10 most difficult books to finish (from The guardian)

[Syt]

Oddly, I find Shakespeare a lot easier in English than in the standard 19th century German translation. Might be because that the Old English is still a bit closer to German, and thus doesn't trip me up so bad when it comes to grammar or syntax.

[Valmy]

Yeah, I've always found Shakespeare a little easier to comprehend during performances than in reading him.  But you've got to be dialed in and paying attention.

I aced every single Shakespeare exam I ever took by watching a movie of the play (and every major play has at least one film out there) while reading along.  It was super easy to enjoy the play and understand what was going on and you were done in just a few hours.  I just cannot fathom why somebody would want to just read the text...I mean would you enjoy reading the script to Star Wars or whatever?

[Valmy]

Oddly, I find Shakespeare a lot easier in English than in the standard 19th century German translation. Might be because that the Old English is still a bit closer to German, and thus doesn't trip me up so bad when it comes to grammar or syntax.

Shakespeare is in modern English.

[celedhring]

I'd list Shakespeare plays but that was more due to the language barrier (old English...), so I'll go with "The Phenomenology of Spirit" from Hegel. Nietzsche is also hard on philosophical allegory but at least pretty entertaining to read.

Well plays are not written to be read, but performed.  And don't make me slap you, Shakespeare is not written in Old English.  It does not even remotely resemble Old English.

Notice I didn't capitalize "old"

I meant it as non-contemporary.

[Syt]

Shakespeare is in modern English.

Call it not-current-day English, then.

[garbon]

Yeah, I've always found Shakespeare a little easier to comprehend during performances than in reading him.  But you've got to be dialed in and paying attention.

I aced every single Shakespeare exam I ever took by watching a movie of the play (and every major play has at least one film out there) while reading along.  It was super easy to enjoy the play and understand what was going on and you were done in just a few hours.  I just cannot fathom why somebody would want to just read the text...I mean would you enjoy reading the script to Star Wars or whatever?

Even by itself, script to bridesmaids is kinda fun.

[Valmy]

Notice I didn't capitalize "old"

I meant it as non-contemporary.

Eh it is just a dialect.  The slang of 16th and early 17th Century London was pretty different but the vocabulary and grammar are the same.  That is why it is easier to understand the Kings and posh characters in the plays than it is to understand the guys who are supposed to be regular joes speaking in their local dialect.  Hell British people are often hard to understand now when they use all their local slang.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Old Englsih: Beowulf
Middle English: Canterbury Tales
Modern English: Shakespeare

That is supposed to be something you learn in High School English.

Original Shakespeare has dialectical differences, different slang, different entendres etc because of its different time and place but it is structurally modern English and if you follow it much at all you can easily get into understanding it very well. I compare it to a British film like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. The first 15 minutes you're watching it as an American, it's an assault. The unfiltered English accents and English slang (as opposed to how "English" characters are portrayed in films filmed in America for an American audience) make it almost hard to understand what the words are. But they're speaking English, we speak English. It clicks pretty quickly and you understand it just as well as you would conversation in your own living room.

Chaucer is readable but it takes work, there are real language differences here. With labor you can read it  but you'll need some translation help for some key words and meanings, spellings, even some vowels are different.

Finally look at Beowulf in Old English:

þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!
oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas, syððanærest wearð
feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah,
oð þæt him æghwylc ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan; þæt wæs god cyning!
Ðæm eafera wæs æfter cenned
geong in geardum, þone God sende
folce to frofre; fyrenðearfe ongeat,
þe hie ær drugon aldorlease
lange hwile; him þæs Liffrea,
wuldres Wealdend woroldare forgeaf,
Beowulf wæs breme --- blæd wide sprang---
Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in.

[Josephus]

My list would include War and Peace - and the Bible. I always get bored.

I read War and Peace too. (yeah, I love Russian lit). It was a tough slog, but it was on my bucket list and I went through it a couple years ago. It's actually not so bad, and has some great battle scenes in between the soap-opera stuff. Nappy makes a cameo.

[merithyn]

I'd list Shakespeare plays but that was more due to the language barrier (old English...),

Shakespeare is most definitely NOT Old English. In fact, it's not even Middle English. Old fashioned English, sure, but sorry, no, not Old English.

Try Chaucer. Then you'll know what Middle English is. You can get through it, but you'll have to look up a ton of words.

EDIT: Damnit. Came late to the party, I see.

[Scipio]

My top ten list follows:

Ulysses by James Joyce
Mason & Dixon by Pynchon
Mein Kampf
Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe
War and Peace
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
The Satanic Verses
The Shahnameh
Goedel Escher Bach
Cold Mountain

[Brazen]

I haven't read any of those, but I've never understood the appeal of literary books or classics for the sake of it. I'm the girl who ditched English Lit for Film Studies. Well given the choice...

I struggled with Moby Dick, but made it through.

I was planning to read the Satanic Verses soon, but you lot put me off!

[CountDeMoney]

I was planning to read the Satanic Verses soon, but you lot put me off!

You can hack it.   Like so much of Rushie's other works, it's incredibly lyrical.

[Eddie Teach]

I'm 0 for 2 on their list, have started and not finished Finnegan's Wake and Gravity's Rainbow. I also had difficulty finishing Crime and Punishment. Not because it wasn't readable, mind you. I lost my copy of the book and didn't get around to picking up a new one for another decade or so. 

[celedhring]

Incidentally, it took me around a year to finish "El Quijote" in its entirety. Amazing book, but even as a native speaker I had to look up half a dozen words every few lines, and its writing is so elaborate...

As a curiosity, I have always wanted to take a peek at an English translation of it.