http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/gallery/2012/nov/03/10-most-difficult-books-in-pictures
1. Umbrella by Will Self
2. Alphabetical Africa by Walter Abish
3. Ethics by Baruch Spinoza
4. The Unconsoled by Kazauo Ishiguro
5. The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
6. Das Kapital by Karl Marx
7. Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
8. Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce
9. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
10. The Unfortunates by BS Johnson.
So I've only finished one of these (Das Kapital).
Only one I've tried is Finnegan's Wake, and I finished it without a problem. Most of the others I've never even heard of.
Yeah, I read Finnegan's Wake and it wasn't really hard to finish.
Some of those books are hard to read cover to cover. Like I've read Ethics and Das Kapital, but these are philosophical/political type works and lay out a bunch of ideas etc. They're not really designed to be novel type books. You can get a lot out of both by referencing passages on key issues and you don't necessarily get a lot out of just reading it cover to cover without breaking them down.
I don't see how The Unconsoled is considered difficult to finish. Esoteric yes, but not difficult. And Das Kapital? C'mon.
Probably the most difficult book I ever tried to read was Rushie's Satanic Verses when it first came out; but, after many years and many college credits in Islam later, I tried it again and enjoyed it immensely.
I used Tolkien's Silmarillion as a doorstop for decades. Dear God, what a turgid mess.
I read several books a year, and yet I've never seen any of these books. My list would include The Wealth of Nations. My guess is that 95% of the readers give up right after the non-benevolent butcher on the third page.
Das Kapital was especially hard for Marx to finish.
Crime and Punishment would head my own personal list of "hard to finish" books.
Quote from: DGuller on November 09, 2012, 10:07:25 AM
My list would include The Wealth of Nations. My guess is that 95% of the readers give up right after the non-benevolent butcher on the third page.
That was as dry as the Sahara. Had to read that in little bits.
Quote from: DGuller on November 09, 2012, 10:07:25 AM
I read several books a year, and yet I've never seen any of these books. My list would include The Wealth of Nations. My guess is that 95% of the readers give up right after the non-benevolent butcher on the third page.
I read that in High School. My only recollection is a nail maker being used as an example of specialization.
Wealth of Nations is one of those ones like Ethics or Das Kapital I've referenced specific parts of before, but don't know that I've ever read it entirely through.
A lot of older political/economic/philosophical treatises I've treated that way. The only ones I think I've read all the way through are ones like The Prince (short), The Republic (the mark of a gentleman and thus a requisite reading to be part of polite society), and a few other really important ones or ones that happen to not be too long.
But yeah, what I find odd about that list is the only three books I've read on the list are the only ones I've ever heard of, never heard of the rest of that list. I'd expect to see other well known difficult to read things like Ulysses or Crime and Punishment on there (both of which I've not read but am aware of..)
In French literrature it would just be anything written by the Naturalist movement authors. Damn things are long just for the sake of being long.
2-3 pages sentences are too often the norm.
Quote from: Barrister on November 09, 2012, 10:10:08 AM
Crime and Punishment would head my own personal list of "hard to finish" books.
Really? That's Dos's easiest book. Try Brothers Karamazov if you have trouble with that! Crime...is my all time favourite novel, I 've read it at least four times.
Quote from: Josephus on November 09, 2012, 10:18:27 AM
Quote from: Barrister on November 09, 2012, 10:10:08 AM
Crime and Punishment would head my own personal list of "hard to finish" books.
Really? That's Dos's easiest book. Try Brothers Karamazov if you have trouble with that! Crime...is my all time favourite novel, I 've read it at least four times.
Yeah, really.
Now this was back in my teens, but I think I made about 3 attempts at it. Couldn't do it.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on November 09, 2012, 10:16:32 AM
The Republic (the mark of a gentleman and thus a requisite reading to be part of polite society),
That one's better to digest in bits as well, as opposed to a cover-to-cover endurance race.
QuoteI'd expect to see other well known difficult to read things like Ulysses or Crime and Punishment on there (both of which I've not read but am aware of..)
I was surprised there wasn't a single Russian on that list, either. And there are so many candidates to chose from.
My list would include War and Peace - and the Bible. I always get bored. -_-
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 09, 2012, 10:05:42 AM
Probably the most difficult book I ever tried to read was Rushie's Satanic Verses when it first came out; but, after many years and many college credits in Islam later, I tried it again and enjoyed it immensely.
I used Tolkien's Silmarillion as a doorstop for decades. Dear God, what a turgid mess.
I will agree with both of these. I've still yet to get through Satanic Verses. :yucky:
Quote from: garbon on November 09, 2012, 10:23:28 AM
My list would include War and Peace - and the Bible. I always get bored. -_-
Yeah the Bible can be pretty brutal. But then it is a combination of 24 books (if you are Jewish) to 78 books (if you are Eastern Orthodox) so I guess that shoud be expected.
Quote from: Grey Fox on November 09, 2012, 10:18:00 AM
In French literrature it would just be anything written by the Naturalist movement authors. Damn things are long just for the sake of being long.
2-3 pages sentences are too often the norm.
:bleeding:
2-3 page sentences would be more like Proust and he is not exactly a naturalist. The naturalist Zola is quite readable, more so than Balzac, specially when one has to read it before the age of 15 (biggest issue I bet).
Quote from: Barrister on November 09, 2012, 10:10:08 AM
Crime and Punishment would head my own personal list of "hard to finish" books.
Quoted. Every time I tried, I went a bit further than the time before, but I never reached page 250.
Other books strted and never finished:
Ulysses,
Silmarillion,
War and Peace,
The Golden Bough (redux, obviously),
and several others that don't come to my mind right now.
L.
I was 20 when I had to read Balzac. I couldn't do it.
There were definitely books that I just couldn't finish no matter how often I tried, and that I completely purged from my memory. Unfortunately, I don't recall what they were.
Only read "Under the Volcano" and "Finnegan's Wake" from that list. Didn't find them particularly hard to read, "Ulysses" from Joyce was much harder to get through, for example.
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.
Quote from: merithyn on November 09, 2012, 10:24:26 AM
I've still yet to get through Satanic Verses. :yucky:
It's an acquired read. But it would certainly help to get a decent reading and understanding of the Quran and early Islam under one's belt.
It's like trying to read
Last Temptation of Christ without being familiar with the synoptic Gospels.
Actually now several have flooded back to me:
The Bible
War And Peace
The Second Sex
City of God
The Feminine Mystique
Anything by Norman Mailer
Of Grammatology
I did read War & Peace (twice), Crime & Punishment without problems. I still have to re-tackle Brothers Karamasov.
I didn't finish Ulysses. I found it funny in the annotated version, though, to learn that Joyce had made an elaborate spreadsheet of motifs/themes/colors and what not for each chapter, loosely patterned after the Odyssey (obviously). Years after the book was published he got so frustrated that no one recognized it that eventually published it.
It took me three or four attempts to get into Grass' Tin Drum, but once it clicked it was very smooth sailing.
Quote from: celedhring on November 09, 2012, 10:41:04 AM
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.
Quote from: Valmy on November 09, 2012, 10:56:12 AM
Quote from: celedhring on November 09, 2012, 10:41:04 AM
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.
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.
Speaking of doorstops, I've recently acquired Canetti's Crowds and Power and Dumont's Homo Hierarchicus, a treatise on the hindu caste system.
I highly doubt I'll ever finish one of those, but they are very, very, very good-looking when sitting on the living room bookshelf.
L.
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.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 09, 2012, 10:58:37 AM
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?
Quote from: Syt on November 09, 2012, 11:02:35 AM
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.
:bash:
Shakespeare is in modern English.
Quote from: Valmy on November 09, 2012, 10:56:12 AM
Quote from: celedhring on November 09, 2012, 10:41:04 AM
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.
Quote from: Valmy on November 09, 2012, 11:04:20 AM
:bash:
Shakespeare is in modern English.
Call it not-current-day English, then. :P
Quote from: Valmy on November 09, 2012, 11:03:39 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on November 09, 2012, 10:58:37 AM
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.
Quote from: celedhring on November 09, 2012, 11:05:27 AM
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.
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.
Quote from: garbon on November 09, 2012, 10:23:28 AM
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.
Quote from: celedhring on November 09, 2012, 10:41:04 AM
I'd list Shakespeare plays but that was more due to the language barrier (old English...),
:huh:
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. :glare: Came late to the party, I see.
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
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!
Quote from: Brazen on November 09, 2012, 11:35:59 AM
I was planning to read the Satanic Verses soon, but you lot put me off!
You can hack it. :hug: Like so much of Rushie's other works, it's incredibly lyrical.
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. :lol:
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.
I never understood the James Joyce hate.
The Bronte sisters are insufferable though.
Critique by Kant. Couldn't get past the fifth chapter and I really tried multiple times.
A Brief History of Time. First half is no problem but gets progressively more difficult.
Not really had any trouble with novels, although Blood Meridan was so depressing I nealy killed myself before finishing it.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on November 09, 2012, 12:15:18 PM
I never understood the James Joyce hate.
The Bronte sisters are insufferable though.
I loved Ulysses, but to this day I still don't get what one has to gain by reading Finnegan's Wake. Lots of other avantgarde literature managed to break new ground while at the same time managing to still being compelling to the reader.
I finish maybe 95 % of books I start. The rest are very poorly written with editors asleep at the wheel. Usually takes me 10-20 pages or so to give up on a book.
I'm 'wise' enough not to have started any of those. :P
Well I've an ebook of Das Capital, but I'm fairly sure I never made it out of the introduction.
Quote from: Brazen on November 09, 2012, 11:35:59 AM
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.
15 years ago I was working in the bush in northern Manitoba. I stocked up on classics.
I found it was really valuable. Mostly because you don't realize how often those classics get picked up and referenced in other subsequent works.
Take Moby Dick (which I read that summer). Reading Moby Dick took my enjoyment of Wrath of Khan to another level. :nerd:
I read Moby Dick, but am surprised you could finish that and not Crime & Punishment. Moby Dick was pretty boring. I vaguely recall one chapter which was all about a bucket.
Moby Dick is awesome. I bet you hate Joseph Conrad too.
Conrad didn't replace every third chapter with an encyclopedia article.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on November 09, 2012, 03:31:51 PM
Conrad didn't replace every third chapter with an encyclopedia article.
Why do you hate Conrad?
I found Gravity's Rainbow deliberately opaque. I have that book on the 30 years war, that I tried to read twice but never finished.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on November 09, 2012, 12:15:18 PM
I never understood the James Joyce hate.
The Bronte sisters are insufferable though.
Anne is lovely!
I always hated slogging through Foucault.
"Under The Volcano" is one of my favorite books. The rest, I haven't attempted I don't think. Some of Celine's post-war books could be hard-going, it depends on whether you're locked-in to the rhythm of his ranting or not.
"Being And Time" required a lot of effort, but was well worth it. The same with any other big philosophical volumes I've read.