3 ms·

That's deliberate. It's not meant to be read literally. The author is using the rhetorical device of irony.

• narag 8y ago
  More than irony, it's a paradox: the advice was so bad that it was useful, because he had no doubt it was bad and it was received in dramatic circumstances so he will always remember to do exactly the opposite.
  • EliRivers 8y ago
    I stand corrected. I read and understand such devices, but it's been so long since I had to formally identify them that I just go for the basics. As an aside, as time goes on, I find myself valuing more and more the ability to read and write beyond the purely literal. The literal can be so inelegant and inefficient, but sometimes it feels like anything beyond the literal can be perceived almost as a foreign language, and if the person with whom one is communicating never learned that language, it's all Greek. I suppose its like an add-on to one's language that's learned in Literature classes, or rhetoric classes, or Classics.