In a book, I don't have to make the words do anything. Also, I've spent my whole life learning English vocabulary.

I could spend some more time learning the DF glyphs, but a picture is worth a thousand words.

I killed the Balrog in uMoria* back in the day, so I'm not a stranger to ASCII graphics. The difference between rogue-likes and DF is the extremely huge variability in the glyphs.

Edit: To continue the comparison to books, Dwarf Fortress is like an interactive textbook, Roguelikes compare to genre fiction.

*I'm a dirty save-scummer, but I still put in a bunch of time.