COMMENT
How would you rate the book in terms of difficulty?
What are other difficult texts you have encountered before?
Does taking notes help with the comprehension?
IN SEPARATE PARAGRAPH
Do you have suggestions for your classmates on how to approach this text?
REPLIES. Reply to at least one comment with your observations.
This is a moderately difficult book. The author puts a lot of detail into painting the scene and it is very easy to get lost in the sea of words. l have read David Foster Wallace's lnfinite Jest, which is a very complicated book to read. Foster Wallace is incredibly verbose and chooses his words incredibly precisely, so precisely that he chooses words that are totally unfamiliar to the reader but, upon further examination, perfectly encapsulate the point he was trying to make. l see that verbosity a lot in "Christ in Concrete", Pietro di Donato chooses his words very deliberately. l don't believe he has the intention of writing a very complicated text, he merely wants his words to work as effectively as possible.
ReplyDeleteNotes kinda helped, l took notes to remind myself of what happened in each chapter and l definitely think that helped me retain information. l highly recommend others do that.
I do agree with you that the notes helped, and I believe the notes are the only reason I was able to get through the first 61 pages without really losing focus of what was going on in the story. They are also very helpful to re-read before class to study for the quiz.
DeleteI definitely believe this book to be a difficult read. I found myself googling the definitions to a lot of words as I was reading through the chapters. There was also a few very large run on sentences, some were even paragraphs long. These confused me a lot, and caused me to get uninterested in what was going on very quickly, making me lose focus. I had to read some paragraphs over and over before I knew what was going on. This is probably the hardest book I read, I don’t think I have encountered anything like this before.
ReplyDeleteTaking notes definitely helps with reading this book. I found that by taking notes I was able to stay better focused to the book without my mind wandering, and writing down the sentences and what I believed was going on helped me to stay on track with the story. It is a very easy story to get long and confused quickly, so taking notes definitely made me stay on track with the events in the book. I think taking very detailed notes is the only suggestion I have, and by doing this you can go back to these notes before class and you will be able to fully remember what was going on in each chapter. Even is something does not seem important, write it down anyway. It could help with the finishing of the book.
I also had found the long sentences troubling and having to keep rereading paragraphs was a bit frustrating.
DeleteI had to google some of the words in the reading, to better understand what i was reading. That really helped me a lot to understand the story.
Deletel agree with you that the notes helped. l like what you said about writing down something even if it doesn't seem important, those details could definitely play into the conclusion of the book and could be important upon further examination, especially in a book as dense as Christ in Concrete.
ReplyDeleteThis is really hard book to understand. Author uses a difficult language and a lot of details which makes readers to get confused easily.While reading this book I found myself using translator to translate some word and even lines to get the better understanding of the book. I have read couple of books by William Shakespeare but I did ot find it that difficult to read and understand. Christ In Concrete seems really difficult to read.
ReplyDeleteI think taking notes while reading helped me a lot to understand what was going on in the text. Also it helped me to understand the emotions of the characters better. I think taking notes would help everybody.
This is really hard book to understand. Author uses a difficult language and a lot of details which makes readers to get confused easily.While reading this book I found myself using translator to translate some word and even lines to get the better understanding of the book. I have read couple of books by William Shakespeare but I did ot find it that difficult to read and understand. Christ In Concrete seems really difficult to read.
ReplyDeleteI think taking notes while reading helped me a lot to understand what was going on in the text. Also it helped me to understand the emotions of the characters better. I think taking notes would help everybody.
The book was quite difficult to read, but if you put the effort in, I didn't find it that hard to follow. While a page might normally take me a minute or two to read, I just found that this might take a little more due to the fact that I might need to re-read things that weren't quite clear. However, after re-reading, I felt as if I had gotten the basic concept of each page down. I am not really fond of reading so the only hard book I've previously had to read was the Illiad while in high-school for a class read. Sparknotes was a huge help for that book, however this story doesn't seem to have a sparknotes page so I have to assume that my interpretation of the text is correct.
ReplyDeleteI don't find taking notes helpful, especially in much harder to follow books like this. I feel as if I've actually had to make a conscious effort to comprehend what I'm reading then I will remember it without the need to write down notes. Also it wasn't that long of a read, while a lot does happen it isn't hard to remember what happens in only 60 pages of text.
I definitely agree with you on the notes. This author seems to be very careful on how the sentences and paragraphs flow together, and stopping to take notes really disrupts that for me. I feel like its easier to follow along without constantly stopping.
DeleteAs far as the text goes I agree that while the language is a little difficult, a few re-reads here and there tend to get me back on track.
I didn't find it too difficult. Most of the words I didn't know I could figure out due to context. I was more struck by the gruesome and depressing content rather than the words themselves. However the author definitely has a different style of writing, almost like one long poem. The notes seemed like a distraction. The more I tried to write down, the more distracted I felt. The author very carefully strings his sentences and paragraphs together, and stopping to take notes seems to disrupt the flow of his writing. While this book can definitely be considered difficult, I feel that Chaucer and maybe some Shakespearean texts were more difficult for me.
ReplyDeleteI was nervous about reading this book because I felt like I wouldn't understand it. As i started to read, the text didn't seem that difficult. I feel like this is a text that the reader would just have to take time reading. I did get caught up at times, reading the same lines over just to follow the story. "A Long Way Gone" was a text that i had found more difficult than this one. The story was describing hardships in Africa, faced by a young boy.
ReplyDeleteTalking notes did help me keep up with the text. Each chapter of the story was coming from a different point of view from the characters. The note helped me remember each character's feeling and also break down the text.
The book wasn't so difficult to read. I must admit the first few pages were confusing but I figured out the flow and it helped me. There are a lot of idioms in this book which can be confusing. Another difficult book I read is one that I cannot remember the tittle but it had a lot of symbolism and figurative language and it was confusing to read because you have to adapt your mind to not think literally.
ReplyDeleteTaking notes do help and following along the professor's notes help as well. One suggestion I could make is to paint pictures in your mind as if you are watching a movie while reading the text.
Yeah I agree with you that first few pages were difficult to understand.But later when we kept reading we were able to figure out and read.
DeleteThis was indeed a difficult book to read. I give a solid 8.5 out of 10, with 10 being extremely difficult. I am not avid reader, so I have never encountered anything like this in regards to a novel. I have read many NY times articles and scientific articles. Note taking during reading may not have benefited me the way most others did in terms of comprehension. I usually take notes on the ideas and concepts after I understand it fully.
ReplyDeleteI would recommend reading slowly in a quiet setting upright with no distractions. Also, in hindsight praying before reading that you may understand it would be useful.
This book was the most diffucult book i have ever read. At first, reading it was like reading any other book. But then, towards the second page, the reading got really difficult. I had to read really slowly, and read every single word carefully. After reading some sentences, or paragraphs, i had to stop and analyze them before moving on. The notes really helped. I also had to search some words up, to have a better understanding of what i was reading.
ReplyDeleteThis book isn't as difficult as the professor made it seem. There's vocabulary here and there that the book has that throws you off when reading but other than that the book is okay to read. The fact that the book is very descriptive helps me out a lot because if there's a part i didn't quite understand i just visualized it in my head, sort of like a movie.
ReplyDeleteTaking notes with this book isn't helpful because it's distracting. It helps if you finish the chapter and then summerize it a bit but not if while reading you take notes also. Since it was distracting and throwing me off, I took notes only on half the reading and just kept reading after that.