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I wonder if being familiar with I Ching might change my appreciation of the book. I know what it is, and assuming his depiction is accurate I learned something more, but maybe a better background would give more insight into what the characters were doing.

Hello. I read an interesting fact about this book, and to be precise, about the process of writing it. You know, there is such a thing - I Ching, or Book of Changes. So, so with the help of a coin toss, you can supposedly determine the probability of an event, this is something like a prophet or an oracle. This is also mentioned in the book.

And so... the author wrote "The Man in the High Castle" using this book of changes. Should heroes go one way or another? Should the heroes of the book meet or not? Should the hero of the book fall in love with a woman or not? And everything in that spirit was decided by a blind chance, a coin toss.

When I found out this, it opened my eyes to some plot twists, partly explained the ending of the book, and in general it became clear why the plot behaves like a yacht in a storm.

I do not pretend that this is not really the case, but what the author loved... let's just say experimenting with various mind-expanding substances... it might have been just like him.

I do but I don't particularly enjoy them.

I used to never read them except on a reread. I care a lot less about plot now so I’ll typically read them. Some are better than others so I end up flipping through the ones that don’t appeal to me.

It's not unusual on a road trip for someone from my core group to pipe up

"We can't stop here. This is bat country."

And none of us dares refuse the offer of a beer, because we all know that it will be followed by an offer of "perhaps some ether".

Sometimes a literary analysis introducing a classic is full of spoilers, though.

SPOILERS ABOUND (for a completely different book, sorry everyone!!!)

I hated that book too. I actually hate-read it to the end and ... imo it never redeems itself. Eleanor Oliphant makes no sense as a character. One of the pleasures of reading a book is getting inside a character's head, but I felt completely outside of her mind, watching her make weird, senseless decisions, for seemingly no reason, with no insight from Eleanor herself or any narrator or anything. The whole point of the story, I guess is that she murders her father... and then is wracked with guilt. Just, what?? And people are saying she's flawed but believable? No one does what she did. Maybe like one person somewhere did something like it once.

The part that really mystified me somehow was when she housesat for her neighbor and spilled some coffee on the rug, so she had the whole rug steam cleaned and she cleaned up the house on top of that. And then her neighbor came back and was super offended and stopped talking to her and Eleanor's like, "Whaaaaa....? I don't uNdErStAnD..." I guess if you like armchair psychology, you could sit there and come up with literally any reason she would do that, but I think that's super lazy on the author's part - come up with reasons your characters do weird shit, and then commit. Don't just have them do weird shit and leave your readers to make up reasons for it, justify it in their mind, and then be condescending and rude to people like you who post online about how they didn't get it, saying "well she has real issues - she's not perfect with one flaw like the protagonists in all the YA books I read, she is super flawed all the way through, this is LITERATURE."

Anyway, I'm with you - on top of all of the unbelievable actions/flaws of Eleanor Oliphant, it was ultimately boring somehow?? I think it's a lack of psychological insight and just a narrative full of drudgery. Compare with Ottessa Moshfegh whose characters are incredibly flawed, and maybe unbelievably weird, but somehow believable anyway, and interesting the whole time.

Yes, I usually read them at the beginning.

Depends on length, whether written by the author or an academic, and the purpose for which they were written. Those long academic essays at the beginnings of classics, absolutely not, they’re often pretentious and irrelevant and also spoil things I’d rather discover organically. A short piece by the author at the beginning, yeah I’ll read that first because that’s as the author intended.

I always read 'em. Usually I find spoilers manageable, even if I don't know squat about the story beforehand.

Watch the BBC adaptation of 4 episodes pls, the lead actors are so delightful and they changed coupleof scenes, but the climax one is so worth it !

I loved Eleanor. It makes more sense once you know more about her past. She’s redeemable. Just traumatized.

I think this might be the way forward. Especially some of the classics, the intros seem to have an expectation that you know something of the story already.

I think my FOMO sets in, I don't want to skip over them.

I actually read them after I read the book. I find it more satisfying that way, because I can think about my own thoughts on the book as well. And no spoilers that way.

Yeah, I'm normally the same, even if they're just a bit of background on how the book was written, it feels nice to know.

They're usually only a couple pages, so I figure I'm not out much if I read them, but I might miss something if I don't.

Thank you for the advice! :)

That's very true! Thank you very much for the advice! :)

If it’s intended to be part of the novel, yes. If it’s a dedication or a literary analysis, probably not.

Including himself sometimes.

I was just rewatching Venture Brothers, and thinking it interesting that such a colorful personality was now enshrined in so many different cartoon characters, including his own writings where he became an artificial version of himself.

Seeing early footage of him dealing with his increased popularity and people not only assuming Raoul Duke was him, but expecting him to behave that way at all times was kind of sad. But he def leaned into it.

Do what makes you happiest! A good rule of thumb is checking the footnotes when you find yourself feeling curious.

You’re never going to understand every reference or cultural meaning. I’d argue even scholars can’t do that. So your happiness and what fulfills you is most important. Learning is good, but so is becoming immersed in the story

As far as world-building goes, I think Tolkien did it better.