Just say what you mean!

I'm trying to prepare for my Psychopathologies class tonight and find myself frustrated. Why is it that all textbooks have to read like a Swedish instruction manual? (And no, I'm not talking about the ones from IKEA...) We've been instructed to read 4 texts for this class and so far, two of the four could be considered torture devices. Here's just a snippet of what I'm talking about.

"Whether the transfer of authority is due to language and legislation, a shift from modernity to postmodernity, the role words play in shaping our character or all of the above, what keeps Christians in the mental health field from drawing on the language and explanatory framework of sin?" - Modern Psychopathologies, pg.93

WHAT??? I had to re-read this 3 times and OUT LOUD just to make sure this was a real sentence. The WHOLE book reads like this.

Now I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent person (some may disagree), but why can't we just say what we mean when writing textbooks? Why does everything have to be a Thesaurus Challenge? I'm all about learning new words, new phrases, and new ideas, but smashing 35 of these things all together in one paragraph can be a bit intimidating. And when I find myself intimidated, it's hard for me to attack assignments with any type of fervor. It's hard to get myself motivated to read paragraph after paragraph and chapter after chapter when I know I'm going to have to re-read sentences 3-4 times to grasp their meaning.

So far, I'm achieving an A average in grad school....but when I struggle with something like this, I have to ask myself, "Am I cut out for this?"