I don’t see how anything you wrote relates to or argues for reading being an art. It is a skill that has to be developed, trained, and adapted to the situation, but why should it be considered an art and not just a skill?

It just an unnecessary and pretentious assessment to me.

How dare Holden be an asshole as a traumatized and abused teenager!!!

How dare Holden be an asshole as a traumatized and abused teenager!!!

You can dislike a book and still educate yourself of why it had gained its merit and relevance, and recognize that as something seperate, larger, and ultimately more meaningful than your own opinion. I have classics I dislike too; but me disliking it can’t challenge the fact that it’s a classic for a reason.

You can dislike a book and still educate yourself of why it had gained its merit and relevance, and recognize that as something seperate, larger, and ultimately more meaningful than your own opinion. I have classics I dislike too; but me disliking it can’t challenge the fact that it’s a classic for a reason.

I don’t see why women can’t relate to The Old Man and the Sea, and furthermore, why someone would even need to relate. I read, say, Mieko Kawakami and I love Breast and Eggs despite it being a heavy tackling of women’s issues. And I love James Baldwin, but I relate nothing to racism and its struggles.

Now of course there’s the argument of absence of women and the quality of them, but who is writing, when is it written, and who are the women in his work portrayed against and viewed through the eyes of? I think the answers to these are in hypermasculinity and the mysoginy in the 20th century. And I think there’s value in reading that and other “old” ways of being and thinking.

I find his writing to be some of the most emotion invoking writing there is because he doesn’t lay it out for you by telling you what to feel through how the characters directly feel. The emotions you get are what you are able to extract and interpret from what is omitted. Take the ending of TSAR for example with Jake and Brett in the car, or the ending of A Farewell to Arms. You’re told hardly anything regarding how they feel and that makes it all the more impactful because you’re sitting there imagining what they’re going through without having it spelled out for you. Many writers could’ve written pages about how conflicted and drained Jake Barnes it at the end lf TSAR, but “Oh Jake, we could have had such a damned good time together.” — “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” says more than a thousand words could and that is the beauty of his writing.

You need to grow up.

Ironic.

no, you read half of it. You have read a book when you’ve read all of it