To be in that headspace you need to be empty of worries and other thoughts. 8 year olds are basically perfect Buddhist monks with their laser focused minds. You can reach this state too by practicing, relaxing, throwing your phone from the window, etc. The most devoted readers I know are either children or the elderly, it’s a like a horseshoe of unencumbered minds

How could you have known Milton’s meaning without knowing the context of his life, the times and the writings he referenced? It’s literally impossible to know that, unless you’re a scholar specializing in that era. I studied literature, and Milton, but no way I could get much deeper than the surface text without reading a lot of extra materials.

If you want to get into critically analyzing texts, start by reading theory or critical editions. Familiarize yourself with the terms and techniques. The fact that you got a lot out of that professor’s videos, shows you’ll probably be good at and enjoy critical reading.

Iirc this is in line with Nabokov’s thinking about Literature. I believe he strongly disliked allegory and moralism, and treated literature as an aesthetic art. In that sense, there is paradoxically a lot of meaning and even a thesis to his oeuvre. It sort of makes sense to me; moralism and allegory are communications with the world outside of literature, and in that sense are actually immersion breaking. Pure, distilled art can only exist in its own plain.

I read Lolita at 14. I spent the rest of that summer hanging by the road, hoping some handsome grown man would take me on a cool road trip.

I read Lolita at 14. I spent the rest of that summer hanging by the road, hoping some handsome grown man would take me on a cool road trip.

Wasn’t he that rogue that raped and pillaged and then wrote his books in prison cause he got bored? Those were the most beautiful Arthur stories I read, I think