Most Difficult Texts You've Read

[Paulclem]

I found a list of the most difficult texts online.

What do you think>

http://listverse.com/2010/06/07/top-10-difficult-literary-works/

Here's another:

http://www.cbc.ca/books/2012/08/the-toughest-books-in-literary-history.html

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

From the first list; I read War and Peace initially for two reasons first, "Because it's there" on my bookshelf, to borrow from George Herbert Leigh Mallory and secondly so I could say I read it. Once started, I learned to appreciate it. I finished btw.

Haven't tackled Moby Dick. My son started it a couple of years ago, but took a break about halfway through.

I made it about a third of the way through Solzhenistyn's Gulag Archipelago and now working on one of his that is more daunting; August 1914 at 800+ pages, but this is just one part in four that makes up The Red Wheel.

Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom! was a tough read for me.

.

[dfloyd]

War and Peace, Moby Dick, and Absolom, Absolom were long with some boring parts, but not particularly hard reads. The Sound and the Fury was hard if you didn't concemtrate. The only book which really put me off was Joyce's Ulysses.Even after a multi-hour lecture course, I had trouble with certain chapters. But I know PhDs who had trouble finishing this novel.

It's usually a matter of timing. When you are ready to tackle one of the longer and more difficult classics, you should have the concentration, background, and vocabulary which will prepare you for the reading.

Another hard one for me, one I just thought of, was Carlyle's The French Revolution. You must be well versed in this period of French history before attempting to read this one.

[Desolation]

In terms of what I actually had to really push myself to get to the end of - War and Peace. It wasn't a difficult read, but it's just so long.

Ulysses was challenging, and there were parts where I thought "I have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on" but I wouldn't call it difficult, because I loved it so much that I had no problem pushing onward. Same with The Sound and the Fury.

Finnegans Wake kind of scares me too much to actually try at this point.

[Gladys]

I love Henry James and had read a dozen of his novels, including the three great novels ending with The Golden Bowl (1904), before recently attempting The Awkward Age (1899). The latter tells of a young girl coming of age and, you would think, couldn't be too difficult.

The Awkward Age is permeated with cryptic stream of consciousness writing. Tortuous and impenetrable.

[hellsapoppin]

The writings of Herbert Marcuse. These books were incomprehensible and beyond the understanding of most people. He was popular among ideologists of the late 1960s. But a few years later he died in total obscurity.

[OrphanPip]

I read Gertrude Stein's Three Lives (which is more like 3 thematically connected novellas than a proper novel) and it was a difficult slog at times. Interesting book but a lot of work.

As to those mentioned on the lists, I disagree that many of them are particularly all that difficult.

[Venerable Bede]

Absalom, Absalom! is the most unintelligible, boring book I have ever tried to read. I didn't finish it though so I suppose it doesn't count. From the list I've read The Waste Land and Foucault's Pendulum. I actually didn't find Foucault's Pendulum that difficult to read, although by the end I grew tired of his info dumping. The Waste Land is definitely hard reading and incredibly dense but I find it fascinating. I admit that I don't understand what is going on in that poem but it is fun to attempt to get meaning out of it.

[JuniperWoolf]

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I don't like James Joyce, I don't get his whole modernist avant-garde thing. It felt like someone was chipping at my right temple with an icepick for the last 1/3.

[The Truth]

I didn't think The Waste Land was difficult at all, huh.

Most difficult text I've read actually probably was Moby Dick as I haven't finished it. It's been like 5 years since I've attempted it though.

[Kafka's Crow]

Apart from the philosophical texts in those lists, Heidegger, Kant, Hegel etc, (these German philosophers can drive you mad) everything else was all right, not easy but not difficult either. I have tried reading these philosophers but, I must admit, I couldn't read them and rely heavily on secondary sources to get a gist of their ideas indirectly.

[JBI]

I've read all but Naked Lunch and Atlas Shrugged off the first list, though I did not finish the Gulag Archipelago. Only Finnegan's Wake is difficult as a text in terms of language. The rest are just hard, by the poster, based on their lengths. The Sound and the Fury is a high school level book, though Benji's narration at the beginning is off-putting to some.

[Kyriakos]

Probably E.T.A Hoffmann's "The elixirs of the Devil". Might have to do with the translation too, but i found it immensely hard to read, due to its complexity. That Hoffmann is a very romantic writer does not help either. I love some of his other work though, such as the Sandman, and Councellor Krespel.

[Lokasenna]

Like everyone else, I think I'd quibble over what those webpages define as difficult. I've read several of the things on both of them, and some are certainly harder than others...

[Inwit]

War and Peace, Moby Dick, and Absolom, Absolom were long with some boring parts, but not particularly hard reads. The Sound and the Fury was hard if you didn't concemtrate. The only book which really put me off was Joyce's Ulysses.Even after a multi-hour lecture course, I had trouble with certain chapters. But I know PhDs who had trouble finishing this novel.
It's usually a matter of timing. When you are ready to tackle one of the longer and more difficult classics, you should have the concentration, background, and vocabulary which will prepare you for the reading.

Another hard one for me, one I just thought of, was Carlyle's The French Revolution. You must be well versed in this period of French history before attempting to read this one.

I started reading Ulysses spasmodically half a century ago and finished it on Bloomsday a dozen or so years ago. Now back cannibalizing it for my own purposes and getting more out of it each time I step onto Joyce's sacrilegious turf.

[Paulclem]

There's cetainly a question about whether the books are difficult or just more work than normal. I wondered what books you found difficult that weren't on the lists.

I prepared for Tolstoy and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was despite the length. I didn't get on with Naked Lunch, but I found The Waste Land intriguing, and have regularly returned to it over a number of years. I think I realised that it was an influential and important poem, without fully undrstanding much of it when I first read it.

I read To The Lighthouse whilst doing my A levels, and it really had a positive effect upon me, though I had, at that time, nowhere to channel what it did. I think that reflects the limitations of the Eng |Lit course at that time. I may well have followed it up with more relevant reading if I had understood its import.

I also enjoyed The Gulag Archipelago, though I know, due to my ignorence of much of Russian history at that time, that I didn't get as much out of it as I might have. It is one of the few books I intend to re-read.

I read Sartre's Nausea and Iron in the Soul when I was in my twenties, and I felt that I didn't fully understand the implications of it due to my ignorence of the philosophy. These were difficult books for me, as I was aware that I wasn't getting them.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

It seems like for several of the books, the only characteristic that defines difficulty is length. I just don't think War and Peace and Moby Dick are that hard. They're just long. I didn't finish Absalom, Absalom because I wasn't in the mood for it at the time and found it boring, not because it was hard. The Spind and the Fury is only hard at the first section, and it's supposed to be. Aside from length and politics one may disagree with. I've never heard anyone claim Rand was a difficult read. Foucault,s Pendulum was diifcult, but not enough to warrant a place on the list. Even though I really hated To the Lighthouse, I didn't find it hard at all. The Scarlet Letter? Really? That's not hard at all. The Waste Land deserves its spot, though. Finnegans Wake of course does. I think that book is kind of a joke, though. I haven't read the others.

I really think a couple picks should be swapped out for Ulysses and Gravity's Rainbow, the latter of which is the most difficult book I've completed to date.

[Alexander III]

I will never ever complain of difficulty in regards to reading an english, french or italian book. I have been trying to learn latin, and reading Cicero and Caesar in the original is horribly rough, I can't imagine how brutal the poetry must be to read.

[fb0252]

Throw this in:

"Genius is the only justification for stunning difficulty, because only genius can reward enormous demands made upon the reader."

Harold Bloom discussing Paul Celan in "Genius".

[Heteronym]

War and Peace, Naked Lunch, The Waste Land, Foucault's Pendulum, and I'm reading Moby Dick.

Don't understand why some of those are considered difficult, unless it's because they're long.

[PeterL]

Those lists are funny. Come on, Moby Dick is certainly not difficult, and Foucault's Pendulum is one of the best novels ever, a joy to read. I laughed when I saw A Tale of a Tub listed; that is simple and fun to read; a;though it is rather dated. I will agree that Finnegans Wake is difficult, but if you want to read some really difficult thins, then try some of William S. Burroughs works, especially The Soft Machine (1961), The Ticket That Exploded (1962), Nova Express (1964), and his othe cut-up method books. There are other writers who have done the same sort of thing, and it is not easy to read.

[mal4mac]

From the first list; I read War and Peace...
Haven't tackled Moby Dick...
I made it about a third of the way through Solzhenistyn's Gulag Archipelago...

Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom! was a tough read for me.

.

The first list is misleading - War and Peace + Moby Dick are not at all difficult. The second list is better. Heidegger Being & Time + Finnegan's Wake are impossible. I've read bits of Hegel and have been too afraid to read a full work. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is the hardest thing I've ever read and completed.

I also could just make it a third of the way through the Gulag Archipelago - too much tedious detail and repetition (same goes for the Old Testament and the Long Discourses of the Buddha).

A!A! by Faulkner was also a tough read for me... but I made it through (it's short!)

[mal4mac]

I prepared for Tolstoy and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was despite the length. I didn't get on with Naked Lunch...

Tolstoy is wonderful - AK and his main short novels are just as good as W&P.

I read Sartre's The Age of Reason recently and will not be going on to read Iron in the Soul - I just thought it was a really bad novel... not hard... just bad... I remember finding Nausea bearable a couple of decades ago, so might try re-reading that. Being & Nothingness I tried but found it impossible, definitely deserves to be on the "hard" list.

I also didn't get on with Naked Lunch - try Junkie, it's much more approachable, a good read.

[JBI]

It seems like for several of the books, the only characteristic that defines difficulty is length. I just don't think War and Peace and Moby Dick are that hard. They're just long. I didn't finish Absalom, Absalom because I wasn't in the mood for it at the time and found it boring, not because it was hard. The Spind and the Fury is only hard at the first section, and it's supposed to be. Aside from length and politics one may disagree with. I've never heard anyone claim Rand was a difficult read. Foucault,s Pendulum was diifcult, but not enough to warrant a place on the list. Even though I really hated To the Lighthouse, I didn't find it hard at all. The Scarlet Letter? Really? That's not hard at all. The Waste Land deserves its spot, though. Finnegans Wake of course does. I think that book is kind of a joke, though. I haven't read the others.

I really think a couple picks should be swapped out for Ulysses and Gravity's Rainbow, the latter of which is the most difficult book I've completed to date.
I can probably think of 10 Chinese classics more difficult than any of those but Joyce. Even a translated one like the lyrics of chu (songs of the south) has an average of two debatable footnotes per line, and has an eccentric vocabulary and exists in a genre unique to itself.

Yet there will never be a blogger who will list it. The blogger just put books he knows of, which appears to be limited.

As for difficult books, Joyce is unique in that his difficulty exists for difficulty's sake, which is unique to modernism and postmodernism, which is an interesting idea to think about.

As for Eliot, a good edition and a good teacher will get someone through it alright.

[Raven Falcon.]

I can probably think of 10 Chinese classics more difficult than any of those but Joyce. Even a translated one like the lyrics of chu (songs of the south) has an average of two debatable footnotes per line, and has an eccentric vocabulary and exists in a genre unique to itself.

Yet there will never be a blogger who will list it. The blogger just put books he knows of, which appears to be limited.

As for difficult books, Joyce is unique in that his difficulty exists for difficulty's sake, which is unique to modernism and postmodernism, which is an interesting idea to think about.

As for Eliot, a good edition and a good teacher will get someone through it alright. Joyce's works are a catalyst of ennui.

[RetsixArp]

I started reading Ulysses spasmodically half a century ago and finished it on Bloomsday a dozen or so years ago. Now back cannibalizing it for my own purposes and getting more out of it each time I step onto Joyce's sacrilegious turf.I tried reading an ancient paperback copy I bought ages ago, used, but I could never quite make it thru.

A few years ago, I bought the unabridged audio version on CD & listened to it in the car. Actually, I think listening to it & reading along was the way it was meant to be read & understood; in fact, Joyce alludes to this early on in Ulysses, when Bloom ponders how nice if grandfather were to make a recording for posterity that his family could listen to now & then.

I've done the same w/ other books, but the only one on the list I've read is Moby Dick & that only a few years ago. One problem with Moby Dick is that there's very little story in them thar pages: much of the novel is devoted to musings on whales & whale hunting. But with those Biblical characters Ishmael & Ahab (& the ship Rachel), it prompted me to read the Holy Bible thru, which I also got on CD.

The rest of the list never interested me, except for Sound/Fury, which I found hard going: I may get that on CD too.

[RetsixArp]

...I read Sartre's The Age of Reason recently and will not be going on to read Iron in the Soul - I just thought it was a really bad novel... not hard... just bad... I remember finding Nausea bearable a couple of decades ago, so might try re-reading that. Being & Nothingness I tried but found it impossible, definitely deserves to be on the "hard" list. ...For years, I could not get into Sartre's Nausea & have read only parts of B/N.

Later, because Sartre said he wanted to be remembered for his last philosophical tome, Critique of Dialectical Reason, I read both volumes of that over about 12 years. Two psychiatrists, Ronald Laing & David Cooper, wrote a much short synopsis of Vol. 1 in their Reason & Violence (1964), but there is even a more lucid reduction of Sartre's 1300 pages in a lecture by a guy named Michael McGee from 1989, called Rhetoric, Organizational Communication, & Sartre's Theory of Practical Groups, & available online. McGee defines Sartre's primary terms using the example of a retiring bus driver. (An example in Sartre was people standing @a bus stop.)

[Heidy]

I didn't think The Waste Land was difficult at all, huh.

Most difficult text I've read actually probably was Moby Dick as I haven't finished it. It's been like 5 years since I've attempted it though.



Yeah, i agree.
I red Moby Dick and i must admit -it's the most boring book i have never red-O.O
At the end it's nice ,like every book, because you understand that the hunting of the white whale isn't only a work, but the meaning of the captain's life.
However there are a lot of pages so stupid that i d like so much to delete for POSTERITY :)
And i am sure that i will not read it again.

But you asked the most complicated book we have red, and according to me is "The trial" by Kafka :P
I have red it i don't remember how many times..it's complicated, but really stimulating ACCORDING TO ME..because there are a lot of people that don't like Kafka. Like the latins say "de gustibus non disputandum est".

Greetings from Italy :hat:

[Samsa]

The Sound and the Fury is only hard at the first section, and it's supposed to be.

I've heard a lot of people say this and I'd have to disagree. I found that once you know Benjy's section is fragmented and non-linear it becomes much easier to understand. Initially some scenes may be confusing, but that's just because there's no context for them. For me, Quentin's section was the most difficult to grasp. Benjy has a simple mind whilst Quentin's is complex and deeply troubled.

As for the list, I've only read The Wasteland and The Sound and the Fury. I got halfway through Moby Dick before giving up, which is a shame because I enjoyed Melville's short stories like Bartleby the Scrivener and The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids. It wasn't that I found the novel difficult, I just lost interest somewhere about the point where Melville devotes a chapter to the significance of the colour white.

[Drkshadow03]

I think people are confusing difficult for unreadable. Moby Dick, for example, is a perfectly readable book, but I wouldn't exactly call it an easy one. I think it's a bit more challenging than just, "Gee golly, this is a really long book." The various permutations of "nonfiction" whaling literature that makes up the bulk of the novel at the expense of the main plot is not exactly a standard linear narrative and getting through them and making sense of them in relationship to the plot can be quite an arduous task. Are the words themselves particularly difficult on a sentence-by-sentence level? No.

But this shows exactly the problem with this discussion. No one is elaborating what they mean by difficult. I imagine a work can be difficult in a number of ways (employing a complicated non-linear narrative, difficult style, eccentric vocabulary, difficult philosophy, etc.)

[Paulclem]

Good point. With the different narrative styles available today, perhaps the most modern novels are more difficult - certainly compared to the linear narrative novels of the past.

[Raven Falcon.]

Good point. With the different narrative styles available today, perhaps the most modern novels are more difficult - certainly compared to the linear narrative novels of the past.

From stylistic point of view, yes. But content wise, the 19th century novels are more majestic in scope and oceanic in depth.

[Paulclem]

From stylistic point of view, yes. But content wise, the 19th century novels are more majestic in scope and oceanic in depth.

The scope may be true, but I don't necessarily agree on the depth. A work doesn't have to be long to be profound.

I think Hilary Mantel's use of first person narrative to describe the subtleties of Henry VIII's court in Wolf hall is both stylistically sophisticated and innovative whilst providing a fascinating blend of fictional biography and historical accuracy.

Apparently A Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes, is both profound and beautiful. Perhaps i should get that onmy Kindle next to see. yes - I think I will.

[Raven Falcon.]

The scope may be true, but I don't necessarily agree on the depth. A work doesn't have to be long to be profound.

I think Hilary Mantel's use of first person narrative to describe the subtleties of Henry VIII's court in Wolf hall is both stylistically sophisticated and innovative whilst providing a fascinating blend of fictional biography and historical accuracy.

Apparently A Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes, is both profound and beautiful. Perhaps i should get that onmy Kindle next to see. yes - I think I will. Of course length doesn't equal profundity. Even so, 19th century novels are generally deeper, even the short ones. Notes From Underground, for example, is very short; Hadji Murat may have been Tolstoy's greatest work and it's about the same length as the former.

Speaking about Joyce, he might have been the biggest innovator of the 20th century prose, but his subject matters are uninteresting and seem trifling to me. Perhaps Proust is the only one who is more boring.

Joyce's works, more than anyone's in opinion, exemplify style for the sake of style and difficulty (obtuseness, even) for the sake of difficulty.

[Paulclem]

I'm not sure that's true anymore about Joyce. Certainly he's the more well known and celebrated, and we'll all be on catch-up with newer novels. Will Self's new book, Umbrella, is apparently self consciously modernist. I haven't read it, but reviews suggest that the narrative style is demanding with narrative changes within the same sentence. Of course i'm not saying it's better, or even more demanding - I don't know yet, but it is certainly self consciously crafted. The review I read says that it deals with a woman who has the sleeping sickness after WW1 and wakes in the 70s, the literary implication being that she starts in one narrative genre and wakes into another that she struggles to understand. Neat metaphor if it pans out thus.

The problem is we're in a poor position to evaluate the current with the past because we've got the old weight of lit crit against new and unexplained novels. Interesting to find out though.

[JBI]

Of course length doesn't equal profundity. Even so, 19th century novels are generally deeper, even the short ones. Notes From Underground, for example, is very short; Hadji Murat may have been Tolstoy's greatest work and it's about the same length as the former.

Speaking about Joyce, he might have been the biggest innovator of the 20th century prose, but his subject matters are uninteresting and seem trifling to me. Perhaps Proust is the only one who is more boring.

Joyce's works, more than anyone's in opinion, exemplify style for the sake of style and difficulty (obtuseness, even) for the sake of difficulty.

Generally deeper? Like Ivanhoe right? Seriously that is unfounded. As for Joyce's subject matter, that is just to you. There is plenty In there. More so than in The Mill on the Floss.

Sweeping generalization is silly.

[prendrelemick]

I read To The Lighthouse whilst doing my A levels, and it really had a positive effect upon me, though I had, at that time, nowhere to channel what it did. I think that reflects the limitations of the Eng |Lit course at that time. I may well have followed it up with more relevant reading if I had understood its import.

I also enjoyed The Gulag Archipelago, though I know, due to my ignorence of much of Russian history at that time, that I didn't get as much out of it as I might have. It is one of the few books I intend to re-read.

I read Sartre's Nausea and Iron in the Soul when I was in my twenties, and I felt that I didn't fully understand the implications of it due to my ignorence of the philosophy. These were difficult books for me, as I was aware that I wasn't getting them.


These three paragraphs of Paul's really struck a chord with me. But unlike Paul it is a situation I accept for the moment.

It means I rarely find a book difficult. Boring, yes. Incomprehensible, yes. But I am prepared to finish it and be satisfied with an incomplete understanding of the author's intention. I read at a lower level than JBI, and ok, I do sometimes get a feeling I've missed out somehow. However, I still get pleasure in the prose and the story and the philosophy, but I read with the attitude that if I don't completely "get It" it is a shame, but it is the author who has been found wanting in his ability to get the message across.

[Brielle92]

Yeah, I'm reading War and Peace right now and it's not really that difficult of a read.

I don't know if it was because I was young or what, but I remember The Picture of Dorian Gray was a bit difficult for me.

[Raven Falcon.]

Yeah, I'm reading War and Peace right now and it's not really that difficult of a read.

I don't know if it was because I was young or what, but I remember The Picture of Dorian Gray was a bit difficult for me.

War and Peace is easy to read and I might even say that it's a page-turner while at the same time being a literary heavyweight. Although it's heavily descriptive, the prose flows from sentences to sentences quite well and that, for me at least, lends it a certain lucidity not found in many of its fellow 19th century novels.

Nonetheless, I don't mean to say that the book has no muddled parts, as it certainly has, like the few digressions on human history that interspersed the the book, alongside the two famous yet needless epilogues devoid of narrative.

At the micro level, namely phrasing and syntax, War and Peace is hardly culpable for smothering difficulty. Sure, there are some awkward syntax and long winded sentences, but they are graspable after some cursory mull.

Looking at it at macro level, War and Peace is anything but easy, though that's not to say that it's exceeding difficult either. At this level, the difficulty is merely impressionistic, that is, it arises because of the length and size of the book, not unlike its contemporaries.

[Kjetil]

Finnegans Wake, without doubt. I also found Aristotle's Metaphysics heavy going.

[kev67]

Interesting that one of the articles in the OP mentions Great Expectations:

but who among us hasn’t struggled with a book or poem that failed to capture our attention? If that’s you, then congratulations. I have a near-mint copy of “Great Expectations” you can read while the rest of us go through this list.

I read Great Expectations concurrently with Neuromancer by William Gibson. Neuromancer often turns up on lists of influential books, although it is science fiction. I had few problems following Great Expectations. I could not make head or tail of Neuromancer.

I have to admit I had some trouble working out what was going on with Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov towards the end. I also had difficulty with The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. I read it, but afterwards would have had a problem telling you what it was about. I was surprised when someone told me it was a classic.

[Brielle92]

War and Peace is easy to read and I might even say that it's a page-turner while at the same time being a literary heavyweight. Although it's heavily descriptive, the prose flows from sentences to sentences quite well and that, for me at least, lends it a certain lucidity not found in many of its fellow 19th century novels.

Nonetheless, I don't mean to say that the book has no muddled parts, as it certainly has, like the few digressions on human history that interspersed the the book, alongside the two famous yet needless epilogues devoid of narrative.

At the micro level, namely phrasing and syntax, War and Peace is hardly culpable for smothering difficulty. Sure, there are some awkward syntax and long winded sentences, but they are graspable after some cursory mull.

Looking at it at macro level, War and Peace is anything but easy, though that's not to say that it's exceeding difficult either. At this level, the difficulty is merely impressionistic, that is, it arises because of the length and size of the book, not unlike its contemporaries.

Uh.... I found that harder to read than Tolstoy..

[Paulclem]

Interesting that one of the articles in the OP mentions Great Expectations:

but who among us hasn’t struggled with a book or poem that failed to capture our attention? If that’s you, then congratulations. I have a near-mint copy of “Great Expectations” you can read while the rest of us go through this list.

I read Great Expectations concurrently with Neuromancer by William Gibson. Neuromancer often turns up on lists of influential books, although it is science fiction. I had few problems following Great Expectations. I could not make head or tail of Neuromancer.

I have to admit I had some trouble working out what was going on with Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov towards the end. I also had difficulty with The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. I read it, but afterwards would have had a problem telling you what it was about. I was surprised when someone told me it was a classic.

The Guardian Book Club recently discussed Iain M Banks' "Use of Weapons", and his complex use of flashback. I read "Surface Detail" last year, (and intend to do a book review of it still), and that too is a multi-layered book and very effective. There's scope in them both for the entertainment reader, but there is also a literary element to them. I'm not saying they are fantastically difficult, but there is more than space opera at work.

[Raven Falcon.]

Uh.... I found that harder to read than Tolstoy..

Not at all, no.

[Alan_M]

Moby Dick - Melville focuses too much on whaling techniques and too little on the plot . I haven't finished it yet and if I have a hard time going to sleep, I read this one.

[Raven Falcon.]

Moby Dick - Melville focuses too much on whaling techniques and too little on the plot . I haven't finished it yet and if I have a hard time going to sleep, I read this one.

So you are using it as a sleep inducer? That's an effective method.

[Freudian Monkey]

I can definitely agree on Eco's Foucault Pendulum, it was extremely laborious to read, filled with references to semiotic theory, intertextuality etc. Eco is a brilliant writer, but he rarely cares about whether he's book are accessible to readers or not.

If I'm allowed to go to the philosophy department, I'd have to say Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics by Immanuel Kant.

[Jack of Hearts]

I can definitely agree on Eco's Foucault Pendulum, it was extremely laborious to read, filled with references to semiotic theory, intertextuality etc. Eco is a brilliant writer, but he rarely cares about whether he's book are accessible to readers or not.

If I'm allowed to go to the philosophy department, I'd have to say Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics by Immanuel Kant.

The Prolegomena is the easy version of the First Critique (ie, the First Critique done backwards).






J

[Freudian Monkey]

The Prolegomena is the easy version of the First Critique (ie, the First Critique done backwards).


I know, that's why I didn't even try to read Critique of Pure Reason. It would certainly be even more tedious. I can only comment on what I've read, sorry. Being and Time was a much easier read for me.

[kev67]

I can definitely agree on Eco's Foucault Pendulum, it was extremely laborious to read, filled with references to semiotic theory, intertextuality etc. Eco is a brilliant writer, but he rarely cares about whether he's book are accessible to readers or not.

If I'm allowed to go to the philosophy department, I'd have to say Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics by Immanuel Kant.

I won't read Umberto Eco any more. The Name of the Rose was good, Focault's Pendulum was annoying and The Island of the Day Before was unforgivable. Don't read Focault's Pendulum anyway; read The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln. It deals with the same stuff (which is interesting) but is betterer.

[Pensive]

Totally agree with The Sound and Fury (the only book out of these which I actually remember having completed). I had to struggle really hard to make sense of the happenings!

I also think To The Lighthouse could have qualified for the list - stream of consciousness making it such a complicated read. Another book that springs to my mind is For Whom The Bell Tolls even when Hemingway is supposed to be known for his simple style!

[_Paul]

A book I can recall having incredible difficulty with is The Silmarillion by Tolkein. From memory, it had no real plot, was ridiculously written - full of old language and overly complicated sentences - and there were endless long and bizarre names you were supposed to remember. I guess it didn't help I was in my young teens at the time but nevertheless I imagine I would still struggle with it. Almost unbelievable it was produced by the same author of The Hobbit and LOTR.

[mal4mac]

Later, because Sartre said he wanted to be remembered for his last philosophical tome, Critique of Dialectical Reason, I read both volumes of that over about 12 years...

Why do you trust Sartre so much? I've never seen any serious critic recommend this above his other works. I've read enough Sartre, or enough about him, not to want to read this or anything else by him.

[Freudian Monkey]

I won't read Umberto Eco any more. The Name of the Rose was good, Focault's Pendulum was annoying and The Island of the Day Before was unforgivable. Don't read Focault's Pendulum anyway; read The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln. It deals with the same stuff (which is interesting) but is betterer.

Thanks for the recommendation.

[Paulclem]

There seems to be a consensus that length doesn't matter, so what is it about a book that makes it difficult for you?

For me it is ignorence of the philosophy, or the author's ideas that they are trying to get across. I had this with Sartre, though the stories were readable enough. I got the stream of consciousness in To The Lighthouse, which I found to be quite readable and illuminating.

[greece]

all those books written by Henry James are difficulty for me. I read several times GOLD BOWL rying hard to finish it but fail

[Gladys]

I got the stream of consciousness in To The Lighthouse, which I found to be quite readable and illuminating.

As did I.

But, for more of a challenge, try getting the stream of consciousness in Henry James' The Awkward Age (1899), ostensibly a story about intricacies entangling family and friends of 18-year-old Nanda Brookenham, as she comes of age.

[Paulclem]

As did I.

But, for more of a challenge, try getting the stream of consciousness in Henry James' The Awkward Age (1899), ostensibly a story about intricacies entangling family and friends of 18-year-old Nanda Brookenham, as she comes of age.

After The Turn of the Screw, I won't be reading any James. I didn't find it difficult, just annoying. I'm in the enviable position of not having to read anything I don't enjoy - difficult or not. Fortunately there are plenty that I do like.

[byquist]

Not exactly literature, but written with style, a killer difficult work: The Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon. I would only recommend it to my enemies, it is that severe a read, lets say. I got it at a free book givaway since I would never buy such a penetrating and fierce book. It is a challenge.

[Gladys]

After The Turn of the Screw, I won't be reading any James.

I love Henry James but thought The Turn of the Screw paltry, and James himself labelled it a potboiler. A much better introduction to James might be the novella The Aspern Papers, the moving, early novel Washington Square or, for humour, What Maisie Knew.

[Paulclem]

I love Henry James but thought The Turn of the Screw paltry, and James himself labelled it a potboiler. A much better introduction to James might be the novella The Aspern Papers, the moving, early novel Washington Square or, for humour, What Maisie Knew.

Thanks. I had a similar discussion with Emil last year about another writer. I'll perhaps give him another chance when I come across one of your recommendations.

[tscherff]

there are a couple of books that i am surprised haven't been mentioned that clearly fit this category
gravity rainbow by pynchon
the becket trilogy: molloy, malone dies, and the unnamable.

pynchon was interesting but way too long and i felt he intentionally made it difficult.
becket is unbelievably challenging

i read and enjoyed all three volumes of gulag archipalego, loved everything i have read by faulkner including AA and sound and the fury

there is a sense of accomplishment in completing a difficult and complex book. you may not understand it all, but the ingenuity of the author is refreshing. best example is the benjy portion of the sound and the fury. how do you even begin to conceive of that point of view.
remarkable!

[GreenLucky]

I found Naked Lunch by Burroughs and Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller to be difficult reads. At the same time they were completely worth the time and effort it took to not only complete them but to understand them as well. They are three of my favourite novels.

[GatorAbe]

Hi Everybody; a new poster here, and very glad I found this place!

The most difficult texts I've read are:

War & Peace: Mostly because of it's length
The Sound & The Fury: especially the first section narrated by the imbecile Compson

[PeterPreston]

Ulysses required a great deal of persistence in some chapters. Most overtly in Oxen of The Sun. 40 Pages, yet it must have took me about 4 hours to finish; absolutely brilliant, but so horribly painful to get through!

It's a difficult book: the most difficult that I've ever read but it's worth it. It's so beautifully written, that I can't wait to read it again!

[Varenne Rodin]

Umberto Eco - Foucault's Pendulum. The prose was so thick that I had a hard time staying in the narrative.

[Literature5]

I haven't attempted a read at it in half a decade, but I remember The Unvanquished being too difficult for me. Also, for me Paradise Lost was a tough one.

[SFG75]

I know, that's why I didn't even try to read Critique of Pure Reason. It would certainly be even more tedious. I can only comment on what I've read, sorry. Being and Time was a much easier read for me.

Kant is quite the devil. Nothing to be undertaken without proper rest, coffee ingestion, and complete isolation from anyone and anything that is distracting.

[aaron stark]

Totally agree with The Sound and Fury (the only book out of these which I actually remember having completed). I had to struggle really hard to make sense of the happenings!

I also think To The Lighthouse could have qualified for the list - stream of consciousness making it such a complicated read. Another book that springs to my mind is For Whom The Bell Tolls even when Hemingway is supposed to be known for his simple style!

I agree. To The Lighthouse was quit e a struggle to me and I had the same with Hemingway, but then in his The Sun Also Rises. I think I know what you mean: it's not that it's difficult to read, it's just because of his descriptions which are so brief, along the lines of his Iceberg-principle (10% is narrated, 90% is hidden and up to the reader to imagine)

Last year I read A.L. Kennedy's Day. Not easy at all

[PeterL]

I can definitely agree on Eco's Foucault Pendulum, it was extremely laborious to read, filled with references to semiotic theory, intertextuality etc. Eco is a brilliant writer, but he rarely cares about whether he's book are accessible to readers or not.


I am shocked that anyone would think that. Eco's prose and exposition are clear and straightforward. But some of the concepts may be a way out there.


A book I can recall having incredible difficulty with is The Silmarillion by Tolkein. From memory, it had no real plot, was ridiculously written - full of old language and overly complicated sentences - and there were endless long and bizarre names you were supposed to remember. I guess it didn't help I was in my young teens at the time but nevertheless I imagine I would still struggle with it. Almost unbelievable it was produced by the same author of The Hobbit and LOTR.

The Silmarillion shouldn't have been published. It is a collection of notes about some of the background fro the LOTR.

[OrphanPip]

The Silmarillion shouldn't have been published. It is a collection of notes about some of the background fro the LOTR.

That's not really true, the Silmarillion is structured more like a religious texts, since it recounts in general the mythic creation and downfall of the elves. The latter part of the book was largely unfinished though. How successful Tolkien's project was is debatable, I'm lukewarm about the book, but there's a charm that arises from the ambition of the text.

[PeterL]

That's not really true, the Silmarillion is structured more like a religious texts, since it recounts in general the mythic creation and downfall of the elves. The latter part of the book was largely unfinished though. How successful Tolkien's project was is debatable, I'm lukewarm about the book, but there's a charm that arises from the ambition of the text.

Which part were you disagreeing with? That it should not have been published or that it is a collection of notes about background?

i can imagine that your comment may be partly accurate and make my seconD comment less than completely accurate, but i think that my first comment stills stands.

[Eiseabhal]

Paul 's various letters. Kant, Hegel and bleedin Karl Marx.

[Grit]

I don't read much non-fiction and I imagine historical documents are a whole other monster but for me it was Faulkner.

Snopes trilogy. As great as the writing is (amazing at capturing the nuances of southern speech), it's incredibly hard to get through. I'm talking a page with a one sentence paragraph that goes on and on and on.

[mal4mac]

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is the most difficult book I've finished. I used a modern translation often recommended as the most straightforward (Pluhar's) and parsed every sentence into English I could understand, in my word processor, with Caygill's "A Kant dictionary", and Google search, permanently in use. It took about six months, working several hours a day. I'm not sure it was worth it; Scruton, Magee and others have already done the parsing donkey work and written excellent popular accounts of what Kant was getting at (which is important!)

I also started taking this approach with Heidegger's Being and Time, but gave up. Life's too short, and popular accounts are many :) Other contenders, that I gave up on: The Bible, Ulysses, late Henry James, Naked Lunch. Unlike GreenLucky I didn't find the latter worth the effort, though found Junkie an interesting read.

Book's I've been too frightened to even attempt: anything by Hegel, Finnegan's Wake, more Kant...

I agree that Paradise Lost is a tough one, I did give up on it recently, but I may give it another attempt... unlike the other contenders...

Faulkner and Wolfe are also tough, but I enjoyed the only two novels I've read by them (To the Lighthouse and As I Lay Dying) I tried them after Kant and Joyce, so they didn't seem *that* hard :) Joyce had primed me to carry on reading while bemused - didn't enable me to gain enjoyment or closure with Ulysses, but enabled me to enjoy other modernists...

I don't think it's fair putting War & Peace on this list because of it's length. In a good translation, it's as easy to read as Dickens. It might be the length of five normal-length novels, but you'd never find five normal-length novels as good.

[blazeofglory]

In fact most of us here commonly loathe books like ulysses, the sound and the fury and the rest following that genre. Yet some critics vehemently and tirelessly keep on writing about such loathsome books commendably. This is sheer arrogance and it is like seeking for the substance when peeling of an onion and all you will arrive at is nothing. You may read such hooks with a lot of hope of being wiser but in fact all you will end up is learning a few rhetorical things only.

[Jackson Richardson]

I bought Gravity’s Rainbow and Foucault’s Pendulum about the same time. A friend who loved GR said I’d prefer it to F’s R. I duly read them both with three months and much preferred Eco: shows up the modern fascination with the esoteric in place of both common humanity and religious tradition:

There was no secret, that the real secret was to let the cells proceed according to their own instinctive wisdom, that seeking mysteries beneath the surface reduced the world to a foul cancer. Eco Foucault’s Pendulum page 567

And he promised salvation to all: you only had to love your neighbour. Eco Foucault’s Pendulum Page 620

I worked hard at understanding Pynchon, reading with a pencil in my hand to mark the bits I thought significant. Surely it’s a meditation on the meaningless of life in the face of nuclear destruction, so language, sexuality and everything becomes just an occasion for puerile adolescent joking. But I do like one quote:

But the Reverend Dr Paul de la Nuit is not fond of the MMPI. “Rosie, are there scales for measuring interpersonal traits?” Hawk’s nose probing probing, eyes lowered in politic meekness. “Human values, trust, honesty, love?Is there – forgive me the special pleading – a religious scale by any chance?” Gravity’s Rainbow page 95 "

Pretty loathsome sexist homophobic book though to my mind. But I read it.

[Scheherazade]

In fact most of us here commonly loathe books like ulysses, the sound and the fury and the rest following that genre. Yet some critics vehemently and tirelessly keep on writing about such loathsome books commendably. This is sheer arrogance and it is like seeking for the substance when peeling of an onion and all you will arrive at is nothing. You may read such hooks with a lot of hope of being wiser but in fact all you will end up is learning a few rhetorical things only.Blaze,

I understand - as another ESOL speaker particularly - and respect your right not to like certain books. However, I would also strongly urge you not to pass such hasty comments, calling certain books "loathsome" and anyone who might happen to enjoy them "arrogant".

I have to admit I could not stand Faulkner while at university; however, I now know that it was owing to my lack of understanding of his works (which stemmed from the fact that my English was not mature enough at the time). After reading his works again after almost 20 years, I list him as one of the best writers I have read.

That is not to say that anyone who does not like a work lacks understanding but just an example from my personal experience. Again, it is possible to read, understand and not to like a book but to claim that it was loathsome is unnecessary and even over the top, I'd say.

[stlukesguild]

In fact most of us here commonly loathe books like ulysses, the sound and the fury and the rest following that genre. Yet some critics vehemently and tirelessly keep on writing about such loathsome books commendably. This is sheer arrogance and it is like seeking for the substance when peeling of an onion and all you will arrive at is nothing. You may read such hooks with a lot of hope of being wiser but in fact all you will end up is learning a few rhetorical things only.

The only sheer arrogance here is the assumption that because YOU struggle to understand something or find it difficult to grasp... or just don't like it, as a consequence it must be bad and all those who find artistic merit in such works are lying of full of themselves. You even have the arrogance to assume that you are the standard reader at LitNet... the one who doesn't "get" or like challenging literature... and that this standard of the lowest common denominator should be the measure of artistic worth. Please.

[Jackson Richardson]

Pretty loathsome sexist homophobic book though to my mind. But I read it.

Just in case my use of the word "loathsome" gives offence. It wasn't because I didn't understand it, but because I had a definite understanding. My friend who says it's his favourite book is gay, and I've seen women readers here admire it. So they can't find it homophobic or sexist.

I will admit that the scene when Col Pudding is forced to eat his own excrement by a dominatrix did make my tummy turn over. But I don't think Pynchon is writing pretentious drivel - he knows what he's doing, but I don't like it.

[hannah_arendt]

I agree with you. I had to read it in german at school and it was really difficult. To tell you the truth, I have no idea how it sounds in english.

[E.A Rumfield]

The idea is not that everything that is difficult is bad just that not everything is for everybody. John Dos Passos was a contemporary of James Joyce and he wrote in a similar style as Joyce. He wrote three books that should be read a one. The 42nd Parallel, 1919 and The Big Money. Together it is more than 1200 pages and contains beautiful passages like this one here:

skating on the pond next the silver company's mills where there was a funny fuzzy smell from the dump whale oil soap somebody said it was that they used in cleaning the silver knives and spoons and forks putting shine on the for sale there was shine on the ice early black ice that rang like a sawblade just scratched white by the first skaters I couldn't learn to skate and kept falling down look out for muckers everybody said bohunk and polak kids put rocks in their snowballs write dirty walls up on walls do dirty things up alleys their folks work in the mills

we clean young American Rover Boys handy with tools Deerslayers played hockey Boy Scouts and cut figure eights on the ice Achilles Ajax Agamemnon I couldn't learn to skate and kept falling down

That is from a segment of the book called Camera Eye. Surreal dreamlike passages which separate the chapters. It's not a fast read obviously and each chapter is told by a different character so it becomes difficult to remember what happened to who. The novel is no more or less difficult than Ulysses but I don't like James Joyce. There's nothing more to it. I use this example because the two authors are very similar. I did not like Gravity's Rainbow. I read another novel by Pynchon that I liked very much. Gravity's Rainbow I found to be too much. Dude must think he's Jesus. Yesterday I read Slaughterhouse-Five in one sitting. Some books you can read straight through others you have to stop and absorb what you've read.

Some of you sound like this "I don't like books that are too hard." Some like this "I love books that are really hard, they make me feel good about myself." I don't like Shakespeare I think he's dull. Some people think Shakespeare was something more than some dude that **** his pants as a kid and grew up to learn how to wipe his own ***. There is no total truth. Shakespeare wasn't the greatest writer ever. He wrote stuff, that is a fact. Was it well written? That too can be debated but less so. In the end it's all personal opinion. Liking Shakespeare doesn't mean you're smarter than anyone.

[hannah_arendt]

Some of me very often says: "I like books that are considered as strange, difficult because of the form".

[Ser Nevarc]

In fact most of us here commonly loathe books like ulysses, the sound and the fury and the rest following that genre. Yet some critics vehemently and tirelessly keep on writing about such loathsome books commendably. This is sheer arrogance and it is like seeking for the substance when peeling of an onion and all you will arrive at is nothing. You may read such hooks with a lot of hope of being wiser but in fact all you will end up is learning a few rhetorical things only.

The only sheer arrogance here is the assumption that because YOU struggle to understand something or find it difficult to grasp... or just don't like it, as a consequence it must be bad and all those who find artistic merit in such works are lying of full of themselves. You even have the arrogance to assume that you are the standard reader at LitNet... the one who doesn't "get" or like challenging literature... and that this standard of the lowest common denominator should be the measure of artistic worth. Please.


:thumbs_up

[Mason Pringle]

The hardest book I completed reading would be Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard. But it's more philosophy/religion than literature. Crime and Punishment took some time and effort but I don't know if I should say it's "difficult" - it's more of its sheer length and weight rather than being esoteric or using obscure language. Another somewhat difficult book I've read was Democracy and Tradition by Jeffrey Stout, again, a philosophy and political book rather than literary. It took some effort to understand a couple of Shakespeare's longer plays, but that's more archaic language due to its historical time rather than "difficulty" as understood commonly

If you ask me on the hardest book I've attempted to read without success, that would be As I Lay Dying two years ago.

[Gladys]

:blush:
The hardest book I completed reading would be Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard.

You might have chosen his Sickness unto Death which presumes the reader is literate in half a dozen languages. I tried but did not complete it.

[mal4mac]

The hardest book I completed reading would be Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard. But it's more philosophy/religion than literature.

I gave up on that one after fifty pages. I agree that it isn't literature. Like most philosophy & religious books it doesn't delight through content *and* form. Maybe the content (his ideas...) are interesting, but I'll be looking for someone who can express them better...

[Scheherazade]

Where is Wally in Hollywood?

Can never manage to find all those little bits and pieces.

[Mason Pringle]

:blush:

You might have chosen his Sickness unto Death which presumes the reader is literate in half a dozen languages. I tried but did not complete it.

I've tried with the first chapter of that book and was like WTF is he talking about. It's much harder than Fear and Trembling

[ennison]

Why would the word "loathsome" applied to a book give offence to any but the thinnest of skin?

[Eiseabhal]

And there definitely are loathsome books and revolting writers but perhaps it's best to adopt the old school inspector's motto of mol mus urrain dhuit is cron nas lugha dhuit. De do bheachd Ennison. You catch more flies with mil than with fionn-ghearr.

[Corona]

I'm currently reading to some of S.Beckett's poems and find them very difficult!

[LaMaga]

I wouldn't say War and Peace is a difficult text. It's boring, but it's not difficult. I read and finished it because I honestly thought I'd love it.

What I consider difficult text is The Divine Comedy, or Shakespeare, some versions of Quijote, of which I have three, one of them in Spanish. Perhaps also anything having to do with war... Les Mis, A tale of two Cities to me was like reading Sanskrit. I just have a mental block about it.

[Corona]

I wouldn't say War and Peace is a difficult text. It's boring, but it's not difficult. I read and finished it because I honestly thought I'd love it.

What I consider difficult text is The Divine Comedy, or Shakespeare, some versions of Quijote, of which I have three, one of them in Spanish. Perhaps also anything having to do with war... Les Mis, A tale of two Cities to me was like reading Sanskrit. I just have a mental block about it.

As for War and Peace I have not seriously taken in consideration the possibility of reading it as of yet, so I don't know.
But Dante's Comedy, Shakespeare's plays(of which I've only read four) and the Quijote don't seem so difficult to me! It depends on hoy wou define "difficult": of course they are gigantic works and raise too many questions for one to summarize them - especially shakespeare - but they are at least very readable.
Don Quijote is a very fluent reading, and a very funny one. What's to be said difficult are the themes Cervantes decided to deal with, and Cervantes' authorial's position. Whereas one always feels comfortable with Dante's "own" beliefs - indipendently if you share them to some degree or not -, one cannot say for sure what Cervantes really thought about his characters and how it differs from what he wanted the reader to believe in.
And for Shakespeare the problem becomes much bigger.

Anyway, although all three are not easy reading, they can still be readen to various degrees, making them universally appreciable, which cannot be said of the likes of Joyce, eg.
I would instead say the works of the three of them are inexhaustible sources of analysis and are some of the most definitive piece of art ever created by men, but they're still approachable by everyone with enough competence.
Of course there's a difference if you are Auerbach or an inexpert reader, so that, for example, a genius like Samuel Beckett spent his life reading Dante's Comedy, but still..

[Emil Miller]

I'm currently reading to some of S.Beckett's poems and find them very difficult!

You might try some of Cacian's, they make Beckett look like A.A. Milne.

[ECS]

Hardest book: Carlyle's Sartor Resartus

[Juan Perez]

Ulysses (Joyce)
Paradiso (Lezama Lima)
Some short stories by Borges
The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner)....could never finish it!!!! (although i've read other novels by this distinguished and confusing author).

[hannah_arendt]

Ulysses (Joyce)
Paradiso (Lezama Lima)
Some short stories by Borges
The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner)....could never finish it!!!! (although i've read other novels by this distinguished and confusing author).

"Ulysses" was very difficult for me too.

[mal4mac]

"The Principles of Quantum Mechanics" by P.A.M Dirac was tough, but not as tough as "Ulysses".

[jayat]

English literature in original version and Spanish literature from the sixteenth century, “The exemplary novels” (?) by M. de Cervantes. Old language, although you know its modern version, implies a distance which I overcome with patience and dictionaries.

What is more, reading Shakespeare to me implies having a translation in Catalan language (if I can have one decent) with the aim to help me in the very difficult passages, which to me I’m afraid to say are almost all of them. Nevertheless, one learns a lot in this compared or contrasting reading, this is true. To end with, now I am also reading Moby Dick and H. Melville is not W.S. but is hard to me too, old English too...and exciting, of course.

Sorry...it looks as though I got no friends, I talk too much, but here you are, thanks for Reading and excuse my linguistal faults.

[Methexis]

I don't get why most of those books are on that list. I've never had much trouble reading those considered part of Modernism (The Sound and the Fury, The Wasteland) with the exception perhaps of Finnegan's Wake. At least in Modernism there's some sort of referential framework you can fall back on, and in texts such as T.S. Eliot's or Joyce's there's so many footnotes it's impossible to get lost (except perhaps within the footnotes themselves). I've found some Postmodern works a lot harder to read, as I'm not always very familiar with the references in for example Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. I don't know if the list is restricted to fiction only, otherwise I'd like to include Sein und Zeit which is, to quote another reader of his works, either the most brilliant thing I've ever read or the biggest joke ever written. His work is difficult due to his unique use (and invention) of language and philosophical terms and his inherently German sentence constructions. (Seems like Sein und Zeit was on the second list, so I guess I can only say I agree.) I remember also struggling somewhat with Samuel Beckett's final part of his trilogy, L'Innomable (The Unnamable), due to its highly abstract content and form.

[Oedipus]

You might try some of Cacian's, they make Beckett look like A.A. Milne.

Who is this "Cacian"? I would love to see this ultra-sophisticated, ultra-complex poet in action - in fact, it seems like someone at this very forum has adopted the name!

[Nate]

the book i've put the most effort into is ulysses. i could have gone through it once with an annotated guide with relative ease, but i studied it thoroughly over the course of few years and many times through because i really enjoyed the level of detail and wanted to master the text. i've put a good deal of time and effort into finnegans wake as well. i would say i've mastered about 10% of the text and it's taken almost as much effort as i put into my entire study of ulysses. i think the mistake most people make is using the very outdated skeleton key. the best resources i've found for fw are mcugh's annotations, hart's structure and motif in finnegans wake, and finnegansweb.com

i read moby recently. i got through it quickly and loved it, but i'd say that it's a pretty demanding read. i would say the same about proust's in search of lost time (the updated moncrieff translation), which i am working on but have not yet finished.

[kev67]

I found a list of the most difficult texts online.

What do you think>

http://listverse.com/2010/06/07/top-10-difficult-literary-works/

Here's another:

http://www.cbc.ca/books/2012/08/the-toughest-books-in-literary-history.html

The only book I have read out of these is Umberto Eco's Focault's Pendulum. I mostly agree with the appraisal, but I would say that The Island of the Day Before was worse. I gave up reading Umberto Eco after that.

[MorpheusSandman]

Outside of philosophy, I'd say Finnegans Wake and the late works of William Blake are the toughest things I've read. It also depends on how one defines "difficulty." I don't consider length a factor, and War & Peace, outside of its epic length, is one of the most lucid novels ever written. There's not a single passage in it that one struggles to understand.

[Nate]

Outside of philosophy, I'd say Finnegans Wake and the late works of William Blake are the toughest things I've read. It also depends on how one defines "difficulty." I don't consider length a factor, and War & Peace, outside of its epic length, is one of the most lucid novels ever written. There's not a single passage in it that one struggles to understand.

what companions did you find most helpful to your comprehension of finnegans wake? like i said, i've found clive's work, mcugh's annotations, and finnegansweb.com to be my most useful resources, but i still have a long way to go. to what degree do you feel you've mastered the text?

[MorpheusSandman]

what companions did you find most helpful to your comprehension of finnegans wake? like i said, i've found clive's work, mcugh's annotations, and finnegansweb.com to be my most useful resources, but i still have a long way to go. to what degree do you feel you've mastered the text?I actually haven't delved into any of the companions out there. I'm generally more interested in poetry, and I tend to read Finnegans Wake like I read poetry, meaning that I dive in and read a bit when I'm in the mood for playing in a linguistic playground, and then I may put it down for days or weeks at a time and not revisit it. I don't think I could read FW like a traditional novel, and I'm also not sure I'd be interested in cutting through all of is linguistic Gordian Knots. While I do very much enjoy Joyce, I tend to save that level of dedication for my absolute favorite authors/works, and neither Joyce nor FW are on that level for me. So I haven't "mastered" the text at all, nor have I really tried. I just try to let myself get swept along for the ride and grasp what flotsam and jetsam of meaning that I can.

[skan]

Hello.

I would like to find difficult English books, but not because they tell you a complex story or difficult concepts.
I'm looking for a book using a lot of complex English words and idioms. (I'm a foreigner trying to improve my English).

Which of the books you mentioned are more difficult in this sense?

Another difficult book is "One Hundred Years of Solitude" at least the Spanish version.

[PeterL]

You might want to try Ulysses by James Joyce, if you are looking for challenging words and idioms. Joyce's Finnegans Wake is even more extreme along those lines, but it is too difficult for most native speakers of English, so you might try that later.

[kev67]

I recently finished The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. That was above my reading age, especially Justine.

[ajvenigalla]

The Confidence Man

[ennison]

The Cannibal. If I feel it ain't giving me pleasure I pack it in. But saying that I have persisted with some junk out of sheer desperate stubbornness. By the way there seems to be a strange set of threads which I have not gone near - all posted by a cove with the moniker Ausvsac Are they ok?