My seventh grade English class, the teacher was trying to explain why people went to see Shakespeare if everyone already knew the stories. We weren't being a very attentive class, mostly saying stuff to keep him off-topic, so eventually he just goes "look, we don't read to see what happens, we read to pass time." That kind of stuck with me, and ever since I've made it my philosophy as an author-- books should be first and foremost entertainment.
So, overall, though I like the unique insights many of these books uncover, I take offence at how they seem to try and make it difficult for you to read them-- Mumbo Jumbo being the worst offender. It seems like one of the watchwords of PoMo is that if you aren't willing to divert extra time and energy into figuring out what the author can easily set in front of you, you aren't worthy of reading the book. And while sometimes it's diverting to read something especially challenging, there is a definite point where it stops being cool and starts being bullshit. If I am forced to handtranslate morse code, I am not being entertained and the book is not fulfilling it's prerogative.
Most of the literary traditions we've been given are there to make it easy to focus on the story part of the story without having to be pulled out of the story by things like trying to figure out what that badly spelled word is. Breaking them for a reason is interesting up to a point as long as I'm not translating morse. Breaking them to be interesting isn't a reason, it's a nuisance. And worse, it's pretentious. I demand better entertainment.
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