fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2627 ]

[ SECRET POST #2627 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2627 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Malcolm In The Middle, Everybody Loves Raymond, Home Improvement, Rescue Me, Prison Break]

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03.

[Michelle Kwan]

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04.

[Bear Nuts by Alison Acton]

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05.

[Supernatural]

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06.

[OP note: pic credit to Ksenia Nurtdinova]

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07.

[Seanan McGuire, Jonathan Ross and his wife Jane Goldman]

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08.

[Karen Gillian/Doctor Who]

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09.

[Mary Poppins (1964 movie)]

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10.

[El Goonish Shive]

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11.

[Noragami]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 015 secrets from Secret Submission Post #375.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Am I the only person who side-eyes people who claim they read really adult books at a young age?

Don't get me wrong, I know people who I totally believe really could've read Wuthering Heights at nine years old, and I'm sure there's a lot of kids who read advanced stuff - but there's reading and there's actually understanding it, and it's the latter I have trouble believing applies to as many people as fandom would have you believe.

I AM this variety of asshole, and believe me, I didn't actually understand any of the too-advanced stuff I read as a kid. Revisiting some of it years later has often proven embarrassing.

Same here. I'm four years younger than my sister and I read everything when she did. Didn't mean I understood Macbeth when I was ten. But I read it.

OTOH, I was constantly being disciplined in grade one reading class for reading Ramona novels instead of See Spot Run.

Re: "When the other preschoolers were reading See Spot Run, I was reading Hamlet!"

(Anonymous) - 2014-03-14 05:40 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "When the other preschoolers were reading See Spot Run, I was reading Hamlet!"

(Anonymous) - 2014-03-14 05:50 (UTC) - Expand

I'm that asshole, too! I read a ton of stuff (completely indiscriminately) in grade school that I didn't understand at all. The result: I developed some serious misconceptions about the meanings of words and later missed out on lots of great books that I would have loved as a teenager because, omg, I totally read that when I was like, five or something.

I can see where the side-eye comes from, because I am side-eyeing my younger self all the time.

The first novel I read was The Neverending Story. I read it when I was around 4-5 years old. Sure, it took me almost four months to read the entire thing, but before that the only things I had read were the usual children's books. I graduated to adult-oriented fantasy novels soon afterward (Tolkien, etc).

When you're that young and you like to read you read almost anything people have laying around, regardless of whether or not you understand all of it. That is how learning works. I'm sure there is a lot of literature you could read today, as an adult, and not understand all of. You don't see anyone criticizing you for that.

Unless they're dicks.

I read a variety of stuff at a variety of ages, because I was one of those kids (and still am one of those people) who would read anything that happened to be in my general vicinity. This only got worse when I joined the library at seven, and got permission to read from the adult section at twelve.

My understanding of what I was reading, though, did vary a lot. My general approach with things I didn't understand was to bring the book to my parents and ask them what was going on. I read my first lesbian kiss at around twelve-ish in an adult sci-fi book, which was an interesting conversation. I'd usually get most things intellectually with some explaining, but a lot of the emotional or thematic content of some of those books went over my head until much later in life. As in, I'd get what was going on once it was pointed out, but often I'd still be confused about why it mattered. Some things don't really mean anything to you until you've lived them, I think?

More technical issues, science and things, I got most of those, or got enough from the explanation to get the gist and go back to the story. It's probably where I learned how to get the shape of something enough to go with the flow, without necessarily needing to understand in detail - served me well with technobabble and/or unfamiliar jargon later on.

You can pick up a lot from osmosis and context, even at that age. Most of the stuff I had trouble with (and still have trouble with) is usually things more relating to life experience and emotional intelligence, rather than conceptual difficulties?

There's multiple levels you understand things on, and I think age is only a direct factor in some of them.

do you remember what sci-fi book that was?

Re: "When the other preschoolers were reading See Spot Run, I was reading Hamlet!"

(Anonymous) - 2014-03-14 02:01 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "When the other preschoolers were reading See Spot Run, I was reading Hamlet!"

caecilia - 2014-03-14 02:08 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "When the other preschoolers were reading See Spot Run, I was reading Hamlet!"

(Anonymous) - 2014-03-14 03:51 (UTC) - Expand

Reading is one thing. Understanding is another. I was a precocious early reader in childhood and often went to older books because they took me longer to read. But I didn't always understand them. I was six or seven when I read The Chocolate War (because I thought the title was cool sounding), and I was totally and completely lost. Like I understood all of the words, but the overarching story and concepts were beyond me.

Oh my goodness, The Chocolate War. That book was like a foggy ill-smelling nightmare of total incomprehension and vague but powerful discomfort. I didn't understand it at ALL, and because it was called "The Chocolate War," seven-year-old me was convinced that I HAD to start understanding it eventually, and ugh. At least with other "older" books I knew they were older and so expected a lot of things to fly over my head.

Re: "When the other preschoolers were reading See Spot Run, I was reading Hamlet!"

(Anonymous) - 2014-03-14 05:36 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "When the other preschoolers were reading See Spot Run, I was reading Hamlet!"

(Anonymous) - 2014-03-14 08:08 (UTC) - Expand

It really depends on the kid and the book. I gave up age-appropriate books when I was about 9 and the adult books I read covered a wide range. Yes, some of them went completely over my head, some were just fine, and some I understood but missed some layers of meaning or references.

Two things: not understanding some books completely doesn't mean there's anything wrong with reading adult books. Or else adults would have to stop reading them as well :p And even the ones I didn't understand that well helped me in many ways and taught me many things. Just because you didn't get the same experience a college student got, it doesn't mean you didn't get a great one.

It depends? When I was 11 I read Gulliver's Travels and figured out that the argument over "what side should an egg be cracked on" was making fun of religion. I also got that Animal Farm was about communism and that the leader of the pigs (I forget his name) was supposed to represent Stalin.

On the other hand, I had no idea that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was a Christian allegory until someone pointed it out to me years after I read it.

I didn't understand the more adult concepts, like assault, but I understood what I could from a child's perspective.

I was reading out of my age level, but I think the most significant memory I had where it was different for me was when I was reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Where she finds the shoe made me so emotional, I had to be removed from class and sent home early because I wouldn't stop crying. I actually never finished the book because the school took away the copy I had. This was second grade. It's still kinda traumatic for me, even thinking about that scene causes me to tear up.

But yeah. Comprehending as an adult vs comprehending as a child is totally different. Kids probably "understand" the material, but not like an adult would. So, when people like you mentioned tell me that, I ask them what they thought of it as an adult. If they reread it as an adult, I'm more inclined to lay off, but if they hadn't, I do judge if they say they "read" x, y, or z novel.

I roll my eyes at those types of statements. Usually because it's some pretentious person trying to explain how special and smart and precocious they are.

I grew up retarded. My reading comprehension was pretty low for my grade level for most years, and while people in high schol were reading Les Misérables and Anne Rice and some other shit that flew over my head, I was struggling with book reports on stupid "young adult" novels that a ten-year-old wouldn't be impressed by.

I give less than a shit about people who talk about their advanced reading levels or long book lists at X age. Is it impressive? Well, sure. But like you said, it doesn't necessarily say anything about their ability to understand the material. I remember reading Calvin & Hobbes as a child, and then ten years later. While it's a comic strip and not a book, there were a lot of things I appreciated as an adult that I couldn't as a kid.

I just don't find it a very impressive thing to brag about since early readers don't seem to maintain much of an advantage over their peers once everyone else in their age cohort learns to read.

Eh? What do you mean, advantage? What sort of advantage should it be giving?

Early readers don't necessarily, but avid readers of any age do over non-readers. And early readers are often (not always, but often) avid readers. Even just in vocabulary alone, if nothing else.

I wouldn't side-eye anyone for it because I was a rabid consumer of any and all books from a young age. We had reading levels in the early school years which are kindergarten, year one, and year two here, and you could only read books from your level and then advance as the teacher allowed you.

By the end of kindergarten I was allowed to just borrow from the library or bring books from home for reading time.

I don't think it's ever really a bad thing for someone to start reading more complex novels from a young age. There are definitely things I've read again as I've gotten older that I understand differently now, but I don't regret reading them earlier either.

I was a huge fantasy nerd. Anything with dragons or magic, I had to try it. I was given a set of Tolkien novels (LotR and The Hobbit) when I was 8 and tried The Hobbit, ragequit because TOO MANY CHARACTERS WITH SIMILAR NAMES, and then a few months later I read all three LotR books with only the occasional frown over the long, flowery descriptions of the scenery.

I'm never going to pretend that I had any patience for romance at that age though, or Shakespeare. I did try Dickens but A Christmas Tale and Oliver were all I managed (and still are, tbh).

I guess I can believe that fandom attracts lots of early readers.

Dickens was the worst as a kid. I want to try reading Oliver again, but as a kid, it was so dry and boring and the only reason why I made it to the book instead of rage quitting was because I had really bad asthma as a kid and I had to be separated to the nurses cabin in the middle of a school camping trip and it was the only book I had brought to read. I literally and figuratively choked through Oliver.

I wonder, as an adult, I would like it more.

Am I the only person who side-eyes people who claim they read really adult books at a young age?

Why would you do that though? Would you "side-eye" someone who claimed they had memorized their multiplication tables at a young age, or who could do long division in kindergarten?

NAYRT

Honestly, I may be biased, but I tend to side eye people solely because in my experience, the people who continue to bring these things up at my age do so to prove some kind of point about their intelligence or how special they are compared to other "normal" people. I read a lot when I was a kid, mostly because I was bullied. It has fuck all to do with how intelligent, educated, kind, awesome, or whatever else I may or may not be today. I guess it's probably unfair, but I have this strong negative association between people who bring up being precocious readers and people who continue to think that they are incredibly special, and that they're better (and much smarter!) than the people they're around, and I resent it, because I think it's really shitty.

Mostly, just... why should I care? Most of us can read the same stuff now, or at least have the capacity to do so, if not the inclination. What does it matter whether we started when we were 2, 5, or 10?

... sorry for the tl;dr, I have feelings.

Re: "When the other preschoolers were reading See Spot Run, I was reading Hamlet!"

(Anonymous) - 2014-03-14 04:36 (UTC) - Expand

Re: "When the other preschoolers were reading See Spot Run, I was reading Hamlet!"

ariakas - 2014-03-14 05:06 (UTC) - Expand

Depends on what you mean by adult. I read "Little Women" when I was 8. The school librarian questioned if I really meant to borrow such a thick book, and I assured her I was fine. And I was. I didn't understand everything and missed a lot of the nuances and preachiness, but I read it and enjoyed it and I borrowed the sequels and enjoyed them, too.

To be honest, most of the people I know are writers and bookworms, and all of them started reading at a very early age so it doesn't seem unusual or incredible to me.

At first by "adult books" I thought you meant, you know, erotic books. I read wayyyyy too many graphic/trashy romance novels when I was grade schooler (or "romance" novels in the case of Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty series. Those books are really something else...)

I also read stuff like Dante's Inferno when I was young. Of course, I didn't understand jack shit about it; I just wanted people to think I was clever. For someone who read a lot of trashy, grocery store romance novels I was sure a pretentious little thing...

I read voraciously and read many books that were a bit too old for me. I don't go around openly boasting about it though. I'm not the world's smartest person, especially since I got sick.

My parents' shelves were full of books, and as I'd demolish a few children's books a night, I wanted to tackle longer more "grown-up" stuff.

I definitely remember reading Lord of the Rings when I was 9... it took me alllll summer and although I enjoyed all the hobbit stuff, I was rather lost in the middle of the Two Towers.

Re: "When the other preschoolers were reading See Spot Run, I was reading Hamlet!"

ryttu3k - 2014-03-14 23:32 (UTC) - Expand

I read adult horror novels when I was a kid,mostly because I loved ghost stories but the children's scary story collection (which I read as well) were never really creepy. Although I had a creepy story collection with story from all over the world and I remember that at five or six, my favourite was The Mask of the Red Death and that was Poe. I read other books when I was young as well but I never boasted about it - mostly because I wasn't aware that I wasn't supposed to read them, I guess.

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