I feel like the idea of understanding media has, for many of us, become a prison. The purest version of understanding is kind of a personal relationship to a piece of media. A relationship you form while engaging with it that enlivens your life and has the potential to broaden your horizons. But we live in a moment where it's very popular to talk about "the right understanding of media"[1] and therefor everyone begins to need to explain their relationship to every piece of media to their friends.
The bare experience of reading The Baroque Cycle completely stuffed full of historical references you don't understand is kind of its own immersive experience in a less media-rich climate. You kind of get a sense what it might be like to have no access to education and run into like, Leonardo da Vinci or whoever. But then it comes time to explain that experience to someone else and they might think you were silly for not just looking the names up.
I just think it's too bad. I once almost broke my wrist snow boarding, but my friend wanted to finish the day so I hung out in our car. The medics had given me a dose of percocet[2] for the pain and I had just started Neuromancer. Finishing that book in that hot car, slightly high, has both erased all of "what happens" from my mind and left me with this kind of indelliable feeling of what it was like to be reading the book. I didn't understand it and feel all the better for it.
[1] I think it's very easy to understand why people want to set others straight on points like this, even if I don't like the ecosystem it creates.
[2] I think it was percocet? Though it seems odd that I would be given a dose of narcotics for a bad sprain.
The bare experience of reading The Baroque Cycle completely stuffed full of historical references you don't understand is kind of its own immersive experience in a less media-rich climate. You kind of get a sense what it might be like to have no access to education and run into like, Leonardo da Vinci or whoever. But then it comes time to explain that experience to someone else and they might think you were silly for not just looking the names up.
I just think it's too bad. I once almost broke my wrist snow boarding, but my friend wanted to finish the day so I hung out in our car. The medics had given me a dose of percocet[2] for the pain and I had just started Neuromancer. Finishing that book in that hot car, slightly high, has both erased all of "what happens" from my mind and left me with this kind of indelliable feeling of what it was like to be reading the book. I didn't understand it and feel all the better for it.
[1] I think it's very easy to understand why people want to set others straight on points like this, even if I don't like the ecosystem it creates.
[2] I think it was percocet? Though it seems odd that I would be given a dose of narcotics for a bad sprain.