Hysterical realism and the postmodern trademark
I finished up reading Infinite Jest a few days ago and I've been wandering around in a bit of a daze ever since. The length wasn't as much of an issue as the general structure and nature of the novel--it was arguably one of the most difficult texts that I've gone through, but it was also profoundly rewarding. I rarely blog on the books I read ( Read more... )
What you're essentially requesting is a quantification of subjective experience; you might be suited to read Heidegger with just a good intro to him. Others might find him totally incomprehensible even with a good intro. There's no bare minimum here, just like there's not a bare minimum of things that make you a good driver, or a decent mage in WoW, or whatever.
Stretching this analogy further, I think reading philosophy is a lot like driving. When I lived on a farm, it was expected that I learn how to drive and operate heavy machinery. They didn't plop me in a tractor and let me loose. I started out with a truck with an automatic transmission. Then I went up to a larger truck with a manual transmission. Then a smaller tractor. Then a larger one. The basic principle was the same--it was a vehicle that you could accelerate and decelerate. There were nuances with each one that I had to learn. It took me X amount of hours to master each one. For someone else, it took Y hours. There's nothing definite about that process, just like there is nothing definite about being able to make sense of a complex philosophical text.
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