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Difficult books.

I have tried several times to read Proust and never get beyond 1 or 2 volumes. It's about time I gave it another try, but it could also be that it just doesn't agree with me.
 
I have the Satanic Verse by Salman Rushdie on my bookshelf which I have yet to read. I remember a lot of talk about it when it was published. Is it worth giving it a go?
 
Witchchild I think we all do that after the big three-oh. Perhaps its the tighter clothes caused by the hole in the ozone layer or perhaps its the brightening of the heads of certain men due to a general lets-all-let-go agreement by the hair. Perhaps a few gray hairs that Miss Clairol can't do anything about in the ladies...who knows. All I know is that I can sit and read volumes now and actually concentrate on what I'm doing now rather than being more interested in what all else is going on in the room or around me.

You're right about the Bible too. There are certain parts that are practically impossible to read through with out a vat of espresso, perhaps, and some good dark chocolate, esp. in the Old Testament. (This has nothing to do with being under or over 30 either) I heard someone say once, though, that if you want to read it start in the New Testament book of John. Its supposed to be easier to understand.
 
is it just me, or is to the lighthouse by virginia woolf a "difficult' book?
i just couldn't seem to get my brain into gear with it & gave up after about 50 pages :confused:
 
Omeros by Derek Walcott was a real tough read for me.

Beloved was also a difficult read for me...kept getting lost in the imagery. Anyone else have this problem. Most people I've talked to say they loved this book.

Oh - try getting the audio version of any book that's difficult to read. It's must easier to trudge through
 
Have quite a list of these though mostly in French:
Madame Bovary (Flaubert) - got bored all the way through
Le rouge et le noir (Stendhal) - was forced to for school - blocked on it for 4 months - ended up skimming through in 3 hours - remember a bit of 60 pages describing how a bloke was attempting to stroke a lady's hand...
Magie d'amour et magie noire (have forgotten the absurd name of the author) - 250 pages took me 3 months - dreaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadfuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuullll
L'Oeuvre au Noir - Yourcenar - Boring - Intellectual masturbation
Memoires d'Hadrien - Yourcenar - Ibidem
Foucault's Pendulum - Eco - OK he is a bibliophile... still, though, start is hard
Camus - La peste/The plague - What is the point?
Also remember a bit of another intellectual masturbation by a bloke trying to make a theory of the rights of readers... did it in 200 pages - should have been 20.
ibidem for J. Gardner's "Sophie's World".
etc etc

OK I stop here: rather I love, for example, Calvino:
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
The Baron in the Trees
or Suskind's The Perfume, Kafka, Del Castillo's Mort d'un poete, ...




Morry;)
 
Originally posted by Witchchild
When I was 30, i tried again and it just flew! It was fluid and lyrical and just breathtakingly lovely.
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This is heartening to me! I read the LOTR trilogy every couple years as well and when I finish I always give the Silmarillion another go, never with any success. I'm 28 now...so maybe in 2 years? :)
 
Corso said:
What about The Silmarrilion. What a load of tedious bilge, written in a complicated way but with no plot.
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I think the Silmarillion is very easy...I can read it in just an hour.
Maybe it's because I'm a LOTR maniac and I know almost every single detail in the entire history of Middle-Earth (Pardon my language for perhaps being too arrogant, but I do love LOTR), but it's so easy for me. While I can read that book easily, I have trouble with many classics that are considered EASY...Crime and Punishment took me a month to read...but it's not that bad, considering I'm only turning 14 next January. :)
 
Maybe it's because I'm a LOTR maniac
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Heaven save me from Elvish poetry! AARGH!
Also on my "difficult to read" list:
It by Stephen King (yeah, I agree. It had some terrific spots, but the rest...)
Ghost Story by Peter Straub (can't remember the co-author on that one)
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

I actually liked Odysses, but struggled with Old Man and the Sea.

In the non-fiction category, Worlds in Collision by Immanuel Velakovsky (sp?) Good theories, but every paragraph took four readings.

Cathy
 
Robinson Crusoe was difficult for me. I spent the first third of the book just figuring out the writing style and the colloquialisms(did I spell that right?). After that it went rather fast and was a good story, I really liked it, it is on my top ten list.
 
Probably the hardest book I ever read was The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. I struggled through it.

War and Peace I almost finished. I too had trouble with all the characters.
 
Dawn said:
I have Infinite Jest on my bookself but haven't read it. Should I bother?
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Well, since you wrote this post a while ago I hope you've read it by now.

If not, give it a shot - it's well worth reading.

The first 40 or 50 pages I found quite difficult to get into and nearly gave up but for a long train journey. After that, you start sinking into the main character's lives and the various and bizarre "plots" and it carries you along.

Re all of the footnotes (some of which have footnotes themselves) - don't ignore them. A lot are various quick "facts" on drug names etc, but many, especially the longer ones, are essential to the plot. I think someone has copied them onto a website somewhere for easier reading. Try google.

The writing IMHO was excellent, the characters were believable and there were some hilarious and some shocking sections that stood out. I even read it a second time although I needed a 5 year breather. Another couple of years... :)

Kev
 
I just received Infinite Jest through the mail from .. a friend :))), and I can't wait to tackle it.

Cheers
 
They're not as difficult, but Pushkin's books are quite entertaining...I had fun reading The Captain's Daughter.

I had trouble reading the Bible...I read two of the Gospels, but I can't bring myself to face the Old Testament.
 
jessica said:
I'm still trying to puzzle out the Silmarillion. It's been beside the bed for about a year now, and I still can't bring my self to start it again. I got about halfway through last time but just forgot about it.
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Start by reading The Hobbit...and then LOTR series...and then The Silmarillion.
Just because it's the first book in the storyline doesn't mean it has to be read first - reading Silmarillion first just makes it boring. If you still don't get it, I recommend The Unfinished Tales...quite a handy book explaining the things in Silmarillion.
 
I found Heart of Darkness incredibly easy, and read it in a day. The Silmarillion likewise was not at all a chore (again, perhaps the LotR obsessive thing getting to work.) However, The Tale of Genji and War and Peace were both real struggles.
 
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