i see where he’s coming from. the vast majority of my attempts to read anything remotely old have resulted in me bouncing off them. but i have updated to ‘i think my brain is cooked, i need to practice reading increasingly hard stuff, and not just expect to start with this stuff and enjoy it’. not going amazingly but that’s the plan. i also deny their aspirational quality. unless you are specifically trying to impress people you wouldn’t actually want to like you if you met them in real life.