How To Read A Book- A Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading - Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren [157]
Third, if syntopical reading is done on a number of different subjects, the fact that the same passage will often be found cited in the Syntopicon under two or more subjects will have its instructive effect. The passage has an amplitude of meaning that the reader will come to perceive as he interprets it somewhat differently in relation to different topics. Such multiple interpretation not only is a basic exercise in the art of reading but also tends to make the mind habitually alert to the many strains of meaning that any rich or complex passage can contain.
Because we believe that the Syntopicon can be useful to any reader wishing to read in the manner described in this chapter, be he a beginner or a mature scholar and researcher, we have taken the liberty of adopting its name for this level of reading. We hope the reader will forgive us what may seem to be a small self-indulgence. In return for that forgiveness, we would like to point out an important fact. There is a considerable difference between syntopical reading, with a small
"s," and Syntopical reading, where the latter phrase refers to reading the great books with the help of the Syntopicon. Syntopical reading, in the latter sense, can constitute a part of any syntopical reading project where the term is used in the The Fourth level of Reading: Syntopical Reading 333
former sense, and perhaps it would always be wise to start there. But syntopical reading with a small "s" is a term of much wider application than Syntopical reading.
On the Principles That Underl ie
Syntopical Reading
There are those who say that syntopical reading ( in the broader sense just mentioned ) is impossible. It is wrong, they say, to impose a terminology, even a "neutral" one ( if there is any such thing ), on an author. His own terminology must be treated as sacrosanct, because books should never be read "out of context," and besides, translation from one set of terms to another is always dangerous because words are not controllable like mathematical symbols. Further, the objectors maintain, syntopical reading involves reading authors widely separated in space and time, and differing radically in style and approach, as if they were members of the same universe of discourse, as if they were talking to one another-and this distorts the facts of the matter. Each author is a little universe in himself, and although connections can be made between diferent books written by the same author at different times ( even here there are dangers, they warn ) , there are no clear connections relating one author to another. They maintain, finally, that the subjects that authors discuss, as such, are not as important as the ways in which they discuss them. The style, they say, is the man; and if we ignore how an author says something, in the process of trying to discover what he says, we will miss both kinds of understanding.
It should be apparent that we disagree with all of those charges, and therefore an answer to each of them is in order.
Let us take them one at a time.
First, to the point about terminology. To deny that an idea can be expressed in more than one set of terms is similar to denying that translation is possible from one natural 334 HOW TO READ A BOOK
language to another. That denial is made, of course. Recently, for example, we read an introduction to a new translation of the Koran that began by saying that to translate the Koran is impossible. But since the author then proceeded to explain how he had done it, we could only assume that he meant that translation is particularly difficult in the case of a book held to be holy by large numbers of people. We would agree. But the difficult is not the impossible.
In fact, the view that an author's terms must be treated as sacrosanct is probably always merely another way of saying that it is difficult to translate from one terminology to another.
We would agree to that,