I tried rereading Perdido Street Station last week and couldn't make it past a few chapters. I guess the last time I read it I was a teenager, so maybe, as they

I tried rereading Perdido Street Station last week and couldn't make it past a few chapters. I guess the last time I read it I was a teenager, so maybe, as they note here, it's "a young man's book", both for author and reader. What made me stop is that everything is intentionally gross, seemingly just for the sake of getting a reaction. I picked it up one morning and read "airships moved from cloud to cloud like slugs on rotten cabbages" and just put it down again. Maybe that was groundbreaking fantasy once, and I can appreciate it as a form of world building - but I'd rather read words written by people who can see the good in things, as well as the bad, rather than someone who's every metaphor is turgid and intended to invoke disgust. I think, when I was a teenager, I read to expose myself to all possible worldviews, without discernment. Enjoyment was secondary. Now that I'm in my 40s, I still read to expose myself to worldviews, but only ones that I feel can uplift me or teach me something new (and still for enjoyment, of course). I don't need any more exposure to purely negative worldbuilding in my life, it feels pointless.