Recently, on a bit of a break, I decided to finally tackle one of those All Time Great Books that’s been on my to-read list for years and years, Invisble Man by Ralph Ellison. Also during this break, I took a three hour train ride from Portland to Seattle, which seemed like a very suitable environment in which to do some Serious Reading. About 100 pages in (out of ~580p in my edition), my train neighbor noticed my book and asked how it was going and what I thought — a conversation starter that book readers normally live for!

The best I could do was sadly little, along the lines of, “Well, it’s pretty dense, and I feel like I’m just getting started. I’m really curious where it’s headed and how it’ll all come together though. And obviously the writing is impressive.” You know, the utterly meaningless things you say when a book is a bit over your head and you’re not quite sure what to make of it.

Having finished the book this week, I am incredibly glad I read it. It certainly heads lots of places by the end. It’s packed with ideas about race in America, deftly addressing so many situations, power dynamics, social structures, political dilemmas, so many of which are still incredibly relevant even 70 years later. Plus, it’s funny and weird and episodic like an epic poem crossed with a satirical travelogue. What a read.

And yet, I still feel like I got maybe sixty percent of this book. Like I need to take a college seminar with weeks of accompanying lectures to really get the full experience and understanding I wish I could just naturally absorb from a book like this, but can’t do on my own.

Part of me thinks I should have saved this book for a context in which I really could read it that actively and deeply, in order to better appreciate it. The other part is glad I tried and got what I could with my 2024 brain, and maybe some day I will read it again even wiser and more ready to receive it. Who knows what the future holds? But since I’m maybe not equipped to ask super deep questions about this book specifically (or just too intellectually insecure to try, considering how many much smarter folks have written on the topic, I’m sure), I’m curious about Big Hard Books in general.

So…
How far do you push yourself with the books you read, and how often do you read Big Hard Books? Should we all push ourselves more, more often?

What’s the “right amount” of tough reading to keep yourself sharp and stimulated?

What’s the last really hard book you read and had a great experience?

Was there one you failed at? How did that feel?