Thread 24813674

Harold Bloom claimed that he could read 500-700 pages in an hour (which, even without delving into it, is simply ludicrous).

Dan Schneider from the e-cosmoetica website claimed that he read David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest within 7-8 hours, justifying himself by saying that it was so bad that he "cut through it like water".

The only major problem with that statement is that Infinite Jest has a word count of over 500,000, meaning even if he read the entire novel in 8 hours, he would have had to read over a thousand words every minute on average. According to cognitive neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene, speed reading of up to 1,000 words per minute "must be viewed with scepticism", so for Dan Schneider to surpass that pace for more than 8 hours straight is beyond ludicrous. For professional speed readers who claim a 1000-2000 wpm pace, they, on average, can only retain approximately 50% of the information read.

I feel like it's a very odd thing to lie about, and it seems to stem from some need to justify their intelligence to the public.

I think it's an important asterisk to put next to these literary critics when it's possible that they haven't even actually read some of the literary works they are critiquing and have simply skimmed them.

>>24813674 (OP)
>it's another "i can't handle the fact that savants have existed throughout history" thread
shameful

I don't believe in critics in general because I like forming my own opinions. Why would I care about some critic's view on something artistic? Maybe he doesn't have the same taste as I do. At the end of the day everyone decides what they like and what they don't. It shouldn't even be a job.

>>24813674 (OP)
you are just wasting time if you are reading articles, pronouns, prepositions and other superfluous parts of a book

>>24813674 (OP)
That book took me like a year. I read it when I pooped.
Anyone going faster than a month or two probably doesn't remember it.

>>24813681
this.
>Terrence Tao claimed to master university level mathematics at age nine. Basedintest says: impossible! Why does no one call this stuff out?

>>24813674 (OP)
A thousand words a minute is not impossible.

>>24813674 (OP)
Pretty sure Noam Chomsky lied about something similar.

>>24814298
yup.
kim peek easily demonstrates this beyond a shadow of a doubt. far higher functioning savants than he exist with no diminishment of their abilities.

>>24813674 (OP)
I read around 500-600 wpm and don't think it would be absurd for someone to read twice as fast as me. The Neurological research that I'm familiar with implies that a small segment of the population is capable of reading 800+ wpm without any affect on comprehension.
You're arguing from averages while trying to make claims about the existence of outliers.

>>24813681
>>24814282
Lol, you're defending literary critics and worshipping them as geniuses. Embarrassing.

people that read too fast don't remember anything they read

not to mention the vast number of those with complete eidetic memories, which even to a fault show the vast capacity of the mind to store reams of data seen only once.

to OP, I suggest you simply accept you aren't one of those chosen geniuses and put your nose to the grindstone. Bloom for all his bluster couldn't write fiction to save his life. Hard work, endurance, slavish devotion, these can overwhelm genius. Except those who take it seriously, like Neumann or Tesla, or when regarding literature, Joyce or Shakespeare. Going up against them, you're fucked. But if you don't doltishly aim for the crown and instead opt to carve out your little niche, you might be surprised.

>>24814330
you're so filthy with it, you're green.

If you leaf through Infinite Jest looking for something meaningful like you're trying to learn the plot points like who died or what the main conflict is then you're not going to have to bother to take very many notes, maybe that guy thinks he sped read it and knows the plot of the bock is nothing really happens the plot is inconsequential. Where most novels are a car that take you on a journey, Infinite Jest is a hedge maze designed to waste your time, in a corn field, in Nebraska, and there's nothing around, and you drove here in an old car that can extend the car analogy if you really like that.

In my opinion it's not important to read super quickly, it's not importantly about how quickly you can understand a book or dismiss it. It's about having a variety of viewpoints, so you'll never lament spending an endless amount of time on the wrong side of an argument.

>>24813674 (OP)
These people are just skimming the books.
They aren't voicing the characters in their mind or rereading certain impactful sentences or paragraphs. You too could finish War and Peace in a few hours just by glancing at each page for 10 seconds to get the gist of the action and moving on.

>>24813674 (OP)
Art critics are worthless.

>>24813674 (OP)
I read about 75 pages an hour

>>24814506
Ok

>>24813674 (OP)
Is it really reading if your just gobbling it up like a retard and claiming you're an almighty genius. It took an author ten years to write what some claim they've read in 10 hours, which to me is just pure autism.

I was in prison with Sonny Balwani and would speak with him daily. The guy could read a 300-500 page book in 2-4 hours and then discuss it with mastery. He was a professor at Stanford before Theranos so I knew he was beyond the average persons intelligence and abilities, but damn I wish I could read as quickly as he can. In prison I met several people who could knock out a long novel in a night. I read slow to enjoy the movie in my mind