Quote Originally Posted by DangerMouse View Post
anthonykay, I don't think it's that important to understand everything, in fact Borges' The garden of forking paths could be said to be all about how things can have many meanings and that it is impossible to see them all. So in some way, you understood it perfectly. I think it is much more important to feel as though you are taken on a journey and most importantly that you enjoy it. Like anything, meaning and historical reference in literature can be learned, I certainly did. When I started studying I was very much like yourself and these things never occurred to me either, and it's only thanks to the wonderful teachers who showed me how to see these things that I now see much more. Like all worthwhile endeavours, the more you understand the more you realise how much you don't know.
But it is still more immediately satisfying when I understand at least some of the references. A few years ago I read Good omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, which is full of references to the first and last books of the Bible, as well as the Pendle Witches, all of which I have some knowledge of, so I think I understood most of the jokes. Similarly, on a rather different level, Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid: I have loved both the music of Bach and the art of M.C.Escher since I was a teenager, and although it took a long time, I never felt bored while ploughing through 700+ pages aimed essentially at explaining a single theorem.