Conversation

“Sophomore portal” books: You’re likely to read them 17-21, with median at ~19 — Ayn Rand — GEB — HHG — Alchemist — Pirsig They seem optimized to have a profound effect in that range, be inaccessible if you’re younger (unless you’re precocious) and underwhelming if you’re older
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Except for Ayn Rand, these are encoded in a symbolic gesture that seeks to avert the attention of the overly normie. From this I infer that Ayn Rand is more accurately placed in an adjunct category.
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Okay but I meant literally. The only one that is even legible to a standard search is "Prisig," whose name is much less well known than his one famous work. 'HHG' and 'GEB' are illegible if you don't know what book titles they refer to, and in fact 'Alchemist' is opaque to me.
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