My Challenges

For as long as I can remember, I've had difficulty enjoying literature the way most people do. I feel that I've put in the effort and am desperately trying to be open to the material, but it's high time I be honest with myself. It's the only way I can ever hope to make progress. I have a lot of criticisms for why I don't enjoy a lot of fiction books. When I was younger, I felt like when the author was painting an image of the environment, mostly, and the characters to make the readers feel like we can see what's happening, as though we're there, my concentration would wear thin. I found it distracting and couldn't connect with it. I was so confused by that outcome because I have a vivid imagination. My auditory skills were weak then. That may have played a role. I lacked the discipline to focus my attention required to perceive the accumulative image. I was unable to appreciate the message because I wasn't putting in the effort to listen. Or that's my theory, anyways. I do find that when I read, I have a visual depiction in the back of my mind somewhere that was lacking in the past. It makes the book more real, but it doesn't necessarily make it enjoyable.

Additionally, my receptivity is largely influenced by the grammatical structure and speech of the written material. I'm an American, and when I read, I generally read with ease and fluency. But when the speech is grammatically choppy to portray a foreign character or depict speech with historical accuracy in other parts of the world, I find myself having great difficulty absorbing the contents. Allow me to elaborate. Reading Shakespeare's Twelve Night, didn't turn out to be the treacherous task I feared it would be. Although the speech is ordered and presented differently from modern English, I was able to adapt to it. It was distinct enough that it didn't conflict with how I speak. Ellen Foster, on the other hand, proved to be an immense challenge. As I read silently or aloud, I would unintentionally add words that weren't present to make it grammatically correct. This clashed with reality, and I often found myself stuck in a perpetual stutter, unable to move forward until the distinctions were acknowledged. These intrusive disruptions kept me at an isolated distance. Truthfully, I found the contents to be rather boring and unmoving. So I imagine I wouldn't have liked this book either way, but the grammatical inaccuracies undeniably contributed to my disliking. Books that have Southern characters conflict with me. I almost feel guilty admitting this, as though I'm being prejudice. In a way I am. It's nothing personal, and I mean no offense by it. But it is what it is. When speech is similar enough to how I speak, I find the flow very disruptive.

Cultural and historical settings may have more of a significant impact than I've originally perceived. I don't enjoy historical fiction very much, mostly because I can't relate to it. I used to consider historical literature to be of no interest to me. But now I suspect that it's a precise historical context I'm seeking. When I read the Japanese translated literature, Out, I was disappointed by how much I loathed reading it. It was the Winner of Japan's Top Mystery Award. I have no idea if that award is prestigious or generic and unimportant, but readers have praised this book, conveying that they've read no book like this. I believed it was the Japanese influence American readers appreciated and found refreshing. Being Japanese, I thought I'd be able to appreciate the perversion and sadistically oppressive tone. I am, after all, more engaged in Japanese drama than I am American ones. Instead, I found the character's logical extreme and chronic hypocrisy to be infuriating, suffocating, irrational, and incessant. I found a lot of the pages replaying the same depiction over and over again. If the women in that story weren't so disingenuous and falsely loyal, they wouldn't be so unhappy and whiny was what I kept thinking. Culturally I can understand the misplaced obligation, but it's still frustrating to me. I found the characters to be described in a crude and judgmental tone, which I found mildly offensive. The male scums weren't nearly as scrutinized. I couldn't blind myself to the blatantly contrasting treatment of depiction. Over analysis and biases had clearly interfered, so if you're neutral, you might be able to enjoy it. But I'm not. I wish I was, but I can't change who I am, nor would I want to. The characters were bluntly colored, although briefly expressed were far more memorable than the never ending bland and mundane portrayal of the Japanese homes and jobs the characters held.

I can't seem to appreciate bleak story lines. I find them so stagnant. In the beginning of the book, everything is crummy. In the end, it's still crummy. I need more fluctuations, transitions, and depth. Perhaps the depths lie within the predictable normality, and I'm not keen enough to notice it. If that's the case, it's unfortunate. But that means I can't enjoy books like those. This is how I felt when I read The Plague. The mildly depressing and weakly persistent tone made me regret my hardened dedication and discipline. I would have much rather done something more entertaining, but the idea of unfinished books fills me with vast inadequacies I was unwilling to face. If the complaints had more drama and flair or slight variations within its similarities, I may have felt differently. I didn't perceive the continual bleakness to be an evolving plot. I found the writing to be bland. It didn't do anything for me.

While content is important to me, I believe the writer's ability to tell a story has a huge impact on me. No matter how great a plot is, if it's poorly expressed, I don't have the tenacity to be actively engaged. I don't believe that I have to relate to the story. I suspect, though, that the writing should be vibrant and lively but not over-dramatic.