Chapter Nine

Seeing the Skeleton

    Every book has a skeleton hidden between its boards. Our job is to find it with X－ray eyes，for it is an essential part of our first apprehension of any book to grasp its structure.
    The auther explain four rules in this chapter.
1. The first rule,which we discussed in the last chapter,was:Classify the book according to kind and subject matter.

当我们看到一本书的时候，根据书的名字或者前言、主体思想等可以对书的类型进行划分。不只是书，对于一篇文章的类型也要划分，比如上星期的英汉互译作业，老师说两篇都是说明文，一篇是关于自然科学，另一篇则是讲社会科学。

2.The second rule—I say “second” because I want to keep the number of the four rules which comprise the first way of reading－can be expressed as follows: State the unity of the whole book in a single sentence,or at most in several sentences（a short paragraph）

读一本书或一篇文章时要学会对书的主题思想用一句话或几句话进行概括。但是我很不喜欢去概括，因为不知道该怎么去做。

3.The third rule can be expressed as follows:Set fortg the major parts of the book,and showhow these are organized into a whole,by being ordered to one another and to the unity of the whole.

一本好书就像一个精装修过的房子，房子的陈列摆设就像计算过的一样，不会有任何差错。一本好书也会有 the most intelligible syructure. 尽管一本好书读起来会觉得有些困难甚至想要放弃，但同时收获也是最多的。

4.The fourth rule requires you to find out what the author's problems were. The rule is most pertinent,of course,to the great books.

当用心去第一本书的时候，如果你的涉猎足够广泛，你就会发现作者的问题，甚至会和其他作者进行对比。杨绛先生的母亲唐须嫈是一个贤良淑德博学多才的优秀女性，她在读过冰心的作品后评价到：她是名牌女作家，但不如谁谁谁……