It’s not just that. A lot of hard books have bizarre sentence structures that lack clarity. So you are dealing with looking up words every few paragraphs (or skipping meanings) plus bizarre phrases and long confusing sentences.
Sometimes, being bizarre and confusing is the point. In high school, I remember that our English teacher took an entire lesson taking us through a single page of prose. After reading it out loud once, we had no idea what it meant because it was written in a stream-of-consciousness format. He explained to us that the entire page takes place in the time the main character steps off of a curb, and to re-read it with that in mind.
So many thoughts race through the main character’s head and get intermixed with real-life details that pop up as she sees them, and it makes for a chaotic mess. After reading it several more times, those details become more apparent, even if they’re full of racing, half-formed thoughts. You also get such an intimate understanding of the main character and how her brain works.
You’re never going to get that when everything is simplified down to its base components - You miss out on the rest of the flavor.
I like drugs to enhance experiences that are fun, not so that I can tolerate it. I’m guessing you mean rice crackers and dip and drugs? Thendrug part was implied?
Sorry. You didn’t literally say rice crackers and dip are fun when high. I just figured it was implied because it sounds awful. Maybe I am ignorant and should try it?
If they’re well written they don’t lack clarity. It’s just complex sentence construction. It might require a more deliberate reading, but it doesn’t make the meaning ambiguous.
If a sentence is so poorly constructed that you need to skip a beat to figure out what the heck the writer is trying to get at, at the very least the writing isn’t streamlined. I tend to think sentence structures like that are always bad writing, crtitical praise be damned, unless there is no viable way to make it more easy to read.
Sometimes the intent is to make the reader pay more attention to a sentence, but I suspect the real issue is that your reading comprehension isn’t as strong as you think it is, and that you’ve decided to plant your feet and declare any sentence that you don’t immediately parse as “bad writing”.
It’s possible, but I got perfect scores on the SAT do you know english thing, or something like that? On all the english standard things i would get the questions right
Perhaps it’s just easy to conflate the easily bored with the stupid?
They got a perfect score on the SAT! Which means they exempted out of basic punctuation, grammar, and using words more descriptive than “thing” for the rest of their life.
Which is the reason the SATs are extremely mediocre at evaluating actual competency.
There’s a big difference between being able to pick one of four definitions of a word and being able to read a sentence containing it without stopping for an hour.
That is often the beauty of literary masterpieces. They structure sentences in such a way that they carry much more meaning than it appears. Part of reading and enjoying a great book is finding that meaning hidden in the words.
It’s not just that. A lot of hard books have bizarre sentence structures that lack clarity. So you are dealing with looking up words every few paragraphs (or skipping meanings) plus bizarre phrases and long confusing sentences.
Sometimes, being bizarre and confusing is the point. In high school, I remember that our English teacher took an entire lesson taking us through a single page of prose. After reading it out loud once, we had no idea what it meant because it was written in a stream-of-consciousness format. He explained to us that the entire page takes place in the time the main character steps off of a curb, and to re-read it with that in mind.
So many thoughts race through the main character’s head and get intermixed with real-life details that pop up as she sees them, and it makes for a chaotic mess. After reading it several more times, those details become more apparent, even if they’re full of racing, half-formed thoughts. You also get such an intimate understanding of the main character and how her brain works.
You’re never going to get that when everything is simplified down to its base components - You miss out on the rest of the flavor.
I guess it makes me a bad person, but most books bore me and flavor won’t change it. A rice cracker with some Ms. Dash is still a rice cracker.
You ever had rice crackers with dip though?
No. Why?
‘tis good shit
I like drugs to enhance experiences that are fun, not so that I can tolerate it. I’m guessing you mean rice crackers and dip and drugs? Thendrug part was implied?
Huh? I’m just talking about rice crackers. Maybe reading really isn’t for you
Sorry. You didn’t literally say rice crackers and dip are fun when high. I just figured it was implied because it sounds awful. Maybe I am ignorant and should try it?
If they’re well written they don’t lack clarity. It’s just complex sentence construction. It might require a more deliberate reading, but it doesn’t make the meaning ambiguous.
If a sentence is so poorly constructed that you need to skip a beat to figure out what the heck the writer is trying to get at, at the very least the writing isn’t streamlined. I tend to think sentence structures like that are always bad writing, crtitical praise be damned, unless there is no viable way to make it more easy to read.
Sometimes the intent is to make the reader pay more attention to a sentence, but I suspect the real issue is that your reading comprehension isn’t as strong as you think it is, and that you’ve decided to plant your feet and declare any sentence that you don’t immediately parse as “bad writing”.
It’s possible, but I got perfect scores on the SAT do you know english thing, or something like that? On all the english standard things i would get the questions right
Perhaps it’s just easy to conflate the easily bored with the stupid?
I had to read this comment about 5 times before I understood what you were trying to say… Glass houses, pot, kettle, etc.
They got a perfect score on the SAT! Which means they exempted out of basic punctuation, grammar, and using words more descriptive than “thing” for the rest of their life.
Just because someone sounds and writes stupid and says stupid things and hates books doesn’t mean they don’t get multiple choice stuff right
Which is the reason the SATs are extremely mediocre at evaluating actual competency.
There’s a big difference between being able to pick one of four definitions of a word and being able to read a sentence containing it without stopping for an hour.
That is often the beauty of literary masterpieces. They structure sentences in such a way that they carry much more meaning than it appears. Part of reading and enjoying a great book is finding that meaning hidden in the words.