that he tested).
Questions to ask:
1. Why is fear so appealing? Or, to put it another way, why do we humans chose fear more than hope?
2. Why does religion or at least Christian versions work better if they resist knowledge, wisdom and thought? Can't the two co-exist?
3. What about this book made it Pulitzer worthy?
4. Are peace of mind and freedom of fear a worthy life pursuit? How would the world be different if these goals were emphasized? Why does religion resist these goals?
Does history hold up this interpretation of the "dark ages"?
Is the book a condemnation of religion? Can we have "The swerve" without all the religious criticism? What other problems were preventing people from seeking out knowledge? Plague? Survival? Attention to winning wars rather than becoming smarter?
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