Title: tough but rewarding reading
Review: I used it as my introductory textbook to functional analysis. At the beginning I thought the prof was crazy. Indeed as a beginner it was a tough experience to learn from this book. I could still remember that I spend hours and hours checking his statements on weak and weak star topology in section 2.4 line by line... At the time I got really unhappy reading that book and complained a lot about it: its lack of intuitive explanation, its high density, its dry exercises... anything. But about 3 years after that reading, today I still benefit so much from that book. Whenever in studying PDE or probability, or operator algebras, hints and feelings suddenly jump out of that book from time to time. And finally I could see that the neat style of this book really gave me a good overall feeling on the subject; and the hard work of checking details left to the reader educates me a good habit of learning mathematics.
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