/lit/ - Literature

Am I too stupid for Gene Wolfe? I'm reading the 'A Story' section of pic related, and I have no fucking clue what's going on.

>>14346536
I mean, I read The Fifth Head of Cerberus recently and took some time to try and understand exactly what was going on in the story, reading it carefully and looking it up online afterward, even finding Gene Wolfe's own comments on it which confirmed by interpretation. And when I came and posted about it on here, the one person that discussed it with me did not understand the plot on even a basic level. Not the underlying themes or things that could be difficult to ascertain, but just the basic plot was incomprehensible to them. And that's because the book never explains it and just assumes you'll figure it out somehow. That's fine, I suppose, but I don't find it enjoyable. It's like I'm approaching the book as an antagonist that I have to defeat, rather than something that I can enjoy. I think it also demonstrates a failure to effectively communicate, or if not that, then an excessive preoccupation with obfuscation.