When I was an undergrad, a philosophy professor of mine told our class that we'd better learn to "read with charity." The comment was directed at those students who flippantly dismissed Aristotle or who were quick to claim that Kant was a moron or that Heidegger simply got it all wrong. To read with charity is to assume from the outset that the text knows something you don't...and that the canon is not made up of dithering idiots, even if it should always invite healthy debate.
It is in the vein that I read Isaac Asimov's celebrated work, Foundation and Empire. Everyone under the sun (who reads and loves science fiction) has insisted I read it if I am writing (even remotely) in the field.
So, I guess I feel guilty (of foolish?!) for not loving it. Although the energy of the book picked up as it went along, I didn't get lost in the story, or connect with any of the characters per se. I wasn't bowled over by the language or flipping pages like a ravenous reader. Sill, it feels smart and complex and there are certain ideas that I know will find their way into Avie's world.
As for the plunder: The idea of psychohistory...something determinate--if not on the individual level, as least when it comes to humanity en masse. The future-seeing of Hari Seldon, which hovers over the work in mythical proportions, is linked in certain ways to my own clairvoyants, the Severii, for whom the future is both already-written and revisable.
