Something as a reader I like to remind myself: just because I don't see a character arc, or I don't see a theme, doesn't mean it's not there. I have my own tastes, biases, experience and blindspots, & I have to read a diverse set of critics to ensure I'm expanding my perspective.

It's way easier for me to understand and articulate the thematic underpinnings of, say, IMMORTAL HULK, or JUDAS, or to get out of comics something like FIRST REFORMED than it is X-FACTOR, or something like PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE.

I try to be open to those works that build on things that are not from my perspective, not from my experience; I let myself be moved by them. But ultimately, I have to seek out the thoughts of other people before I can come to a full appreciation.

And if something does leave me completely cold, there's always the temptation to make an instant termination that, rather than "thing not for me," "thing empty." And then there's a temptation to read the work *through* a hermeneutics of emptiness.

If I don't like Act 1 but try to stay open, by Act 3 something may have happened that will make the work click.

If I don't like Act 1 and have decided that the work is empty, I'll likely read Act 3 *as* empty.

Or, sometimes the work will never click, and staying open to the whole thing, reading other people talking about the thing won't change that. I still won't like or enjoy the thing. But at least I understand it better, and why other people enjoy it.

a really, really small thing, but also one of the key moments in like my entire life, was one class I took, a simple intro-to-lit course where we read moby dick, and on day one i, and most of my classmates, fucking HATED moby dick. it was a nightmare to get through.

before class we were all talking about how tedious and ABSURD it was. And ALL THE WHALE SCIENCE. WHY.

and the professor came in, and sat down with a big grin on his face, and began to read a passage, and then flipped to a WHALE SCIENCE bit, and he just began chuckling. And we were like: wtf? and he picked up on the energy in the room & just said:

you guys know it's FUNNY, right?

and we all looked at the passage he just read, and looked up at him, and looked down again, and went OHHHHHH and breathed a sigh of relief. And then I (and most of us) enjoyed the rest of the book. That's all that we needed to enjoy it: the slightest shift in perspective.

The permission to read it in a different way than we had at the start.