All these books have different densities of writing. But the result was the same. I finished reading them. Now what? What “rewards” have I reaped from them? Would reading Focault’s Pendulum instead of the Da Vinci Code have changed my life in any way for the better or worse? I wrote a piece of fan fiction after reading Harry Potter, so I guess I can at least quantify that. Midnight’s Children gave me insight into the modern history of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Maybe in the future I will be able to compare it favorably or disfavorably to the Bollywood movie they’ve currently finished filming. Maybe I’ll eventually write something about “The Secret Agent” or use some of the techniques I observed in my own writing.

When I said “I tend to believe that most people intuitively know when something isn’t so good.” I chose my words carefully. I know full well that they are probably not truthful. But I observe myself deciding to behave in a way that presumes that they are. That has more to do with how I want to behave than how I want everybody else to behave. It’s their choice and it’s not my place to convince people to enjoy something. They’re on their path and they’ll discover it eventually(or not). But maybe I’m overly apathetic. What do you feel are the rewards of reading quality literature?

Last of the Mohicans was another book I never read as a teenager but was probably aimed at the same demographic. However it took a little more of an effort to visualize the setting.(Although it read quickly enough when there was action or Hawkeye was wearing a bear suit). This probably had to do with the author’s tendency, upon beginning the journey from subject to verb to object, to travel along several other paths of thought, insightful and interesting though many were, before ultimately deigning to conclude the sentence just before it became expansive enough to qualify as a paragraph.

I guess what I’m getting at is that difficulty alone does not make it literature and deciding not to read something because “it’s boring” doesn’t always indicate that the reader is intellectually lazy or too stupid to get it. I tend to believe that most people intuitively know when something isn’t so good. I would say that with all the variety easily available to us, people are less willing to stick with something that presents difficulties unless there’s an outside motivation or no other options. So even the smallest amount of sloppy dense writing will give the reader an excuse to go elsewhere, but they might give less dense material more of a chance.

I didn’t have quite the same impression of the tone of the book. (perhaps the film reflects that more) And though they didn’t spell things out, they did do a clever bit of exposition in explaining the titular philosophy without making it dreadfully obvious like a Dan Brown. Based on your article I was expected detachment along the lines of Vonnegut. But I didn’t see anything quite like that in the prose. And it was far more straightforward than some of Murakami’s great novels like WInd-up Bird Chronicle or Kafka on the Shore.

But again, those differences aside there is no denying that this is a very interesting read. Thanks for the heads up.