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Getting Further Into Nonfiction

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Reading Lesson 12: Getting Further into Nonfiction READING LESSON 12: GETTING FURTHER INTO NONFICTION There are different types of fiCtion, but there are even more subCategories of nonfiCtion. Our first division Comes when we piCk up a book and determine whether it is a praCtiCal book or a theoretiCal one. PraCtiCal books help us in the area of how to do something or what aCtually works in some way. TheoretiCal books are about something that is to be seen or understood. Books about ethiCs, although it may seem theoretiCal at first, are aCtually essentially practical because they’re telling us how to live our lives—what we should or shouldn’t do, and what rewards/punishments are attaChed to behavior. So if a book is about how to make Changes in your life or how to learn a skill or how to relate better to other people, that would be practical. TheoretiCal books can be further subdivided into history, science, and philosophy. • History deals with things that existed or events that oCCurred on particular dates. • SCience seeks laws or generalizations, not things that happened only once. • Philosophy seeks generalities like sCienCe, but has more to do with daily human 12 experienCe than things that Can be reproduCed or disCovered in a lab. History is especially relevant to our study of the Bible. There are different theories behind the writing of history, just as there are different theories of translation. Every person who ever wrote history from their own experienCe is affeCted by his or her perspeCtive on the event. And just as there are two sides to any argument, there is always more than one perspeCtive on what aCtually happened in any given situation or what the motives were behind it. So the first rule of reading history is to read more than one aCCount of any period or event if we really want to understand it. This is espeCially important to us if the event we want to know about has some praCtiCal importanCe in our lives. It’s very helpful that God gave us four eyewitness aCCounts of Christ’s life instead of just one. By Comparing the similarities and differences of the resurreCtion aCCounts in four Gospels, for example, we Can put together a muCh better aCCount of the events and the theologiCal impliCations of it than if we had only one. And this matters to us, beCause whether Jesus really rose from the dead or not has extreme praCtiCal signifiCanCe! 65 Let’s Learn! It is important to remember that the historian must always make up something. He must either find a general pattern in, or impose one, on events; or he must suppose that he knows why the person in his story did the things they did.1 Even if someone is trying to write history as it happens or to write something about the very reCent past, we should always be aware that books or artiCles like this want to prove something. The author of a modern biography or politiCal tell-all or a book about the spread of AIDS in AfriCa is putting things in a Certain light to get people to either believe something is/was real or to get them to take aCtion in some way. This isn’t sinister. Every author must have an agenda for everything they write, otherwise they wouldn’t have been inspired to take the time and effort to write a book or article! Even a journalist “objeCtively” reporting stories has an agenda—to meet a deadline, provide juiCy news that sells papers, to make a name for him/herself, etC. So when we read history—modern or anCient— we do well to seek what the author’s agenda may be. It’s very important to notiCe whether an author is baCking up his proposition with supporting reasons or sourCes. If they’re not, his perspeCtive is just a matter of personal opinion or even deliberate falsehood. Personal opinions in literature may still be worthwhile, espeCially if the author is an expert about his topic and is sharing personal experience to help you shortcut your own process, but you need to be able to reCognize that opinion writing is different than scholarly writing. A good example of this is a lot of popular books about propheCy. Even if they have a lot of footnotes about faCts, the way the author ConneCts dots about how/when things are going to play out is usually still his/her own opinion. It may be worth Consideration, but it needs to be held more loosely than the way we interpret other parts of sCripture that are more Clear. Every author makes assumptions. Try to notiCe what an author is assuming, either in the overall point of the book or on the detail level. Sometimes they will tell you direCtly that their argument is based on a Certain assumption, but other times they may not even be aware that they’re making an assumption. Books enCouraging Christians to support Israel assume that God still has a future plan for the nation. Many modern books assume a pantheistiC notion that everything is interConneCted on an energy-level. Self-help books may assume that humans are basiCally good or that if you try hard enough you Can aCComplish anything you want to. Many popular Christian books make assumptive Claims about God that ignore other aspeCts of his nature. Every author makes assumptions. The best ones will tell you direCtly what they’re assuming. 1 Fee and Stuart, page 233. 66 Reading Lesson 12: Getting Further into Nonfiction The first step to being a better nonfiCtion reader is to be consCious of whether you’re reading a practical book or a theoretical one, and then if it’s theoretical, whether it’s history, science, or philosophy. How to Read (Adler) has muCh more desCription about eaCh of these categories. After this, look for some struCture in the book. The best books have the most intelligible struCtures. You Can see how the book has an overall purpose, but then you Can see how that gets broken down into parts. Books are really fleshed-out outlines. Many people don’t Comprehend outlines very well when they try to read them, so they need the extra dimension of explanation and examples to be able to grasp the new ideas. When you think about it, if we just had a detailed outline for every book we read, we might be able to skip reading a lot of them beCause we got the main points (the ones we’d remember later, anyway). But that wouldn’t be very enjoyable, beCause reading outlines is hard work! Besides, sometimes it’s a partiCular detail or example that helps us understand what the main point was even about. Still, a book that cannot be outlined is usually not the highest quality book. An author ought to be working from an outline or he doesn’t know where he’s headed or how to get there. Along those lines, you as a reader ought to be able to summarize in general terms what a book is about if you have read it or you’re Currently reading it. It’s aCtually really Common for 12 readers to be unable to do this. It’s not a bad idea to stop every so often and think about how you’d answer if someone next to you on an airplane asked you what your book is about. Many authors make their most important points very Clear by the Chapter titles, seCtion headings, sidebars, or maybe even through detail markings like putting Certain statements in italics. These are important to notiCe. It’s a good idea to pre-read a book (which we’ll learn about next time), and if the book is partiCularly diffiCult, it may be a good idea for you to even plan to do a full skim-read (reading quiCkly and superfiCially without even worrying about things you don’t understand). Then go baCk and give it a more thorough reading, even Consulting Commentaries and reading the author’s footnotes or endnotes where neCessary. If you think that’s too muCh trouble, then it must mean you don’t Care very muCh about getting a full understanding of that book. That’s not neCessarily a bad thing, it’s just reality. Determining whiCh books to invest a lot of time in is part of the proCess! And while it may benefiCial to do a skim-read overall, it’s important to realize that learning how to read at different speeds is a great skill for every kind of reading, like shifting gears when you’re riding a bike. All books Contain material that Can be read through more quiCkly than other parts. Let yourself Coast sometimes. If you are always forCing yourself to read every word with Careful attention and Comprehension, it may bog you down and hold you baCk from getting the benefit of the overall flow. A suCCessful reading of a book doesn’t 67 Let’s Learn! always mean that you were attentive to every word. It may mean that you got what you need from the book in a quiCker way. You’re allowed to speed up and slow down, and you’re the only one who knows what you need in that regard! So, let’s say you’ve slowed down because you think you need to grasp this point, but it’s still hard. Realize that when you Come to a sentenCe you don’t understand; this is an important place for you.
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