5 most difficult books to read

[Tio_Narratore]

The historical fiction novel 'Ragtime' by EL Doctorow was a highly successful book upon publication in 1975, earning much critical praise, a best-seller and having a movie, TV mini-series and most famously a stage musical (in which a young Lea Michelle got her break to stardom in its original Broadway run in the late 1990s) based upon it.

I have never read the book myself, but from what I have heard the consensus appears to be that while Ragtime is a very well-written novel, it is not an easy book to read as there is so much minute detail put into every scene that it becomes hard to follow. Has anyone here ever read it and what did you think?

Read it and enjoyed it. Easy to read, but I'm an anthropologist, and "thick description" is central to our field; I'm quite comfortable with detail.

 

[nice90sguy]

I read Ulysses as a precocious kid of 11. I had a first edition of Finnegan's Wake, which was popular with pretentious Cambdridge Undergrads. I remember the first and last lines still.
Martin Gardner, who wrote the popular "Mathematical Games" section of Scientific American, wrote a great piece on the book, and I managed to finish it after reading that.
Did you know that "Quarks" were named by the physicist Murray Gell-Man, who was a fan of Finnegan's Wake, after the line "Three Quarks for Mrs Mark" -- referring to the three flying ducks popular as wall decorations with the lower-middle classes?

 

[MrHereWriting]

Did you know that "Quarks" were named by the physicist Murray Gell-Man, who was a fan of Finnegan's Wake, after the line "Three Quarks for Mrs Mark" -- referring to the three flying ducks popular as wall decorations with the lower-middle classes?

And, did you know, that a lone Quark once fought a Klingon and lived?

 

[colddiesel]

Theodore Dreiser and Charles Dickens are utterly tedious writers though interesting people. More recently I find Hilary Mantel un-readable however many prizes she has won.

 

[ZealestialBeing]

Oh, I loved Lolita! Yeah, it is difficult, but it is so brilliant. It is the best, purest example of an unreliable narrator I have ever read. You can see places where some character's response is completely at odds with what Humbert says. The friction shows where Humbert is editing their responses and words to fit his narration. All the places where he explains that Lolita loved him and wanted to stay with him, where what she does and says are completely at odds with that. Character responses to his conversations. It is subtle, brilliant, and manifests in an utterly uncomfortable experience in his head, which should be uncomfortable.

Sorry, I just love how good that book is.

I completely agree. I'm reading it currently for a second time. (I happen to be studying French at the moment, so I am furthering my learning there as I go.) Humbert Humbert is such a dick! Not so much that I have to hate the book, but yes, he is completely egotistical and delusional.

 

[jomar]

So Cormac McCarthy. Blood Meridian was a meandering ok. The Road was no better to me than a host of post apocalyptic books. That The Road won the Pulitzer to me is a nod to a body of work much like Denzel Washington getting the Oscar for Training Day. I guess I don’t appreciate the genius of McCarthy or something.

 

[TheRedChamber]

And, did you know, that a lone Quark once fought a Klingon and lived?

More than once, and you haven't even shown the time when he was actually victorious.

The fact that this is going to be my sole contribution to this thread probably shows how literate I am.

 

[OffNSFW]

This video details 5 difficult books to read. I tried "Ulysses" once. I made it through 10 pages, got a raging headache and stopped. I can't imagine trying "Finnigan's Wake".

so tell me, any of you read any of these? My undying admiration for anyone who has. View attachment 2318787

Comshaw

Most books lean towards you. Sometimes, they bend pretty far forward to get you to like them. Then there are the books that demand that you lean towards them. They demand an investment of time and energy, real energy. Footpounds of it.

I've read most of Cormac McCarthy's notorious ones, I've read Moby-Dick, but the one that I haven't been able to crack yet is Gravity's Rainbow. And really, the only issue is that I tried to pick it up when I wasn't at a moment in my life when I could devote what it needed. I kept having to put it down and pick it back up again, and all I was getting was a bigger bicep.

 

[MrHereWriting]

More than once, and you haven't even shown the time when he was actually victorious.

Yeah, but in the clip I posted, he announced his name.

 

[R. Richard]

Definitely, the Voynich Manuscript. The prose is confusing and the foldout pages make it worse.

 

[PallidaMors9]

Didn’t like Moby Dick. Never understood the obsession with it.

Loved Blood Meridian. But it’s a tough read for a lot of different reasons.

Huge Stephenson fan and really liked The Baroque Cycle. The “follow-up” Cryptonomicon was great too.

But the last line of Ahab as he's being dragged under is worth the entire read!

Maybe that's why I do so love The Counte Of Monte Cristo - full, unabridged of course

 

[THBGato]

I gave up on Moby Dick too. Life is too short. I'm more than happy to read long books (I loved Dickens' "Little Dorrit", for instance, which I read as a parallel of The Tempest) but they've got to give me more, earlier.

I have read Ulysses (and the Odyssey) and my take away for both was "I guess this was groundbreaking at the time, but now not so much."

In terms of emotionally difficult books, Holly Bourne's Girl Friends made me burst into tears - and not happy tears. Great, racking, heaving sobs. I thought I might be having a breakdown. I thorough recommend it.

Similarly, the most recent Robert Galbraith The Running Grave was a hard, long read. So ridiculously tense, I found I could only read it a few chapters a day, and only during daylight.

 

[desecration]

Oh come now, is no one going to mention Naked Lunch?

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Oh come now, is no one going to mention Naked Lunch?

I quite enjoyed that, though Cities of the Red Night had more to it and wasn't just a bunch of scenes representing drug experiences.

A lot of Dickens I've struggled with and mostly given up on. David Copperfield's first couple 100 pages are good, and the last couple hundred, but I have to admit I flipped through the 500 pages of mawkishness in the middle!

Never managed to get through 100 Years of Solitude. There's a limit of how many characters you can call Antonio. People kept telling me that it gets good a few pages after wherever I'd got to, but I'm not convinced.

 

[Comshaw]

Most books lean towards you. Sometimes, they bend pretty far forward to get you to like them. Then there are the books that demand that you lean towards them. They demand an investment of time and energy, real energy. Footpounds of it.

I've read most of Cormac McCarthy's notorious ones, I've read Moby-Dick, but the one that I haven't been able to crack yet is Gravity's Rainbow. And really, the only issue is that I tried to pick it up when I wasn't at a moment in my life when I could devote what it needed. I kept having to put it down and pick it back up again, and all I was getting was a bigger bicep.

I read for two reasons: to learn a thing or be entertained. Now I don't mind working at reading a book. It took me a bit to get into Moby Dick but when I did I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The rub comes in when an author trying to be clever, writes a book with the idea that "BAWAHAHA! Let's see you read this...if you can!" Why should I invest time and effort to read a work which neither entertains me, nor teaches me anything of consequence? Granted I could acquire bragging rights and a sense of conquest, "Well I did it!" But I have a lot of other things in my life I can do that with.

That said I can absolutely admire those who do such things. It just ain't one of my things.

Comshaw

 

[XerXesXu]

There are authors still trying to make someone's '5 most difficult books to read' list.

Rupert Thomson’s 14th novel, How to Make a Bomb.

'The thriller-like propulsion of Thomson’s narrative is assisted by the fragmentation of his prose: the novel is completely devoid of full stops, which have all been replaced by line breaks, meaning that each paragraph is made up of what looks like a list of short almost-sentences: an impression, a description, a line of dialogue.'

 

[desecration]

I've read Moby-Dick, but the one that I haven't been able to crack yet is Gravity's Rainbow.

Some books require momentum to get through the setup to the action... and when the action is highly cerebral and stuff, it can require great patience. It took me a long time to get into Moby-Dick because of the three hundred pages of description of whaling before anything happens, but on the second read I got really into it.