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Prompt: Analyze Chu Quang Tiem's 'Discussing Reading' and share your reflections.
Analyze Chu Quang Tiem's 'Discussing Reading' and articulate your thoughts.
Response:
“Books open up new horizons before me” (Gorky). Books play a crucial role in life, and reading is a noble cultural aspect of humanity. Discussing this issue, Chu Quang Tiem expressed his views in the article 'Discussing Reading.'
Chu Quang Tiem (1897 - 1986) is known as a renowned literary theorist and art critic in China. The excerpt 'Discussing Reading' is from the book 'Chinese Celebrities Discussing the Joys and Sorrows of Reading.' The author presents compelling arguments, reasoning, and evidence about the necessity of reading.
He emphasized the importance and role of reading with clear points. The excerpt begins with a philosophical assertion: “Education is not just about reading books, but reading books remains an important path of education.” To support this point, Chu Quang Tiem used authentic reasoning such as: “Because education is not only an individual matter but a matter of all humanity”; “Every form of education today is the result of humanity knowing how to assign tasks, making efforts to accumulate day and night”; “Those achievements, not buried, are all recorded and transmitted through books,” ... Indeed, education is the understanding that individuals acquire and accumulate through the learning process. To gather useful knowledge, there are many different ways such as exploring public information channels, practical experience, and application in reality, not necessarily just “reading books.”
Reading isn't the sole path for humans to dominate knowledge, but it's a crucial one. Books serve as repositories, transmitting valuable knowledge from one generation to another. They are milestones on the evolutionary path of human scientific knowledge. Reading enables the inheritance of achievements, preparing individuals to embark on an intellectual journey to discover new aspects of the world.
However, realizing this is not easy due to contemporary human inclinations. Books come in diverse genres and fields, making proper selection and reading a challenge. Chu Quang Tiem identifies two major obstacles. The first is that 'an abundance of books leads people to lack depth.' He supports this with examples from ancient Chinese scholars and contrasts them with modern scholars, illustrating the importance of depth over quantity. The second is that 'an excess of books can lead readers astray.'
The key is to 'choose wisely, read attentively.' Reading ten books is not as important as reading one valuable book. Reading extensively without profound thought is akin to 'riding a horse through the market, despite the precious jewels displayed, it only makes the eyes wander, and the hands return empty-handed.'
To help readers read correctly, deeply, and attentively, the author proposes two ways of book selection: books for gaining general knowledge and books for enhancing expertise. Depending on the goal, people can choose suitable types of books. General knowledge books are essential for everyone. Scholars aiming for extensive specialized knowledge must have a foundation in general knowledge because, in reality, no knowledge exists in isolation, separated from other disciplines.
