The Joy of Reading Books You Don't Entirely Understand - Reactor

At present, I have an alarming number of tabs open. I’m absolutely not going to tell you how many, or how many are open on my phone. There are 15 pages of notes in my now-finished notebook that are about the same subject that led to all these tabs. A lot of these tabs concern the history of a country I don’t live in. Some are mythology. It’s a real cornucopia of delights, and it’s also very distracting. There are so many rich and fascinating rabbit holes a person might fall down. This is all because I’ve been reading a book that I don’t entirely understand, and frankly, it’s wonderful. A very long time ago, I read Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle, one at a time, as the books came out. I am—I cannot stress this enough—very bad at remembering historical details. Part of this I blame on high school. Part of this is just the way my brain works. I can tell you the basic plot of most books I’ve ever read, but I cannot tell you the names and dates involved with specific moments in the world’s

At present, I have an alarming number of tabs open. I’m absolutely not going to tell you how many, or how many are open on my phone. There are 15 pages of notes in my now-finished notebook that are about the same subject that led to all these tabs. A lot of these tabs concern the history of a country I don’t live in. Some are mythology. It’s a real cornucopia of delights, and it’s also very distracting. There are so many rich and fascinating rabbit holes a person might fall down. This is all because I’ve been reading a book that I don’t entirely understand, and frankly, it’s wonderful. A very