KuaiLe
Member
- Joined
- May 21, 2006
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Chinese
- Home Country
- Taiwan
- Current Location
- Taiwan
I'm reading The Fermented Man by Derek Dillinger. The writer intended to spend a year living on fermented food only. He talks about how his options were restricted and what a trouble it was for him to fix a meal. So there were many times he just gave up eating. Then he says:
"And thus had I discovered a bit of a conundrum. From the beginning, I wasn’t meant to be creating a new fad diet, or even claiming that eating this much fermented food was better for you than eating just some daily servings of fermented food. Clearly, by any logic, the diet wouldn’t be any more optimal for health than if I had simply agreed to eat sauerkraut, yogurt and kombucha every day, on top of whatever else I ate. It was the inclusion of fermentation that was the point, not the exclusion of anything else."
I’m confused about the inverted sentence at the beginning of this paragraph, in terms of both its structure and meaning. I mean, for example, “Had I known you were waiting outside, I would have invited you to come in.” is a complete sentence. And I can understand “had I known” means “if I had known”. But “And thus had I discovered a bit of a conundrum” just seems incomplete. I don’t know how to make sense of it. And I can’t figure out what the "conundrum" here refers to. Can anybody help me out?
"And thus had I discovered a bit of a conundrum. From the beginning, I wasn’t meant to be creating a new fad diet, or even claiming that eating this much fermented food was better for you than eating just some daily servings of fermented food. Clearly, by any logic, the diet wouldn’t be any more optimal for health than if I had simply agreed to eat sauerkraut, yogurt and kombucha every day, on top of whatever else I ate. It was the inclusion of fermentation that was the point, not the exclusion of anything else."
I’m confused about the inverted sentence at the beginning of this paragraph, in terms of both its structure and meaning. I mean, for example, “Had I known you were waiting outside, I would have invited you to come in.” is a complete sentence. And I can understand “had I known” means “if I had known”. But “And thus had I discovered a bit of a conundrum” just seems incomplete. I don’t know how to make sense of it. And I can’t figure out what the "conundrum" here refers to. Can anybody help me out?
