Okay so, I have read about 5 books this year. Not very difficult ones, but at least I'm trying. What I find when I get to more difficult authors, like Fernando Pessoa, or Dostoyevsky, is I just don't understand what the fuck they're saying. I have to dwell on a sentences for a while, before I even feel comfortable moving on which has no limit to how long it may take. This isn't just a problem with almost unintelligible authors, who may not make a point that everyone can come to a consensus of, it happens with just your ordinary authors. Maybe I'll be reading 1984, or Gene Genet's Funeral Rites, and realize I have no idea what I just read and have to go back and re-read. This drives me fucking nuts, it's so difficult. I just want to read the fucking book, I don't want to have to keep getting stuck - not even just being unable to interpret what they're saying, but perhaps not even being able to follow along and having no means of connecting the words in front of me together in my head. It makes me feel like I have an extremely dull mind, but I hope that through continuous reading, it will exercise my mind and allow me to become a stronger reader.
Okay so, I have read about 5 books this year. Not very difficult ones, but at least I'm trying...
At first I thought you were having trouble with books which have been translated into English, in which case I should suggest to stick to English-original books for now, but since you mentioned 1984 I suppose you should just look up every word you don't know and try to summarise each page before continuing.
With more experience you'll find that struggle to be the best part of reading. If you don't struggle to understand what you're reading, you're reading the wrong book.
Dumb.
yeah pessoa is really hard to read :P
Bu
The problem is simple: your short-term memory is fucked. You can sort of extend it with amphetamine-type substances, and possibly with some sort of 'mindfulness' meditation. But beyond that, your brain's biology is what it is.
just take notes you rucki ;4
Riiiight, because we all start off either really smart or really dumb and we stay that way. Excellent insight good citizen, I couldn't have come up with a better explanation myself.
Stop worrying about interpretation and just read brah. You can't interpret until you experience and enjoy the book first. This ain't highschool english maman this is life
You're Retarded
Do you disagree that you stayed dumb?
You misunderstand. After a while of reading, it starts to feel like I'm not picking up anything anymore. It's as if my eyes are still scanning the page, but my brain has stopped interpreting what the words mean. It's really frustrating. I try to push myself to the level of just reading and enjoying what I'm reading, as if it was a movie playing out in front of me, but instead I end up getting stuck and this is why I haven't even touched reading until now that I'm 22. You can see why I would get so frustrated by this, but I have ordered about 22 books on paperback and most of them are in my apartment right now save for 6 more coming in the mail. Hopefully this will get my fucking ass reading some books, I just pick them up whenever and I've already read 5 this year so nnnnnnneh!
I'm too jaded for this.
Sounds like you have ADD. I don't necessarily believe in ADD as an actual disorder (rather just a psychological state) but I have all the symptoms and I have the exact same problem. No matter the content, my brain wanders to something else immediately while I'm reading, and I'll realize I just read 8 sentences without actually comprehending them. So I have to go back to the beginning and start reading it slowly, and in a matter of seconds I pick up on some word and go off on some tangent thought process related to it, repeat ad nauseum. Being on the internet all the time has definitely shot my attention span even more, but I've always felt that struggle regardless of the content. The only thing I've found that helps is closing all possible distractions, isolating myself in as quiet and dark of a place as I can, and focus on keeping conscious of this exact moment. I assume mindfulness meditation would be effective too, given that it works on the same principle of awareness, but it's something I haven't gotten around to testing.
If you think you aren't "getting it" just keep reading. Don't re-read.
This happens sometimes to me too, specially when I'm stressed (And I'd bet it happens to a lot of people but they aren't vigilant enough).
It's probably just stress/anxiety or a mix of those.
But then, I realize that I am actually getting a lot of it even if it seems like I don't. Just keep reading and it will get better. If it just doesn't get better, take your mind off of it and come back later.
Maybe meditation will work for you (I can't say it does for me). Try exercizing your body too (This helps better).
In my case, I think it might be ADHD, but I haven't really got a diagnosis.
Also, maybe you're just not enjoying whatever you're reading.
I was pondering something related to that last sentence you wrote while I was laying on my bed earlier today trying to read a novel. It's strange reading a book, because it's literally a non sequitur to your life. You don't know, unless you read the story before hand, what the story is about. So you basically don't know whether or not it really relates to you unless you read the book. That's one of the things I've noticed in general is that nothing in life really relates to you that closely, everything you see that's the work of someone else will probably reflect them and no one is really similar to you, and if they are then that's really a miracle, but they're probably even then not even that similar to you. Idk where I'm going with this, but yeah, nah, I think that about covers what I wanted to say.
> realize I have no idea what I just read and have to go back
this is a very common problem. pic related explains everything
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:F7509D791C896C9E2BBB105D0812AFE5CCCFCF75&dn=the+shallows+what+the+internet+is+doing+to+our+brains+by+nicholas+carr+abee&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fexodus.desync.com%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fglotorrents.pw%3A6969%2Fannounce
>magnet:?xt=urn:btih:F7509D791C896C9E2BBB105D0812AFE5CCCFCF75&dn=the+shallows+what+the+internet+is+doing+to+our+brains+by+nicholas+carr+abee&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fexodus.desync.com%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fglotorrents.pw%3A6969%2Fannounce
I know I was supposed to put this in my url and it would download automatically but that didn't happen, unfortunately.
wait nevermind, it worked. I put it in add url in utorrent.
>torrenting
just link an epub through zippyshare or something, m8
No, the point at which you top being concious of anything other than the syntax entering your brain, and a little show, not really just images but composite image and meaning, starts playing, is the pleasure apex in reading, the struggle is getting that to happen with complex prose but when it does, of course, the "show" is at its richest.
stop*
Yes. Communication is really difficult because of that.
You can't pay attention very long. I actually agree with , you should read more for practice, mindfulness meditation is AWESOME (read "Mindfulness in Plain English"), and stop, stop, stop with the constant distractions.
Ie, you're retarded but most people are too, and most people would have given up by now. Good on you and keep going.
>Dostoevsky
>Difficult
Pick one.
...
To stop subvocalization is retarded in all situations
I use this app for my vocabulary and it works wonders for me.
I still come across the odd word I don't know which I look up then and there.
You can't catch all of the meaning of the book in one go. Read through the book, stopping at a few (maybe 4 or 5) spots that seem especially important to you (so obviously not in the beginning of the book) and when you've finished your first pass, go look up summaries and commentary on the book. These are now your guide for rereading the book, as when the commentator seems full of shit, you know loosely where everything is in the book and can look it up.
I get this all the time but it's usually when I have a other things going on or stressed or even just interested in something else at the time and I'll read chapters while my mind was completely elsewhere and I just read all the words without comprehension at all. I just stop reading do whatever else is on my mind or something else in general then come back to it later
That's not true. The brain has plastic features and can be improved significantly.
Definitely not an uncommon thing. It drives me nuts too.
It does get better with practice. It also makes you appreciate the clarity of certain writers, and certain books. I mean, sometimes authors really don't help you out, e.g. by using overly long sentences.
As a native poortuguese, Pessoa is pretty fucked to read, or it might be I just can't get into poems. As much as I admire the man, I hate most of his stuff.
Try José Saramago, I like his stuff a lot more.
Bullshit. You don't see Down Syndrome patients memorizing digits of Pi. No one has ever successfully improved their brain function at a fundamental level except (temporarily) through drugs.
Saramago is another one of those who think they're too good for conventional punctuation.
It sometimes makes it annoying to read, but it's well worth imo, it's nothing too excessive.