I just keep chugging along and after a certain number of pages it just clicks and I breeze through the rest of the book. I am entry level though, I don't touch most of the shit people rave about here.

You push through it, even if you don't understand. Put it down after you finish, let it be for some time, then come back a week or two later to piece it together. Discuss it with others.

>>8088231
It's a vague recommendation (rather than for dealing with any one specific book), but this is honestly why people recommend starting with the Greeks. You get a foothold in most genres of literature, and can build on it either chronologically or in terms of difficulty (although those arguably go hand in hand for a while).

Having trouble with Shakespeare? Go back to Chaucer, to the Bible, to Roman drama, to Greek drama.

Having trouble with Milton? Go back to Dante, to Virgil, to Homer.

New to history? Watch the genre be born and start to evolve alongside Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, and Tacitus.

And although there's no direct "Greek" foundation for novels, getting at least a taste of ancient (christian and pre-christian) history and morality will give you some of the tools you need to approach increasingly difficult books, both in terms of references and simply practicing reading books that didn't immediately come easily to you.

>>8088231
work yourself up to it.

>>8088231
It depends on the book. With something like Ulysses I just read the fucking thing along with annotations. It took a couple of months but wasn't this life-consuming challenge or anything. Taking notes is a waste of time unless you're doing this for school though or just have a really shoddy memory since it helps with memorization.

>>8088305
Good advice.

to almost 100% fully understand a scholarly work?

read everything here http://sonic.net/~rteeter/grtbloom.html

up until you get to the work.

basically this >>8088305