>>11054767A course of Arithmetic is an advanced (grad level) book on Number Theory. It's a great book, but not really on the level of a beginner.
>>11054460No. You need an intuitive and geometric understanding of what you're dealing with (epislons/deltas, derivatives/integrals) before jumping in their more abstract nature. Rudin takes no kiddie gloves and doesn't draw anything. But you're still expect to connect the abstract theorems into something geometric and intuitive.
Reading a "normal" book of calculus also helps you dealing with numerous variables, calculation steps, and elementary proof techniques (integration by parts, etc), which is a crucial skill when reading advanced books.
Rudin isn't hard from a "calculatory" standpoint, because he doesn't do any calculation, he expects you to do it yourself. It's hard from a conceptual standpoint. If you struggle with understanding the steps Rudin skips because they are calculatory, you won't gain anything from reading him.
