28 apr 2012

i tried reading that hedgehog book and just couldn't do it. the writing is dense and dickensian. i don't need that in my life. every statement is Important and Weighty. jeez. get over yourselves already. i read a few pages and then didn't pick it up for like, 2 weeks. i dreaded opening it because reading it was a chore. it's one thing to be challenged by writing. that's like a chore because it can be work, but it is rewarding. this was simply a rote chore without reward. the story was being told in two first person parts. i assume the two come together at some point, but it's muchly the type of pointless book in which that might not happen. both were unhappy, but in neither case was there any incentive to care about their discontent. they were in no way sympathetic. the young girl was mildly amusing, but way to think-y to really hold the reader's attention.

it's the very sort of book that garners the laud with which this one was showered. the sort of book which makes folks think they must be smart to be able to hang onto the thread of the story, and that the writer must be even smarter to piece something like this together. the fundamental misunderstanding is that smart people will communicate in ways that hinder our understanding them - that simply because they are smart, they will communicate at an inaccessible level. in reality, truly smart people communicate in ways that enhance our understanding.