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Do you have to Understand 100% of a Book to Enjoy it?
The short answer is no. Here’s why.
It was a gloomy Saturday afternoon filled with the heaviness of muggy air that has been plaguing the British summer season as of late. I was dressed in a thick jumper and curled up on the sofa with a blanket and my book. It could have been October. It could have been November. But it was Autumn in July and I loved it.
But more importantly, I had just finished The Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel and was scratching my head, trying to work out what just happened. I loved the book and adored the writing style and the ideas that were put forward. But all of this felt redundant as I realized I didn’t quite understand what was going on — or the final ending.
As I reluctantly gave The Sea of Tranquility a 3-star rating on Goodreads after finishing, I quickly leaped to various Redditt threads to try and understand what had happened. But I still didn’t, even though I had read through multiple theories. Eventually, I had to come to peace with the idea maybe I wasn’t clever enough to get to grips with the complex, science-fiction plot.
Which got me thinking. Do you have to fully understand the plot of a book, or what it’s trying to convey or tell the reader, to enjoy it?
Or, can we enjoy it for the sake of the reading experience it gives us, the feel of the prose and writing, and the characters that spike our interest?
Is it even a little obnoxious of us as readers to assume we have the right to (or should) understand all the complex layers and meaning behind a novel, which sometimes takes years to write?
Maybe. Maybe I’ve been reading in the wrong way for all these years.
Reading for the vibes
It recently occurred to me, whilst attending my first ever book club a few weeks ago, that you can enjoy a book simply for the feeling it gives you. We were discussing Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber, and many people suggested the plot was hard to follow.
For me, this was part of the problem too, but I quickly realized part of that was that I hadn’t read any other Garber books, that share universes and characters.
