I also get the thing where I stop understanding text just from not paying attention, and as far as I remember, the experience of reading that was the same. I don’t remember ever being actively aware that I couldn’t understand the text, just having the constant weird situation of reading sentences I seemed to be able to read just fine, but still ending with very little idea of what the narrative was.
I picked up the book again a couple of years ago and read it through without problem. That was also when I got a clearer idea of how the book was full of tricky narrative beats I’d have had no hope of understanding properly the first time around.
I don’t remember ever being actively aware that I couldn’t understand the text, just having the constant weird situation of reading sentences I seemed to be able to read just fine, but still ending with very little idea of what the narrative was.
To be honest, I got that from Gibson first time through the trilogy and I’m a native speaker ;-) They made more sense on rereading.
I also get the thing where I stop understanding text just from not paying attention, and as far as I remember, the experience of reading that was the same. I don’t remember ever being actively aware that I couldn’t understand the text, just having the constant weird situation of reading sentences I seemed to be able to read just fine, but still ending with very little idea of what the narrative was.
I picked up the book again a couple of years ago and read it through without problem. That was also when I got a clearer idea of how the book was full of tricky narrative beats I’d have had no hope of understanding properly the first time around.
To be honest, I got that from Gibson first time through the trilogy and I’m a native speaker ;-) They made more sense on rereading.