For God’s Sake, Read Past Page Fifty
Aeneas falls for Dido says The Aeneid. Division of labour increases productivity says The Wealth of Nations. Don Quixote tilts at windmills says the eponymous novel. Virtue is the mean between extremes says The Nicomachean Ethics.
All four of these ideas and events are well known. They have broken free of their books and have become well-known to even those who have never touched the original books. Can you tell me what these four examples have in common?
All these examples happen in the first fifty pages of their respective books. It’s quite plain what’s happened, isn’t it?
Even those who’ve read these books haven’t finished them. They start, get bored, put them down. Nevertheless, they accept that what they have read is clever and memorable. These first bites of the books are regurgitated into the popular consciousness. The general public ends up thinking these ideas are the most important parts of their books, rather than just the earliest.
What’s the take-away here? What’s the next actionable step?
Am I telling you to read books in full? God, no! Let’s not be unreasonable.
I suggest something far more sensible. Find a great book, skip the first fifty pages (you already know what’s there), and read ten pages from literally anywhere else in the book. Read those random pages and you will know more about that book than most of the world. Everyone knows the same one thing about the book, that is, the first fifty pages. You now know that one thing and something else.
The next time someone says that Aristotle argued that virtue is the mean between extremes, you can add, “Ah, but what of contemplation? Doesn’t Aristotle say we can never have enough contemplation?” And your dinner mate will be cowed into silence for they have never read that far.
And that is the point of reading Great Books, after all: social domination.
