I recently decided to tackle a book I’ve had forever, have tried reading several times, but didn’t get much out of it. The title of the book is “The One Dimensional Man” (Marcuse) and my interest in the book is NOT because I agree with the political or social philosophy buried within, but simply because some quite learned friends of mine speak highly of the book.
So, I’m approaching it once again. As it turns out, I last tried reading this was about 5 years ago. How do I know? I was using an airplane boarding pass as my bookmark, and it was from October-November 2016. My flight was a round trip to Chicago, and that was the year the Cubs won the World Series. I don’t remember when I bought the book, but it was a long time ago.
This time I’m determined to read it. But my approach is different. I’m trying to really understand it. It’s a difficult read. Marcuse’s writing style is quite unique. And at times a little difficult to follow.
My approach is basically to read each chapter twice. The first time through I’m trying to understand as much as I can. If I have questions about terms, what the chapter is about, and so forth, I capture them in a quick handwritten note (using a Pelican M800 fountain pen, by the way). But I don’t dwell on it. My goal is speed, generating questions, and understanding as much as I can.
The second time through it’s more analytical. Slower. Methodical. Lots of thinking times. Taking some notes to help me understand. Looking stuff up and taking notes on that.
This process is working. I must say that this is the most challenging book I’ve read in a long time-perhaps forever. I can actually imagine keeping this around and rereading in the future. It’s so dense with material that there is lots to unearth.
The purpose in this post is this. Think about your objective in reading. Mine is mostly to learn. I read surprisingly little for entertainment. If your objective is to learn, a good personal philosophy is to read deeper, but read fewer books.