Source, 30% down the page: ‘In Defense Of ‘Difficult’ Books’, by Claire Fallon, 2014 Apr 17
Even if writers persist in creating convoluted pieces, as many still do, the push to skim and speed-read threatens to nullify their efforts. Some texts can be read and mostly comprehended at 1,000 words per minute, but Middlemarch and Infinite Jest probably can’t — at least by most of us mere mortals. The ability to basically register what each word in Middlemarch means is not the same as the ability to understand the book. Complex works should offer us more and more meaning the more time we spend with them, whether we’re rereading or simply slowing down to spend more time contemplating each passage. Rushing through a great book strips the reader of any value other than the right to say we’ve read the work in question. It’s Cliff’s Notes without Cliff’s Notes.
I know what are Cliff’s Notes, but what does this sentence mean? Is this a turn of phrase?
Answer
The construction “it is X without X” means “it is essentially the same as X without actually being X”.
In this case, reading the work too quickly gives you the same experience as if you had read the Cliff’s Notes for that work, even though you didn’t actually read the Cliff’s Notes. As J.R. pointed out in the comments, this could also be a bit of wordplay with the possessive. The name of the study guides has evolved to be CliffsNotes, so many have lost the idea that they were originally “notes written by Cliff (Hillegass)”.
I overheard something in our work café that I’ll paraphrase to make it work as an example of this sort of structure:
“I don’t understand the point of veggie burgers. Why not just have a sandwich that tastes like vegetables instead of making something that’s a hamburger without the hamburger?”
We refer to both the ground beef as hamburger and the sandwich that has a cooked ground beef patty in it as a hamburger, so I think it works.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : NNOX Apps , Answer Author : ColleenV
