you may have addressed this in the past, but i am pretty sure i'm too dumb to read james joyce. how do you improve your reading comprehension? i'd like to move beyond the nyt bestseller list, but going from stephen king to faulkner seems like a steep jump.
Nobody is too dumb to read a book, but plenty of people have been conditioned into perpetual incuriosity. The only way to improve reading comprehension is by reading outside of your comfort zone, which necessarily means letting go of the notion that the relationship between an artist and their audience is adversarial, and that a challenging work of art is booby-trapped with mean tricks designed to make you feel bad.
What do you do when you run into a word or concept that you don't immediately understand in the wild? You don't (I fervently hope) drop what you're reading like a hot potato—you keep reading to see if there’s clarification, and if there's none, you find a reliable source that gives you the definition, context, and examples, then circle back. What do you do when you're watching a movie you haven't seen before and the camera lingers on a random detail, or a character makes an inexplicable choice? Unless you are my dad, you give the story a chance to play out before asking what the deuce is going on.
Faulkner and Joyce aren't cyphers, which is why their short fiction is a standard in the public high school English curriculum, and As I Lay Dying and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are frequently assigned to juniors and seniors in AP classes—but even their denser writing is more accessible now than it's ever been. Over the past century, so many people have loved them enough to devote their lives to studying their work—and they’ve passed the savings down to you. They’ve written annotations that explain literary, historical, and biographical context and that's aligned with the pagination of the books, they’ve integrated hyperlinks into the hypertext.
There's exactly one (1) acceptable excuse not to read Faulkner or Joyce: not wanting to read Faulkner or Joyce. You don't even need to give them a chance—millions of people (among them, many prolific and intelligent readers) have and will continue to live rich, meaningful lives after deciding that a particular book or author is simply not a priority, even if the author is famous and the book highly recommended by several friends who wear glasses.
If you can parse this passage from Pet Sematary, you can parse just about anything Joyce throws at you:
98 notes
·
View notes
SIBERIAN TIGER KUAI LIANG‼️‼️🗣 or kuaiger for short (thanks yuyu for the nickname idea)
i really really like the last one, patting myself on the back
also if you notice inconsistencies with the design/style, no u fucking didnt
bonus under the cut: some tiger studies i did
38 notes
·
View notes
Yes loser, baby was cute n stuff BUT HUSKER HAS TOE BEANS!!!
13 notes
·
View notes
Lyrics under the cut ↓↓↓
I need you here with me
Strawberry probably
Obtuse obviously
You are my heart
Strawberry probably
Why not take all of me?
So you can clearly see
The state of my art
It's just your size
Try it on
Wear it out
Absolute anarchy
I turn records into weed
So strobably probably,
Don't let's start
Disposable dignity
There's no taking this seriously
There's not time for collective grief
Strawberry probably
It's just your size
Try it on
Wear it out of the store
But don't pay for it
Everything is free now
[instrumental]
PYAH!
It's just your size
Try it on
Wear it out of the store
But don't pay for it
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free now
Everything is free...
24 notes
·
View notes
Please tell me Movie!Shadow also discovers the power of coffee beans from Stone
Coffee beans and more, my dear. Maybe not from Stone, but they do have an unhealthy obsession for them.😈
14 notes
·
View notes
Colored them! I love his socks!! @pizza-feverdream
2 notes
·
View notes