And you probably don’t even realise it.
I’m not going gentle into this Friday night.
The thing is. It’s not even your fault.
Friends and family are trying to rope us into those endless Tiktok clips.
Pulled deep into those scroll holes which do nothing but lobotomise the attention right out of us.
Our minds are being trained to crave quick hits of dopamine instead of sustained thought.
We’re becoming intellectually diabetic, addicted to mental junk food that tastes good in the beginning but leaves us malnourished. This is why you need to read David Foster Wallace. And Thomas Pynchon. And Don DeLillo. And Jennifer Egan. And Zadie Smith and and and…
And a lot of these are going to hurt.
Infinite Jest isn’t called infinite for nothing. It’s a thousand page brick that will make your brain sweat (I’m half way through it and man… [chefs kiss]
And if you so happen to pick up Gravity’s Rainbow, it will have you questioning reality by page fifty. As for White Noise, It will leave you paranoid about everything from supermarkets to radio waves. (Damn those radio waves)
And yeah a lot of it starts off hard to read but honestly that’s just your brain doing some extra work cause it’s so used to brain rot content.
These authors don’t write for people who want easy answers or comfortable narratives.
If you want politically correct bullshit and romantacy then sure, there’s plenty of books that’ll scratch that itch. Those are just junkfood.
The writers I’ve mentioned. They write for readers willing to wrestle with complex ideas, follow labyrinthine thoughts, and sit with ambiguity. They demand attention spans longer than a commercial break.
Wallace will take you inside the mind of someone so depressed they can’t feel their own feelings, then somehow make that experience beautiful (And I imagine it’s only going to be even more of a wild ride after I box off the last 500ish pages) Pynchon will weave conspiracy theories and mathematical concepts into paranoid masterpieces that feel like one of those dreams you have when you’re severely dehydrated in the jungle while fighting off Malaria. DeLillo will make you see the sinister poetry in American consumer culture which has sadly bled into the souls of the rest of the world.
Try Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch if you want accessible complexity. Pick up Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad for experimental storytelling that actually serves the story. Grab anything by Zadie Smith for brilliant social observation wrapped in gorgeous prose.
We’re going down that intellectual rabbit hole, baby.
Reading difficult books is like lifting weights for your mind.
Your concentration improves. Your patience grows. You start noticing patterns and connections that others miss. You develop tolerance for uncertainty and comfort with complexity.
And don’t get me wrong. The world we’re living in now profits from you being constantly distracted and carefree.
So pick up something that makes you work for it.
Stephen Walker.
This one will slap you. I read it back in highschool and damn…