I can read that way, I find it helps me to slow down a bit and understand what I'm reading rather than skimming. I can read very well without doing so, so I don't misunderstand what I'm reading but I often find it harder to recall specifics of things I've read rather than the gist.

Philosophy graduate here, I've read the book, and I don't think anyone is too stupid to understand the book, it just requires you to think in a different frame of reference. It's been a long time since I read the book, and a proper analysis would probably run to novel length, but I'll try to summarise if I can.

Meursault is a character very much operating on his own wavelength. He simply doesn't see the merit or meaning of the kind of social and interpersonal structures that other people take so much for granted that it's hard to see past them.

The trial at the end is a really good example of all of this. At first instance, Meursault is French and his victim is Algerian. Politically this means he really does have every possible opportunity to make something up and people will convince themselves that his story is the truth and then he will be set free. He doesn't do this, because it would be inauthentic to do so. He spends his trial concerned with the fact that he's too hot, the possibility that he might be imprisoned, executed even, is nothing he worries about.

The key point here is authenticity. At every point, Meursault is exactly who he is, expresses exactly what he is thinking and feeling, and often that is apposite to the customs (like drinking coffee during the vigil) and social mores of his time (like not protecting himself in the trial even when people are expecting him to do so). When he tells his casual sexual partner that he "probably doesn't" love her, he's being authentic, but it's to his detriment.

What this means is that his immediate concerns are way more important to him than conceptual ones. When he shoots the Algerian, he does so simply because he wants to get some water because it's hot. He doesn't have any higher motive than that. When he's in the prison cell, he manages to be quite happy, remarking that you can get used to anything, because his experience of life expands and contracts with his circumstances without his intervention.

What Meursault is missing is a psychological conception of the future. When we plan, or consider things, we make strategic decisions about how and what we choose to do. We construct rational arguments for why we might do this or that thing, and then use those reasoned constructs to inform behaviour. The problem is that this can be conflicting with our feelings, and to existentialists like Camus or Sartre this was inauthentic because it didn't reflect the reality of what the person was thinking or feeling.

I see this in two ways. Meursault is completely authentic in every way, he never lies, or hides anything from anyone even when it would be to his advantage. He refuses to feel differently, or pretend to feel differently, for the comfort or benefit of anyone else. In this way he is wholly himself in a way other people are not. He is univocal, straightforward, and unsentimental.

On the other hand, he is willfully ignorant of the feelings of his fellow men and women, to the point where he simply is unable to understand why they would need to inform their impression of his character by tertiary sources. He fails completely to grasp the social shorthand of interpersonal interactions, and doesn't use them to his benefit even when it would be moral and sensible to do so.

If you spend even a little time on the 40k sub, there are eternal battles that rage about certain plot points:

Did Magnus really do nothing wrong?

Why are the Space Wolves like they are?

Fuck Erebus (this one isn't controversial, but everyone hates Erebus, there's even a sub on reddit for it)

Why did the Emperor not rescue Angron's people (when he was found)?

Why did the Emperor let the heresy happen?

And so on.

The story is absolutely ridiculous, but it's fundamentally fun and engaging because it's simple enough to be easy to follow while having enough moving parts to be complex out of the sheer number of characters and moving parts. It's engaging but undemanding.

If anything, it's a worse source for actual lore than anything else. It's kind of a fan parody that requires you to know about the weird ins and outs of 40k to get most of the in-jokes. Vulcan wanting to boop a Catachan Barking Toad is way less funny when you're hearing about it for the first time in that episode of TTS.

The entire series is kind of a "filling in the blanks" around a bunch of known knowns that have been pedalled throughout GW's history. Every single Space Marine and Chaos Space Marine codex came with a potted history of the heresy, the book authors have had to write around these points a lot.

It's worth noting that when the Horus Heresy series was conceived, they did not envisage a 54 book series, with a supplementary multi book Siege of Terra series. So the first three books seem really rushed, and Horus' downfall was super truncated. Then the series opens up with many books about different features of the heresy and it turns out there's plenty of things to talk about.

Having read about 75% of the HH books, I would recommend the books detailing the Word Bearers, The First Heretic, Know No Fear, and Betrayer. The stories around the White Scars are supposed to be good (Scars and The Path of Heaven). The duo of A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns is pretty much essential to understand the underlying issues of the heresy. The Master of Mankind is a direct look into the Emperor's plans.

While the Siege series has it's ups and downs (why does Gav Thorpe write???) it overall has been an awesome ride. I just finished book 1 of The End and the Death which is the first of the two part finale (with book 2 yet to be released) and I really enjoyed it.

I know that it's not meant to be taken fully literally, but it does annoy me that everything now is treated as a "right", when rights are limited freedoms which are supposed to be guaranteed by governments. These are more in the class of things people do, which you can't stop them doing.

I'm also not sure what they're supposed to tell a reader in the first place. Are people really crying out for the "right to be silent"?

There's nothing wrong with having a hard time understanding books you're reading. Don't fight against your skill level, accept it and work on it. I personally read very well, but I have had family members who have struggled due to the kind of issues (dyslexia etc) people are suggesting you might have. The best thing isn't to battle against that, but to accept what works and what doesn't for you, and build on it.

Importantly, nothing you do that works for you is wrong. Nobody is going to die or get hurt because you take notes about a book, or read in short bursts, or need quiet to read. If it works for you, it's great. If you need to stop and think, do it. Don't think this is wrong or bad of you. It's not, it's how you need to understand things. I've read books before that I've needed to put down and read later in life to understand. Everyone has their own pace.

Lastly, please have confidence in yourself. You can do it, whether it takes long or short.

I think it's a mistake to say that the story isn't realistic therefore it can't happen and therefore the story is somehow "wrong". It's not a documentary. The strength of stories is that they can depict anything happening, however unlikely, in that set of circumstances. I'm sure that in a lot of situations people would react differently, but the story there is supposed to be a tragedy about how people will resort to "savage" methods to survive when they're removed from their context and the controlling minds that keep them operating in the manner society wants them to.

It's totally legitimate to believe that LotF is inaccurate to how things are in real life, and disagree with the point the book is making, while appreciating the book as a piece of literature which has some value nevertheless. It's not misunderstanding anything to hear the message and have that not work for you.

Hi, philosophy graduate here. This is going to have 1984 spoilers for people who haven't read it.

>!The question of are people happy in Oceania is difficult. The first thing to be really really clear on is that the Party goes out of its way to ensure that outer party members are always kept in a state of discomfort. They live and work in a perpetual state of privation, with bad gin, terrible cigarettes, nondescript food, and constant monitoring by Big Brother. If they show even a thought against the Party they're dragged off to be tortured and re-indoctrinated. They know this full well, and fear it. Sexual desire and love are deliberately expended in events like the two minute hate, and constant Party activities designed purposefully to exhaust and weaken outer party members to make them unable to rebel against the Party.!<

>!Inner party members seem to be given way better conditions, but as they're the top dogs of the pyramid, and everything O'Brien shows us is likely a fabrication, there's really no way to actually tell. Besides this, we wouldn't consider a society where only the top leaders were happy to be a happy one.!<

>!The proles are where it gets interesting. They are left almost completely alone by the Party, other than basic entertainment and lotteries and such. This is because the proles as a group are considered to be, and in fact (in the story) are unintelligent enough that they don't pose any threat to the party and cannot be awakened to do so because Outer Party members are so rigorously monitored.!<

>!The situation of the proles is directly an imagining of the early communist question of when the working class would develop class consciousness; the intelligence and awareness of their oppression so they would be in a position to organise and fight against it. Lenin and the Bolsheviks were of the opinion that it was necessary for a "vanguard party" of intellectuals to guide the proletariat (from which the word proles is an abbreviation) to class consciousness, and doubted that without them they would not be able to do so.!<

>!The structure of the Party in Oceania defends against this completely by locking down and minutely controlling the intellectuals. Even those that believe (as in the family man who is, at the end, imprisoned and tortured just the same because his own children informed on him) are subject to the brutality of a state whose only aim is to increase and protect its own power.!<

>!Happiness is then only to the found in the lives of the proles, who are intellectually free because they have no intellect. Their inability to organise or formulate the concepts of revolution are what allows them to conduct the most human lives of any in Oceania (exemplified when Winston observes a large older lady singing while hanging out her washing). The only way to be "happy" there is to descend to the level of an animal and cease to be human, because intelligent humans are subject to the Party at every level.!<

>!It might be possible to argue that post-Ministry of Love, Winston is happy. But this is completely belied by the fact his whips are now in the mind, instead of external. His thought processes have become mangled to the point where he is essentially as mindless as a prole; he can barely stand to do anything of any worth, drinking and wasting his time every day. He dreams of being killed by a Party assassin because somewhere in his mind he feels death is preferable to his existence. In a sense, he loves Big Brother in the end because it will finally be the instrument of his release from the suffering they themselves have visited upon him, and is merely a response to the removal of torture, not a positive happiness.!<

I hope this helps!