I was reading Moby Dick, chapter 7 describes the Whaleman’s Chapel, and the pulpit for the pastor. It felt pretty important for me to understand what exactly the chapel looked like, so I gave it a shot, but I couldn’t marry all the details together.
I actually gave up and asked ChatGPT to draw me a picture of the pulpit, ahaha. And I think it turned out pretty accurately. But it did make me wonder what other people’s experiences are with this.
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I try to speed read through anything descriptive. I ain’t got time for all that.
I’ll generally slow down to make sure I understand, with a few caveats:
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If the book isn’t well-written overall, I might just move on. If I already have good evidence that the author is struggling, I figure it’s probably not worth the extra time.
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If the rest of the book has been good, I’ll probably slow down & take my time. If that doesn’t help, I might move on,vtrusting that it’ll become clear as the story goes on. Or else I’ll go back to the unclearvsection once those details become relevant.
For something like Moby Dick, I’d personally go with the latter. :)
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Usually not. Most of the time I just get a vibe and if I can be bothered I just fill in the gaps with my own images.
Are you generally unable to visualise certain stuff or was it just all the details of this specific description? If it is the former you might have a form aphantasia.
Yes! When I’m really into a book, it can be like I’m there. There are a few scenes that were so vivid to me reading that even now I remember them like I saw or experienced them myself. (One being Danny Glick at the window, thanks so much Stephen King!)
On the other hand, when it’s poorly described, I can get really frustrated by the fact that I’m not oriented to where the character is or what’s happening.