Readers read for dozens of different reasons. One my favorite is to be challenged. Certainly, I don’t want most (or even 2 percent of) novels I read to be as tough as Infinite Jest. But I think spending a good amount of time with a book, really putting in some effort to piece it together, and coming out on the other side feeling like you’ve accomplished something is just so gratifying.From Book Riot: Why I like difficult novels.
It’s why I also took on Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow a few years after Infinite Jest.
For what it's worth, difficult novels to me have to be encompassing enough to expand the reading experience into a kind of hypnotism; otherwise a little voice in my head crops up and starts asking what's the point? can't we get this from somewhere else? is this really that life changing? isn't the author actually lazy? etc. etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment