TIL a guy in my club said he skips all the dialogue in literary fiction

He said it at our 'The Secret History' meetup in Austin, arguing it 'gets to the point faster'. Has anyone else had a member just totally miss the point of a book like that?

4 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

4 Comments

casey8186mo ago

It reminds me of people who blast through a museum just to say they saw the Mona Lisa. They get the box checked but miss the whole experience. The dialogue in a book like that isn't just filler, it's how you learn who the characters are. Skipping it is like trying to understand a person by only reading their text messages and ignoring their tone of voice. You end up with just the plot, and you've missed the actual story.

7

eric_adams116mo ago

Totally agree, @casey818. I had to slow down to get it.

3

xena5826mo ago

I read "The Great Gatsby" in high school and just skimmed it for the test. Rereading it last year, I actually stopped on page 42 where Nick describes Gatsby's smile. That one paragraph told me more about Gatsby than my whole first rushed read.

5

kimw576mo ago

Sometimes you just need the plot to get through it, lol.

3