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The joy of reading books you don't understand

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Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#231

Post by dustincoates »

brookst wrote: post #184
spondylosaurus wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever get the urge to read Infinite Jest again (which I highly recommend—a second read is easily more enjoyable than the first), the Infinite Jest Wiki includes some page-by-page annotations that are nice to have on hand. https://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster-wallace/in... Probably overkill to look up every little thing (and most of the annotations are just defining SAT-worthy words anyway), but I l…

+1 for re-reading. I’d also suggest the audiobook as an alternate form that is differently accessible. Certainly it’s easier to follow some of the changing perspectives as the narrator does a good job of voicing differently.

How does the audiobook handle endnotes?

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#232

Post by kaiwen1 »

joaorico wrote: post #148

Kafka [1] on which types of book to read: "I believe one should only read those books which bite and sting. If the book we are reading does not wake us up with a blow to the head, then why read the book? To make us happy, as you write? My God, we would be just as happy if we had no books, and those books that make us happy, we could write ourselves if necessary. But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, t…

Terrible advice. I can’t imagine anyone following it. Not even Kafka.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#233

Post by staunton »

djeastm wrote: post #225
lupusreal wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know anything about the man; what kind of life did Kafka have that happiness was easily had IRL and he needed books to experience misery?

Kafka's life abounded with misery. Great writer, though

> Kafka's life abounded with misery

Which is to say that his life was objectively mostly very comfortable (for the time) but still miserable in his personal experience.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#234

Post by __rito__ »

prakashk wrote: post #214
__rito__ wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on one's background, really. I understood some videos really well on the first watching, but some videos on the same technical level were like- "what?... Ooh, maybe that's okay... Oh... Yeah". Total discomfort. It's the areas of Math where you already have decent groundings, you will find that you can take more with you from 3b1b. Same with Feynman's Lectures. If you are a smart person but no formal backgroun…

Is there a path (short of going through a Physics undergrad curriculum itself) to enjoy and get more 'return' from Feynman for someone without formal Physics background? Any recommendations of books to read prior to undertaking Feynman?

It's definitely not a thing to chase.

If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen.

There are many more things you can do that will be enjoyable to you.

Going through a Physics undergrad makes you do things you otherwise won't do. Those things, done over 3-4 years for some thousands hours transform you in no small way.

While you are doing this, you are reading Feynman, and it hits you on a completely different way. You also begin to read between the lines, and you start to apply those kinds of tools to other areas of Physics that aren’t explicitly mentioned in the Lectures.

But it's not something that you need to chase and they are neither unique set of things available only in the Lectures and nowhere else.

Just do something or read something where you are better suited to get 'returns'.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#235

Post by surfingdino »

lanstin wrote: post #215
kaba0 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are certainly people like that, but there are also exceptionally smart people that just absolutely suck at selling themselves, and you might unknowingly decided the same way in case of both. It’s very hard to fairly evaluate someone. E.g. I had interviews where I 100% know more than one of my interviewers on the specific topic (not bragging, my knowledge is ain’t a high bar), and that gap in this unusual direct…

I have only gotten jobs because of people I have worked with before. I have written all kinds of software for all kinds of systems and products but I just don't come across as smart on a first meeting. And to be fair I almost invariably like to chew on a knotty problem for a few days turning it over in my head till I get a feel for it, unless I have already solved a very similar problem; but I only want to solve nove…

> Old problems in software should be solvable easily

I keep telling people who interview me that this is what APIs, modules, and frameworks are for. They capture good solutions to problems and allow us to move faster and build better software. If they are rude to me I tell them that I thought they were an e-commerce business and should not be solving basic problems in Computer Science.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#236

Post by mamonster »

sigriv wrote: post #221
mamonster wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deleuze is so overrated(although I am personally biased against everything that came out and was concurrent with Mai 68 in general). I don't know if you read it in French, but in French the only "French Theorist" worse than Deleuze/Guattari is Baudrillar(for how bad the concepts are). IMO the most interesting one from that era is Clouscard.

Did you read Deleuze's Logique de la sensation? Yes I read him in french. Unfamiliar with Clouscard. Not a fan of Baudrillar either.

From Deleuze, I read: - L'Anti-Oedipe + Mille Plateaux - Logique du sens - Le Bergsonisme - The 2 books on Nietzsche(these IMO are his best work)

Didn't get around to Logique de la Sensation, couldn't stomach him after the "Capitalisme/schizophrénie" duo.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#237

Post by willturman »

dudinax wrote: post #195
techostritch wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know if I’m taking Kafka too literally here, but the books that I read that bite and sting probably fall into two categories. Things that are cynically written in bad faith and things that are hopeless and callous. Torture porn bites and stings, reading hacky partisan politics bites and stings. Anything that makes me feel stupider after reading it bites and stings. The things that I think that he wants to say…

Kafka'd want you to get tougher so some hack can't hurt you. "Those things fill me with joy and wonder they are just so few and far between." Yes, but that's what you should be looking for.

“Yes, but that’s what you should be looking for.”

… and you aren’t going to find them in Silicon Valley.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#238

Post by throwaway290 »

joaorico wrote: post #148

Kafka [1] on which types of book to read: "I believe one should only read those books which bite and sting. If the book we are reading does not wake us up with a blow to the head, then why read the book? To make us happy, as you write? My God, we would be just as happy if we had no books, and those books that make us happy, we could write ourselves if necessary. But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, t…

Made me check and Google translated it about the same. No unexpected comma or awkward driven into the woods (by whom?), punch is a punch (blow is more generic), but awkward duplication of "one".

> I believe that one should only read books that bite and sting one. If the book we are reading does not wake us up with a punch to the head, why do we read the book? So that it makes us happy, as you write? My God, we would be happy even if we had no books, and if necessary we could write the kind of books that make us happy ourselves. But we need books that affect us like a misfortune that hurts us greatly, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like if we were to venture into the woods, away from everyone, like a suicide; a book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#239

Post by suoduandao3 »

techostritch wrote: post #190
joaorico wrote: post #148

Kafka [1] on which types of book to read: "I believe one should only read those books which bite and sting. If the book we are reading does not wake us up with a blow to the head, then why read the book? To make us happy, as you write? My God, we would be just as happy if we had no books, and those books that make us happy, we could write ourselves if necessary. But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, t…

I don’t know if I’m taking Kafka too literally here, but the books that I read that bite and sting probably fall into two categories. Things that are cynically written in bad faith and things that are hopeless and callous. Torture porn bites and stings, reading hacky partisan politics bites and stings. Anything that makes me feel stupider after reading it bites and stings. The things that I think that he wants to say…

The one book I recall that 'bit and stung' as I think Kafka meant to say was 1984. How would you categorize that work? Torture porn?

Re: The joy of reading books you don't understand

#240

Post by dmurray »

throwaway290 wrote: post #238
joaorico wrote: post #148

Kafka [1] on which types of book to read: "I believe one should only read those books which bite and sting. If the book we are reading does not wake us up with a blow to the head, then why read the book? To make us happy, as you write? My God, we would be just as happy if we had no books, and those books that make us happy, we could write ourselves if necessary. But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, t…

Made me check and Google translated it about the same. No unexpected comma or awkward driven into the woods (by whom?), punch is a punch (blow is more generic), but awkward duplication of "one". > I believe that one should only read books that bite and sting one. If the book we are reading does not wake us up with a punch to the head, why do we read the book? So that it makes us happy, as you write? My God, we would…

I liked the ChatGPT version better. The repeated "one" is paticularly jarring and not a stylistic feature of the original (which has man...einen, two different words reasonably translated as "one"). "Misfortune" is a more literal translation than "disaster", but in the context that it greatly hurts us, I prefer the latter. And I'm pretty sure "wir in Wälder vorstoßen würden" is closer to being cast out or driven away than just going for a nice sylvan walk. The passive voice there is faithful to the original. The comma after "disaster" is the only part I don't like in modern English.
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