It is usually unbearably painful to read a book by an author who knows way less than you do, unless the book is a novel.

knowledge heartbreak wisdom humor despair sadness pain heartache suffering joke learning novel grief books humour funny understanding awareness realization entertainment book torment sorrow writers escape misery understand narrative education comprehension fiction literature story writer appreciation perception stories ignorance humorous author authors quotes agony mastery know unhappiness scholarship accomplishment satire torture consciousness jokes escapism entertaining capability erudite enlightened aphorism quotations hilarious essay capacity cognition comprehend educated too-much distress skill essays schooling well-read ignorant desolation aphorisms knowledgeable cultivated cultured scholarly well-educated well-informed expertise nonfiction unbearable grasp entertain learned aphorist aphorists command erudition untaught discomfort uneducated narratives sustainable illiterate acceptable account accounts adeptness admissible apprehension be-acquainted-with be-conversant-with be-familiar-with be-up-to-speed-on be-versed-in benighted brookable cognizance endurable expertness have-a-grasp-of have-knowledge-of have-learned have-mastered have-memorized inexperienced insufferable insupportable intolerable knowledgable man-of-letters manageable men-of-letters overpowering proficiency sufferable supportable tolerable unacceptable unendurable unenlightened uninformed unknowledgeable unlearned unlettered unmanageable unread unschooled unsophisticated untrained untutored unworldly via-dolorosa woman-of-letters women-of-letters wretchedness

If I was set an essay on Friday, I’d spend three hours on Saturday morning in the library. Was that normal? I didn’t know. What I did know was that I felt less prone to depression and more normal walking through Venice or staring out over the lake in Zurich. At home I wrestled continually with my moods. The black thing inside me gnawed like a rat at my self-esteem and self-confidence. I felt there was a happy person inside me too, who wanted to enjoy life, to be normal, but my feelings of self-loathing and the deep distrust I had towards my father wouldn’t allow that sunny person to come out. When the black thing had an iron grip on me, I couldn’t even look at my father: Did you do bad things to me when I was little? Like a line from a song stuck in your brain, the words ran through my head and never once came out of my mouth. Not that I needed to say what was in my mind. I was sure Father could read my thoughts in my moods, in the blank, dead stare of my eyes. It was hardly surprising that there was always an atmosphere of strain and awkwardness in the house, and the blame was always mine: Alice and her moods, Alice and her anorexia; Alice and her low self-esteem; Alice and her inescapable feelings of loss and emptiness.