's not possible to really address functionality if there's no understanding and/or consensus as to what the function is...in this case, I'll say that the function is to be able to understand the emotional excitement of the author...so, I called your literacy dysfunctional...how was he sucking the life from his literary interpretation of his OWN experience?

as to your 'education'...if you went through all that school and continue to think that having gone through all that school makes you automatically more 'functionally literate', then I'm sorry that you spent so much time being unaware of your surroundings