When I was working on my MFA thesis, I came to a realization that feels like it might overlap with what you're describing. It's a little hard to put a bow on t

When I was working on my MFA thesis, I came to a realization that feels like it might overlap with what you're describing. It's a little hard to put a bow on the idea (and why it isn't trite...) at this length, but basically: I felt a connection between the experience of trying to parse some intentionally difficult/impenetrable ~modernist texts, and the experience of trying to parse older texts where the phrasing is dated. They're too unfamiliar to parse with fluent ease, and the experience of fluent reading is just fundamentally different. In one case, the text is like a Rubik's cube, and in the other it's hard to even realize it exists separately from your instantaneous understanding of it.