Scores
Score 91 -
100
Complete Persister
You may be the sort of person
who likes to be challenged to figure out what a work is doing. Your
capacity to tolerate ambiguity
is high. Are you a puzzle solver? You are likely to be someone who
notices and enjoys the form literature takes as much as the theme
or meaning. You realize that being unsure of the meaning is a significant
and natural part of reading literature.
Score 81 -
90
Persister with Reservations
While you score high and no doubt
have some of the attitudes of the Complete Persister, you may not
enjoy being puzzled or have the patience that a heavily obscure or
unusual work might require of you. But you know when you are being
challenged and you try to meet the demands of the work. Sometimes
that demand might include searching out answers to questions about
difficult passages.
Score 71 -
80
Sometime Persister
You feel probably like you ought
to persist and you try, sometimes even meeting with success, but you
do not enjoy having to make yourself read on. You probably would prefer
that reading never be like "work."
You may be what we
would call a dutiful reader. Perhaps you equate this sort of reading
with tedious school work.
Score 51 -
70
Frequent Nonpersister
You may very uncomfortable with
works or passages that are presenting you with difficulty. You may
feel like it is your fault that you don't understand more and you
may dislike the feeling enough to put what you are reading aside.
You may feel there are better things to do with your time or that
reading should not be something one works at.
Score 50 and
below
Nonpersister
You probably dislike and perhaps
resent the idea that people should be asked to read material that
is not immediately accessible. You do not tolerate ambiguity and would
like to stamp it out!! You wisely put aside material of this type
to keep your blood pressure down.
Feedback: What does it
mean to persist?
The persistent reader of literature is one who continues to read even
when the reading does not immediately seem to make as much sense as
one would like. How much patience should one have or work should one
put into a text? While it is true that the level of obscurity one
has to deal with varies depending on the experience one has reading
all types of literature, it is also true that all readers encounter
material that seems difficult or obscure. How tolerant are we of this
situation when we encounter it? Does one have confidence it is possible
to work through it to satisfactory understanding? Is it possible that,
dare one say it, one can even enjoy these moments of confusion, challenge
or disorientation? Does one have reservations about the value of this?
Does one have feelings that all efforts to communicate should be as
simple as possible so as to make the reader comfortable and the text
transparent to meaning? Do you sometimes resent material that is demanding
of time and effort such that you would, as Bartleby says, "prefer
not to"?
Of course, it is important to
distinguish between things that are poorly written and simple minded
enough to be boring or worthless and works that are complex and yet
deemed worth reading by reputation. One would be overly zealous if
one made a point of continuing to read something merely because one
made the mistake of starting it. Some things beg to be put down. Therefore,
we have to assume we are talking about works that come into your hands
with a reputation for being worth your time--works that are part of
the canon of art.
Understanding that your state
of confusion is part of the game of reading and that all readers encounter
these moments may help you tolerate not understanding long enough
to get through it. It may also make you realize that you can actively
inquire after meaning and that these texts or passages that are obscure
for you are also troubling to others. Sometimes the best you can do
is keep a list of the questions you have about meaning!!
