Most Difficult Text

[conartist]

Just curious...anything out there that outdoes Finnegans Wake?

[dfloyd]

I don't want to read it. After reading A Portrait of the Artist ...., Dubliners, and Ulysses, I believe I'm done with Joyce.

[Veva]

I tried reading Paradise Lost by Milton, but I am not English native speaker so I only got to the 2nd Book... never ever again :)

[LitNetIsGreat]

I tried reading Paradise Lost by Milton, but I am not English native speaker so I only got to the 2nd Book... never ever again :)

Stop right there. Break each book down bit by bit, get your head around each of the book's arguments and go from there. Don't worry about every reference if you are not sure of them at first (you can always come back later) but just get a feel for what's happening, soon you will be carried away by the beauty and power of Milton's verse. Give it another go and if not come back to it at a later stage. In fact stop what you are doing and have another go right now, Milton is just too good to ignore! :D

Don’t worry that you are not a native speaker, you'll be fine, your English is probably better than most of the native population anyway...

[kelby_lake]

Just curious...anything out there that outdoes Finnegans Wake?

Haven't read Ulysses, but that might be top.

[DanielBenoit]

Haven't read Ulysses, but that might be top.

No, Finnegan's Wake is much harder and to my mind, nothing beats it.

[Modest Proposal]

'Finnegans Wake' was the hardest I have ever read, and I read 'Ulysses', 'Portrait...' and 'Dubliners'.

A book I found surprisingly difficult but very worthwhile was John Crowley's "Little, Big". Anyone here read that?


No, Finnegan's Wake is much harder and to my mind, nothing beats it.

I agree, have you heard that saying about Finnegan's Wake compared to Ulysses attributed, I think, to Virginia Woolf?

'"Ulysses' is a dream. [referencing the work as one day and psychologically driven] And 'Finnegan's Wake' is a nightmare."

[Veva]

Give it another go and if not come back to it at a later stage. In fact stop what you are doing and have another go right now, Milton is just too good to ignore! :D
.

:idea:I guess I can give it another go, thanks for advice

[PeterL]

Just curious...anything out there that outdoes Finnegans Wake?

That's it for books written in modern English, or Middle English. You might find something more difficult in Old English, but that was a different language. The Voynich manuscript is less comprehensible, but that is not in a known language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript

[The Comedian]

I've tried reading my mortgage agreement one or twice -- all 100 or so pages of it. I'd put it up against Finnegan's Wake in terms of difficulty and tedium. . . . :)

[JuniperWoolf]

It wasn't really difficult, but I just had a lot of trouble understanding a lot of the stories in "Dubliners." Especially Araby, after I finished it I sort of stared into space for a couple of seconds, then read it again, and I still had a general feeling of "what the hell?" I had to get a prof to explain it to me (well not so much of an outright explanation, he really more prompted me into getting it myself as profs tend to do).
I read Virginia Woolf when I was still in grade school, and I'm not ashamed to admit that it was over my head. I think it was Jacob's Room. I had a lot of trouble getting into the style, so I just quit.

[LitNetIsGreat]

:idea:I guess I can give it another go, thanks for advice

Oh excellent, good stuff, I can now sleep better tonight, good on you. :thumbs_up

[Lokasenna]

I've tried about 5 times to read Joyce's Ulysses - it's just impossible for me!

[JuniperWoolf]

I've tried about 5 times to read Joyce's Ulysses - it's just impossible for me!

I had a chick that I respect a lot for her literature prowess tell me to stay the hell away from that one until I'm at least forty years old, because otherwise I'd just be trudging through a novel that I have to struggle to read and won't really understand anyway. I'd get nothing out of it and would end up hating it for the effort that I'd wasted. I bought the book before I talked to her about it, but I decided to take her advice so it'll just be sitting on the bottom shelf for the next nineteen years.

[Vautrin]

Although, I have an idea of what you mean by difficult, I have to ask: What do you define as being difficult? There are many kinds of difficult literature.

One of the things I've noticed about A Portrait & Dubliners is how forgettable the stories were for me. Perhaps that was the point. Joyce wanted us to focus more on the emotions and mental processes of the characters than on the plot or storyline. That was the only thing I found difficult -- getting used to the lack of a real plot. Those few hundred pages felt shorter than some 600 page novels.

It could also be that I read these books a while ago, but then again, there are novels I've read a several years ago that I still remember well. I appreciate challenging reads just as much as the next person; however, A Portrait was one that I don't plan on revisiting any time soon.

[mayneverhave]

I had a chick that I respect a lot for her literature prowess tell me to stay the hell away from that one until I'm at least forty years old, because otherwise I'd just be trudging through a novel that I have to struggle to read and won't really understand anyway. I'd get nothing out of it and would end up hating it for the effort that I'd wasted. I bought the book before I talked to her about it, but I decided to take her advice so it'll just be sitting on the bottom shelf for the next nineteen years.

The majority of the people who have given Ulysses the reputation as an unapproachable, incomprehensible novel probably have not even read it.

It's difficult through certain sections, and you'll probably have to read more background with this book than most others, but it's in English (particularly vibrant and playful English), so you shouldn't fail to comprehend.

The book is simultaneously hilarious, beautiful, intellectually stimulating, and emotionally probing. Its characters are some of the most complete characters in all of literature. If all of this is not enough for you - it is also one of the main texts of modernism and probably the most important novel (though probably not the best) of the 20th century.

[Paulclem]

The majority of the people who have given Ulysses the reputation as an unapproachable, incomprehensible novel probably have not even read it.

It's difficult through certain sections, and you'll probably have to read more background with this book than most others, but it's in English (particularly vibrant and playful English), so you shouldn't fail to comprehend.

The book is simultaneously hilarious, beautiful, intellectually stimulating, and emotionally probing. Its characters are some of the most complete characters in all of literature. If all of this is not enough for you - it is also one of the main texts of modernism and probably the most important novel (though probably not the best) of the 20th century.

A colleague read it alongside The Odyssey, and he got a lot out of it. He did say he had to study it. I'm going to have a go at it later this year.

[JuniperWoolf]

It's difficult through certain sections, and you'll probably have to read more background with this book than most others, but it's in English (particularly vibrant and playful English), so you shouldn't fail to comprehend.


Haha, she didn't mean that it was in french and we (and by "we" I mean "young people") literally wouldn't understand the language. Sure we could persevere and wade through it; she meant that we hadn't yet accumulated the life experience to appreciate the content to the degree that we could if we put it off for a couple of years. It's not that we're stupid. Some young people think that they can get the same out of a novel as someone who's lived a full life, but I'm not one of them (I came to terms with this after reading Heart of Darkness five years after I read it the first time, totally different experience).

[Paulclem]

Haha, she didn't mean that it was in french and we (and by "we" I mean "young people") literally wouldn't understand the language. Sure we could persevere and wade through it; she meant that we hadn't yet accumulated the life experience to appreciate the content to the degree that we could if we put it off for a couple of years. It's not that we're stupid. Some young people think that they can get the same out of a novel as someone who's lived a full life, but I'm not one of them (I came to terms with this after reading Heart of Darkness five years after I read it the first time, totally different experience).

I was exactly the same. My experience is that I read stuff - like The wasteland and Sartre's books, liked them, but frustratingly knew I didn't get them. I'm now in my magical 40s, and so perhaps I'll get on with Ullyses.:D

[OrphanPip]

I find Spenser's Faerie Queene to be a chore to get through, at times I get lost in the verse, which is beautiful, and just get carried along, but then I realize I have absolutely no idea what's going on anymore. It's not difficult to understand, but I find myself going back and rereading stanzas repeatedly so it's slow going.

Edit: Then of course there is the allegory running through it that you have to think about too. I've been doing it slowly at about a book a month, I'm on the second canto of book III now.

[conartist]

I read Ulysses for the first time when I was 18. Fell in love with it for the first 100 pages or so, but started to drift in and out afterwards. It's not too difficult, you do need to kind of bring a strategy going into it, even if it's just at certain stages pausing and trying to remind yourself mentally who's in the scene, where it is etc. Certainly not a match for Finnegans Wake as regards incoherence, difficulty and what you will.

[DanielBenoit]

The majority of the people who have given Ulysses the reputation as an unapproachable, incomprehensible novel probably have not even read it.

It's difficult through certain sections, and you'll probably have to read more background with this book than most others, but it's in English (particularly vibrant and playful English), so you shouldn't fail to comprehend.

The book is simultaneously hilarious, beautiful, intellectually stimulating, and emotionally probing. Its characters are some of the most complete characters in all of literature. If all of this is not enough for you - it is also one of the main texts of modernism and probably the most important novel (though probably not the best) of the 20th century.

Agreed. I've said this before on here, but reading Ulysses changed my life and my perception of things. Upon finishing it, I began thinking by the novel's poetic style. Some parts of that book have never left me.


Haha, she didn't mean that it was in french and we (and by "we" I mean "young people") literally wouldn't understand the language. Sure we could persevere and wade through it; she meant that we hadn't yet accumulated the life experience to appreciate the content to the degree that we could if we put it off for a couple of years. It's not that we're stupid. Some young people think that they can get the same out of a novel as someone who's lived a full life, but I'm not one of them (I came to terms with this after reading Heart of Darkness five years after I read it the first time, totally different experience).

True, with each reading comes a new perception, and thus all the more reason to read it at different times in your life, including your youth. I remember reading Romeo and Juliet about three years ago and seeing the couple as a symbol of ideal impassioned love. Now having recently re-read it, I found the two to be naively tied to their own momentary emotions and unable to be, using the Kierkegaardian term, knights of resignation.

[stlukesguild]

Outside of some obscure tome of medieval mystical theological disputes I can't think of anything that approaches Finnegan's Wake in terms of difficulty. Ulysses is nothing by way of comparison. Finnegan's Wake strikes me like Lewis Carroll's Jabberwock meets Eliot's Wasteland... for 900 pages!:goof: On the other hand... there is Charles Olson's Maximus poems...:eek:

[Lulim]

Zettels Traum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettels_Traum) by Arno Schmitt is supposed to be very difficult.It is even compared to Finnegans Wake I haven't read it though, and I don't think I ever will.

[mal4mac]

I found "A Portrait" quite an easy read, no more difficult than Dante or Shakespeare (given good footnotes...) The beauty and significance of it certainly places it high on my re-read list. I'm preparing to tackle Ulysses again, which I've tried (and failed) to read a couple of times. You can't be a serious student of literature without having read Ulysses, and I'm old enough now :)

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I tried Ulysses, didn't finish it. I disagree that you have to read it to be a serious student of literature. There is no one text that HAS to be read, there are too many different texts that people with differing opinions will say is THE one that needs to be read to be a serious lit student-person-whatever,

[Paulclem]

I tried Ulysses, didn't finish it. I disagree that you have to read it to be a serious student of literature. There is no one text that HAS to be read, there are too many different texts that people with differing opinions will say is THE one that needs to be read to be a serious lit student-person-whatever,

I remember trying to read some literary criticism when doing my degree, and I've never read such impenetrable tripe in all my life. I wish I'd noted the title as an example of how not to be read by anyone. Orwell would have spun in his grave.

[Brad Coelho]

Ulysses is still, in most senses, a novel, and a fairly linear one at that. The artistry of Joyce, using the English language as his vehicle, is most aesthetically impressive in Ulysses. I don't think I've ever felt a writer's command of his work more so than in that novel, and the only criticism I'd heard from Joyce on the novel, that it was too 'systematized,' is fair.

Wake, to me, is an elaborate exercise in puns and duplicity of meaning- I'd be hard pressed to call it a novel, but I do marvel at his diligence in dissecting language, which he then proceeded to reconstruct in its fragments, distortions and altered sequences to net the Frankenstein-like sculpture that is Fin (finished in French) ‘again’ (phonetically spelled) ‘s wake (for a death, also meaning ‘awake’ from the dream that the book represents during night)…if such a simple title is that loaded then we can only imagine how much of a jigsaw puzzle prodigy you’d have to be to handle a page or two I’d get creamed by Joyce in Scrabble.

That said, Absalom Absalom is deliberately difficult in a very different fashion and deserves some mention in this thread.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Mentioning Faulkner reminds me of The Sound and The Fury, that's pretty tough, but brilliantly so.

[mal4mac]

I tried Ulysses, didn't finish it. I disagree that you have to read it to be a serious student of literature. There is no one text that HAS to be read, there are too many different texts that people with differing opinions will say is THE one that needs to be read to be a serious lit student-person-whatever,

I was being ironic... the smiley was aimed at both clauses.... I agree with you completely. I wanted to wind up those who were suggesting, in another thread, that one has to read the Bible to "be serious".

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Ah, I got ya. Irony sometimes still alludes understanding. Damn you Alanis Morissette!

[Mr. Bungle]

Most Difficult Text Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski
It's actually not THAT difficult but English isn't my native language and I just couldn't get into it. Maybe I will give it one more shot but not anytime soon... :p


Ah, I got ya. Irony sometimes still alludes understanding. Damn you Alanis Morissette!"The only ironic thing about that song is that it's called "Ironic" and it is written by a woman who doesn't know what irony is, that's quite ironic when you think about it..." ~ Ed Byrne :D

[Brad Coelho]

"The only ironic thing about that song is that it's called "Ironic" and it is written by a woman who doesn't know what irony is, that's quite ironic when you think about it..." ~ Ed Byrne :D

I love that you picked that up- the pop star syndrome of confusing irony w/ bad luck.

[Basil Valentine]

I love Joyce's other novels/stories (especially 'Ulysses'), but only made it about 1/4 of the way through 'Finnegans Wake' (though I did finish 'A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake').

Interesting that someone mentioned 'Little, Big', another favourite of mine. I found this surprisingly easy to read until the latter parts, then got bogged down a bit. An excellent book though. Crowley's other novels are also very good, and his 'Aegypt' cycle is similarly difficult, but rewarding reading.

One book I found pretty much impenetrable was Burroughs' 'Naked Lunch'. I haven't tried it again since my late teens, but I remember not getting much from it. I liked the much more straightforward 'Junkie' though.