Ngl the dinosaur bit tripped me up until I recalled wonderful could be indicative of astonishment (USain reporting for duty! ) then everything clicked and flowed pretty seamlessly.

I don’t know how none of the people in the excerpts picked up that it wasn’t literally about a dinosaur in the street (or the fact they only recognized it was an animal and not a dinosaur, even when I had no fucking clue what it was meant to imply I still understood it was figurative. The fact none of them realized it was setting a scene was even more asinine. I felt illiterate reading this fact I needed a dictionary for some of the terms was disappointing (I read too much low-effort fantasy slop), and think the bar for “competent” was far too low.

I took some English in college and none of it really required older texts though so I could see how it could be overwhelming. Frankly, I am mildly concerned that I wouldn’t have been able to parse it if not for the fact I studied philosophy and their prose is so much worse (in the difficulty and often in the enjoyability as well). Thinking of my fellow friends, I have I believe 2 that would probably be able to read this competently though most of my friends from other countries I know definitely could parse this, including many that learned English in their late teens.

I’m young too, so this means I likely had the same or worse literary education as everyone interviewed, the only difference would be my major and the fact I do read for leisure (or as a hobby for the gamers in the chat). (Edit: I also know a bit of a second language and can read texts in it but my proficiency is still low so I am used to strain while reading, maybe there is an acclimation effect there?)