5 most difficult books to read

[SimonDoom]

....a college lined spiral notebook.

Good answer. I still have some old class notebooks, and I try to read them and can't believe I passed the class.

 

[TadOverdon]

War and Peace. Zzzzzzz

 

[Treeview]

War and Peace. Zzzzzzz

In college I got behind in reading W&P for class. It was all over...I scraped through with a C in the class. A miracle

 

[NRBonz]

OK, I'll have a shot here. Many authors pen work in a plethora of styles. I'll mention Hemingway here as he is one of my favorites but find such work as "Green Hills of Africa" virtually impossible to read and stay focused. There are some memorable passages to be found, for example, the one in which Hemingway draws the analogy between the Gulf Stream and the stream of human history. Or the passage about Tolstoy and the Russian countryside. Or the section on the skies of Spain, Italy and Northern Michigan. The description of the African terrain is accurate, no doubt. I, for one, grow very weary of monosyllables about stalking the kudu.
Hemingway has no natural love for the animal pageant; he is only interested in killing cleanly. He seemingly here in substitutes his kudu into the story as Melville did the white whale. He is no W. H. Hudson or even a Brooks Atkinson; he is simply a bullfight aficionado looking to substitute the kudu for el toro.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Lol definitely have to agree with the Bible. That was impossible to read.

I don't think many people read the Bible straight through. Most of them dip into it and read selected passages. I admit that I'm guessing somewhat about that.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I forgot about this one but recalled it after someone mentioned Lolita: Nabokov's considerably more challenging Pake Fire. It is one of the strangest novels one will ever read. It purports to be a 999 line poem by the poet John Shade, followed by a lengthy line by line analysis by his academic colleague and friend Charles Kinbote. The analysis quickly digresses into several different stories, challenging the reader to figure out what's really going on, whether Kinbote is telling the truth, and even who he really is. It's a favorite of mine but the prose is dense and deliberately confusing.

Lolita is quite good. I tried reading Ada, and I have no idea what he was trying to do there.

 

[Dearelliot]

Any book with small print, even with reading glasses.

 

[TakeItOrLeaveIt]

I've read all of them and enjoyed four. Finnigan's Wake was 'a bit much' and 'not really my cup of tea'. I revisited it a couple of years ago, but still not really my thing.

In terms of books that I found difficult to read, House of Leaves is up there, but in a good way. I liked that the book was almost a sort of project to read.

House of Leaves is, imo, a work of staggering genius. I've read it a few times now: it's the kind of book that keeps drawing me back in.

Not a fan of Moby Dick. But, as they say, everyone's a critic

 

[yowser]

I forgot about this one but recalled it after someone mentioned Lolita: Nabokov's considerably more challenging Pake Fire. It is one of the strangest novels one will ever read. It purports to be a 999 line poem by the poet John Shade, followed by a lengthy line by line analysis by his academic colleague and friend Charles Kinbote. The analysis quickly digresses into several different stories, challenging the reader to figure out what's really going on, whether Kinbote is telling the truth, and even who he really is. It's a favorite of mine but the prose is dense and deliberately confusing.

Just in case anyone is looking for this, an unfortunate and inadvertent typo intruded.

It's 'Pale Fire.' 1962.

 

[SimonDoom]

Just in case anyone is looking for this, an unfortunate and inadvertent typo intruded.

It's 'Pale Fire.' 1962.

Thank you for that. I went back and corrected it. This is what happens when I make posts to this forum via my pgone. I mean phone. Fumble fingers.

 

[UnquietDreams]

Mark Danielewski's "House of Leaves" is an experience and meant to be a challenge to read. There are inserts, backwards text, the story is all over the place, and so on. But it's a puzzle, not a novel.

I couldn't get through Gravity's Rainbow to save my life even though I wanted to enjoy it.

House of Leaves is a lot of fun. I had a friend try to read it as an e-book. That is impossible. The story is in the text. The story is in the font. The story is in the font colors. The story is in the margins. After experiencing this book, I understood all the eldritch horror novels where a character gets destroyed by a book.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I don't think many people read the Bible straight through. Most of them dip into it and read selected passages. I admit that I'm guessing somewhat about that.

All the 'Bible Reading Plans' tend to be about making it readable by doing varied sections each day, or a different genre each day, and imply that you can skim the genealogies... That's the ones that actually do intend for you to read the whole thing - many focus only on what they think are the important bits and ignore the rest.

 

[Swingingbimn71]

Beowulf.
Read the epic poem in high school fir English lit class... why? Why have high school students read this?

 

[UnquietDreams]

Beowulf.
Read the epic poem in high school fir English lit class... why? Why have high school students read this?

My English Lit teacher said one did not read Beowulf, one gnawed at it.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Beowulf.
Read the epic poem in high school fir English lit class... why? Why have high school students read this?

Hwaet?! In the original, or translation?

Translation, sure - there's some excellent ones, and comparing them would be a brilliant exercise for high school. It's the start of English literature!

In the original - that's uni level stuff for sure, unless it was just a couple pages.

 

[Swingingbimn71]

It was Translated to English.
Was still in the epic poem styling.
Just a different book and style over all to try. Very different than what we knew.
I don't think it was the whole book. Maybe just a part. This was waaaaaay back in 1987
Also read "ryhme of the ancient mariner"
And "paradise lost"
Had to memorized a passage from one of them.
Still remember my from Ryhme

 

[SimonDoom]

Beowulf.
Read the epic poem in high school fir English lit class... why? Why have high school students read this?

Me too. But I happened to read John Gardner's novel Grendel before I read Beowulf, and it made a big difference. I highly recommend it; it's a short novel, told from Grendel's point of view. I enjoyed reading Beowulf and I think part of the reason was being able to see Grendel's point of view while I read it.

 

[TadOverdon]

I've come to the conclusion that the reason they wanted us to read "the classics" in high school wasn't because we were expected to appreciate them as unsurpassed accomplishments in literature. I think they hoped that we'd continue to read more contemporary work as we went on through life and wanted us to have a deep context in which to place the best and worst of what was new.

Now that I've typed it out and read it back, I think I'm probably mistaken about all that.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann.

I tried reading it like two decades ago but I only managed to reach page 150 before finally giving up. It was an incredibly slow and tedious read. For example, I remember going through five large pages of pure tedious description, where Hans Castorp, the main character, went from sitting in an armchair or something like that, then brushing his teeth, and then lying down, all without any inner thoughts or any plot happening. There were some great moments, but...

I adore The Magic Mountain! My husband and read it for fun last year. I’ve been trying to talk him into some Proust next but he’s not biting.

I’ve read 4 of the 5 books in the OP. I didn’t even try Infinite Jest because I’d read an earlier Wallace book and found him too macho and self-absorbed.

Pynchon was okay, but he’s not as good as J. G. Ballard or Williams S. Burroughs …

Joyce and Faulkner are both amazing.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I adore The Magic Mountain! My husband and read it for fun last year. I’ve been trying to talk him into some Proust next but he’s not biting.

I’ve read 4 of the 5 books in the OP. I didn’t even try Infinite Jest because I’d read an earlier Wallace book and found him too macho and self-absorbed.

Pynchon was okay, but he’s not as good as J. G. Ballard or Williams S. Burroughs …

Joyce and Faulkner are both amazing.

I have a feeling you are a bit of a masochist

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

Mark Danielewski's "House of Leaves" is an experience and meant to be a challenge to read. There are inserts, backwards text, the story is all over the place, and so on. But it's a puzzle, not a novel.

I couldn't get through Gravity's Rainbow to save my life even though I wanted to enjoy it.

I couldn’t finish House of Leaves. I liked the funky house but I couldn’t stand the cutaways to the asshole narrator. I kept wanting to get back to the house.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

I have a feeling you are a bit of a masochist

No, just a weirdo

 

[SimonDoom]

No, just a weirdo

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

[Voboy]

My five:

The Island Of The Day Before (though it was a translation, so I don't really know)
As I Lay Dying (a total slog, like the rest of Faulkner, possibly the most overrated author in history)
Moby-Dick (yes, I read it all, cover to cover. I kept waiting for it to get good. The only useful part was "The Cassock")
Their Eyes Were Watching God (I was at the wrong stage in life to appreciate it)
The Dancing Wu Li Masters (physics are fascinating. But not that fascinating)

 

[RetroFan]

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?