Discussions

The most difficult book you've ever read

Posted by twistedteenager • 3/18/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: book, difficult, read

With regards to Dukepro25's discussion on the best book you've ever read, what was the most difficult book you've read.

For me, there are two:
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
The Turn of The Screw - Henry James

User Comments

3/18/08

BlogBadly

The Count of Monte Cristo. Not that hard, but really, REALLY long.

[reply]
1. 3/18/08
  
  twistedteenager
  
  I'll steer clear for now.
3/18/08

Dukepro25

Ummm...

IDK - I'll have to think about this one.

Oh! BTW: thanks for the kudos.

[reply]
3/18/08

Anok

Foucault's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco.

[reply]
1. 3/18/08
  
  Aprilfreelance
  
  I agree, Anok. Umberto Eco is a difficult writer to read, and for me it is a toss-up between Foucault's Pendulum and The Island of the Day Before.
2. 3/18/08
  
  Anok
  
  I haven't read that one...hmmm. Eco is definitely one of those authors that makes you feel accomplished, just for getting through it LOL.
  
  The sad part is, I barely remember any of it, it was like in one eye, and out the other.
3. 3/19/08
  
  dharmagypsy7
  
  Oh you guys already mention Eco.. yes, he's extremely difficult to read. I am glad I am not the only one who thinks so.
3/18/08

kdawg68

"Betting Thoroughbreds" by Steve Davidowitz. It's also one of the best books I've read though. I like to joke that you need a PhD in thoroughbred handicapping to understand it.

I also read a lot of books on Civil War battles, and understanding any of them without consulting maps frequently is very difficult for me. Give me maps and I get a visual understanding of what happened. Going back and forth between similar yet slightly different positions all over the place without knowledge of how the positions relate to each other is maddening.

Thankfully they make these little Osprey books about most major engagements/campaigns that have some of the best laid out maps I've ever seen. Almost always I require additional sources from a visual perspective.

[reply]
3/18/08

sellytapgirl

Nureyev: The Life by Julie Kavanagh. 800 pages, excerpts in Russian and French (apparently, the just expect you to know both languages and English to be able to read this), and seriously inpronouncable names. But, it was a GREAT book.

[reply]
1. 3/18/08
  
  twistedteenager
  
  Funny how many people have read difficult books but enjoyed them. Unless I'm missing the sarcasm.
2. 3/19/08
  
  sellytapgirl
  
  I really did like it.
3/18/08

ekim941

Clockwork Orange. Man it took a while to get the slang down. I thought Zoobies were boobs until the very end.

[reply]
1. 3/18/08
  
  twistedteenager
  
  Ha ha! Picked it up once when I was about fifteen. Then put it back down again.
2. 3/18/08
  
  Anok
  
  Oh but I love that book!
3. 3/18/08
  
  ekim941
  
  It required translation.
3/18/08

fatalhilarity

Infinite Jest - David Forster Wallace

Only just finished it - took over 6 weeks.

[reply]
3/18/08

pamelabaker

The Last Czar by Ira Peck...interesting but also very looooong

[reply]
3/18/08

nardeeisms

Oh, The Places You'll Go - Dr. Seuss

[reply]
3/18/08

DrowseyMonkey

Nabakov and James ... they love words! But I do like those 2 books. I couldn't read Lord of the Rings ... never did read it all. Drove me crazy! (And that's not a long drive, I know)

[reply]
3/18/08

offendedblogger

"A Child Called It" by Dave Pelzer.

I still have a hard time reading it, but have read it 4 or 5 times.

Difficult because of the subject matter, of course.

[reply]
1. 3/19/08
  
  twistedteenager
  
  I haven't read any of those types of books. Don't know why. There seems to be a whole genre for those abuse texts now.
2. 3/19/08
  
  Shiley
  
  That was exactly what I was going to say.
3. 3/19/08
  
  Shiley
  
  twisted teenager the first one is about the child Dave Peltzer The other 2 are about the man and how he evolved as a human being because of the abuse. They are there to let someone know that they aren't alone and you can get help.
4. 4/30/08
  
  cayasm
  
  The whole series of Dave Pelzer's books, makes difficult reading, also it stays with you for a long time after.
3/18/08

AngieA

The book of "Isaiah".

And that's all I am going to say as I dont want to get kicked out of my own website for talking or starting a religion thread. : x
lol

[reply]
1. 3/18/08
  
  offendedblogger
  
  Hehe I will just say I agree and I read it in Hebrew the last time!
2. 6/12/09
  
  SheGo
  
  LOL! What about Leviticus or Deuteronomy?! (sshhh...)
3/18/08

AngieA

Ohh? mannn it is the hardest book in the _ i_ L e.

I didnt say a word. : X

[reply]
3/18/08

AngieA

Offended - NOW I KNOW WHY YOUR SO SMART
If you got threw that in Hebrew, Thennnn....You do deserve
the BC Blogger Crown.

[reply]
1. 3/18/08
  
  offendedblogger
  
  Shalom and that's all I have to say about THAT hehehe.
3/19/08

AngieA

I hear ya

[reply]
3/19/08

lordlikely

I once tried to read one of those fake, plastic books they sometimes have lining the shelves of bookcases in furniture shops.

That was a most difficult read indeed, I can tell you.

I could never really get into it. Ha-ha!

[reply]
1. 3/19/08
  
  Puffmatty
  
  thats freak'n great, dude. I have a hard time staying awake reading my insurance policy.
3/19/08

LittleLovables

Assimov's Foundation Trilogy. I've been trying to read it for the past 4 years!

[reply]
1. 3/19/08
  
  janeycatte
  
  I have to agree with you on that.
  
  Also, Tolkein's Lord of the Rings was tough going ~ so much detail and focus on war stuff! I read fantasy to relax!
3/19/08

c0rin

Angela's Ashes... I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

[reply]
3/19/08

Manictastic

As I lay dieing by Faulkner. It's hard because in each chapter someone else is describing what's happening and you never really know who at the beginning, but I loved reading it.

[reply]
1. 3/19/08
  
  clioandme
  
  How about The Sound and the Fury?
3/19/08

bookchica

Suitable Boy : Vikram Seth. Not so hard to read, just that it was a really thick and heavy hardcover edition.

[reply]
3/19/08

acousticguitarist

Hacking Exposed 5th Edition - Stuart McClure

[reply]
3/19/08

clioandme

Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day is challenging me right now. A ton of characters and wild leaps here and there. Hard to keep track of the plot, if there is one, in this 1000+ page novel. Oodles of description and cultural references.

[reply]
3/19/08

kirewass

Marcel Proust and "Remembrance of Things Past" (À la recherche du temps perdu). "A 3,000-page monologue - book". More bought and borrowed than actually read.

[reply]
1. 3/19/08
  
  clioandme
  
  Please tell me that comes in more than one volume.
2. 3/19/08
  
  kirewass
  
  Stoneman: Yes. It's 7 volumes in Sweden.
3/19/08

wehireu

Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany was too hard for me to read other than several pages. I might try agains some time.

[reply]
3/19/08

ThriftShopRomantic

In terms of fiction, there was a prose version of the Odyssey that about did me in. It was SO repetitive-- probably because it was originally an oral story-- I had a hard time knowing where I was in it. It just seemed to go on and on forever.

Another one I had an issue with was Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure." Jude is one of those literary characters where he is doomed from the start. So I found myself shouting at the book, trying to warn him not to make these stupid mistakes.

Excruciating!

[reply]
1. 3/19/08
  
  twistedteenager
  
  I had to read the Odyssey a coupe of times for my A-Levels. I actually quite enjoyed it. Sometimes it did drag. What dragged more was The Aeniad (also for A-Levels) which is saying something.
3/19/08

dharmagypsy7

Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco.

I have been trying to finish this book for 10 years. I only got to page 5.
I don't think I am into Semantics much.

[reply]
1. 3/19/08
  
  Aprilfreelance
  
  It took me over a year to finish it. I kept putting it down then going back to it again later.
2. 3/20/08
  
  dharmagypsy7
  
  Yeah, hopefully I will get to page 10 by next 10 years.
3/19/08

Starlily

Probably The Prince, by Machiavelli. It's frustrating because it's such a short book, and page count is never an obstacle for me. It just seems to read like a legal document and he doesn't take the most direct route of saying anything...

[reply]
1. 3/19/08
  
  legbamel
  
  I had the same problem with The Prince. I've seen so many people say how amazing they thought it was, but it was so boring that I couldn't focus enough to process the thing.
  
  Emotionally, Ellison's Invisible Man was terribly painful for me, especially in the beginning. I cried more than once and almost abandoned it in the first chapter. It's a sign of good writing when you are yelling at characters and/or wanting to proect them.
2. 6/13/09
  
  funispower
  
  I just bought that at Barnes and Nobles, I love it, he is such an underhanded philosopher, but his ideas are sharp as needles. I do not want to be a machiavelli in the slightest, but the man knows politicians and what it takes to survive as a statesman.
3/19/08

cooper

For me it was "The Silmarillion". I thought it was a mess and never managed to finish it. I think I tired a couple of times.

[reply]
1. 11/29/08
  
  hatingtherain
  
  All of the LOTR books are long and boring. I think I've just thought of a cure for my insomnia! Thanx.
3/19/08

TheMrs

"Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand

Only because it was 1. long and 2. redundant

I kept thinking it would get better if I just kept reading. Sad to say, it didn't. At least not in my opinion.

[reply]
1. 4/30/08
  
  MadameX
  
  And most of the commas were in the wrong places.
2. 11/29/08
  
  hatingtherain
  
  I've read most of the science fiction "classics". For some reason I never got to Atlas Shrugged. Classic usually means it sucks, in my opinion.
3/19/08

kab625

Anna Karenina. I couldn't keep characters straight because the names were difficult to retain.

[reply]
3/19/08

leanneluvsu

So many. The Scarlett Letter and White Oleander.

[reply]
3/19/08

riverstyxxx

Those Berenstein Bears books are TOUGH! I still haven't been able to read "Where the wild things are" either. Something about those grinning monsters just gives me nightmares.

[reply]
1. 3/19/08
  
  vfanblog
  
  Not the Bernstein Bears... lol.
2. 3/19/08
  
  Shiley
  
  Lol!
3/19/08

vfanblog

Hamlet by Shakespeare.
I had to read this for two different literature classes.

Its probably the only lit I ever cheated on by renting the movie!!

[reply]
1. 3/20/08
  
  twistedteenager
  
  I find Shakespeare sooo difficult to get into. Everyone says he's the best writer/playwright England ever had. But I disagree.
2. 6/13/09
  
  funispower
  
  I loved hamlet, but to each is own.
3/19/08

pointlessbanter

Mein Kampf... seriously... I wanted to read it to understand what signs it showed in Hitler's philosophy, I just couldn't get through it.

[reply]
1. 3/19/08
  
  DeadRooster
  
  I found the part about controlling people through symbolism very interesting. I have been skeptical of the "super patriotic" ever since.
3/19/08

thedeathkid

Finnigan's Wake. Just kidding, actually I really had to plow through One Hundred Years of Solitude. It might be brilliant because it feels like one hundred years.

[reply]
3/19/08

shawie9877

To Be Human of Khrisna Murti... very basic philosophy; yet, complicated if you're still learning to walk:) It's the core of teaching for me.

[reply]
3/19/08

kaybday

Until recently, 'Moby Dick.' But I bought 'The Road to Dallas' and I am trying like hell to read it. It's numbing my mind almost as much as 'Atonement.' best, Kay

[reply]
1. 3/20/08
  
  legbamel
  
  Moby Dick is the only book I haven't been able to force myself thorugh. I had the thing for a year and never got more than about 50 pages into it. It's my literary Moby Dick. It's not that I don't get the symbolism, it's that I'm too bored to care about it by the time I finish a few sentences. If I want to think about white that much, I'll hang out at a paint store and look at the 87 shades of it.
3/19/08

DeadRooster

Easily the hardest to keep reading:

Ulysses by James Joyce

Or, if by "difficult" you mean hard to understand:

The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior

[reply]
3/19/08

kaybday

Oh. I forgot Joyce. Agreed.

[reply]
3/19/08

vfanblog

I have actually been trying to read Sinclair Lewis "It Can't Happen Here" about a fascist uprising in America in the 1930's. Theres a lot of political termonology in there I don't understand. It makes it hard.

[reply]
3/20/08

twistedteenager

Hmm, I haven't heard of many of these books. Maybe it's because they're too difficult to be popular. Or I'm just thick.

[reply]
4/30/08

ericdknapp

Is anyone here a writer? The most difficult book I've ever read is my own - after I've already written six drafts and proofed it about forty times ... that forty-first read is a killer!

[reply]
1. 4/30/08
  
  vfanblog
  
  I'm a writer, and my first book is the hardest for me to read. Everytime I pick it up I want to revise it again.
4/30/08

RTBjr73

Cosmos, by Carl Sagan...of course I am 9 when I read it. whew!

[reply]
4/30/08

genopianist54

The Quantum Physics, makes me dizzy...

[reply]
1. 6/13/09
  
  funispower
  
  oh come, you need to Heisenberg yourself some patience and shcroedinger your way through it. don't be a Planck about it, Einstein.
4/30/08

myriadlife

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Enjoyed it though.

[reply]
4/30/08

daniel23

Das Kapital - Karl Marx

[reply]
11/29/08

ophase

Theory and Phenomenology of Sparticles

[reply]
1. 6/13/09
  
  funispower
  
  damn, you a CERN man?
11/29/08

Arcticulates

I've usually been able to finish most books I have chosen to read, but a friend gave me the book 'Pet Cemetery' by Stephen King insisting that I read it, it was a great book.

It was so scary to me that I never finished it. It just seemed to real in human reactions, and that is what scared me, plus a small child was involved. I closed the book and never picked it up again. Didn't watch the movie either.
'shudder'

[reply]
11/29/08

freeatlast

Finnegan's Wake by Joyce

[reply]
11/29/08

MissAttica

The glass bead game by Herman Hesse was a bit of work. I was glad I stuck to it because it was a great read!

[reply]
11/29/08

hatingtherain

Anything written in present tense. The only particular book comes to mind is Red Shift. I don't think I read more than the first few pages.

And I can read almost anything if I have to or if I'm bored enough.

[reply]
11/29/08

JohnCassian

The most difficult book I am reading now is “The Love of Learning and The Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture,” by Jean Leclercq. The book is a series of lectures given in Rome in 1955.

The book is difficult for me because I must keep rereading the same material to understand all that is being conveyed. The first time through I knew I was seeing only part of the book’s content.

Link to book on LibraryThing:
tinyurl.com/6fk2m6

[reply]
11/29/08

carsonfb

Not really a book, more of a short story...

"The Pit and the Pendulum" by E. A. Poe in 2nd grade. I had to look up so many words in the dictionary at the age of 8 that I kept losing focus of the story. Loved Poe as a kid though.

[reply]
4/25/09

archiegottlieb

i initially had a hard time reading 'capitalism and schizophrenia' by deleuze and guattari, but somehow it got easier. i'd like to get to the second volume at some point.

[reply]
4/25/09

onceafortnight

Tied for War & Peace and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in the original English - yuk!

[reply]
4/25/09

greencurmudgeon

I have to agree with the mention of Ulysses by James Joyce. Maddening.

[reply]
4/25/09

Greenlava

Kamasutra sumthing...not the most difficult but definitely the hardest

[reply]
1. 6/13/09
  
  funispower
  
  yea, i heard it has no plot
4/25/09

harveyavatar

Aristotle's metaphysics, especially if you need to read Ancient greek to be sure get an error free version

[reply]
4/25/09

Epicharis

Bodin - On Sovereignty

Just because it was so unbearably dull...

[reply]
4/25/09

Stillthinking

For the, the most difficult book I have ever read is "Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon. Then, "Their Eyes Were Watching God".

I have a hard time with novels that write in colloquial dialects and that play with language and words. I guess I am just not sophisticated enough to enjoy it.

[reply]
4/25/09

nothingprofound

I'm impressed. I find any book the hardest to read. Words, word, words.

[reply]
4/27/09

yourfindit

I'd say Shakespeare. The unedited versions. The words were just beyond me.

[reply]
4/27/09

HollytheHousewife

the BIBLE

[reply]
4/27/09

sarah123

stats book at university. never did understand what the heck I was reading.

[reply]
4/27/09

dsriharsha

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Unabridged. I read it when I was about 12 or 13. I had read the abridged version with simple english by then, but when I took up the Unabridged and original version, I had a very hard time comprehending the dialects and slang used in the book.

[reply]
4/27/09

musampa

Kuran

[reply]
4/29/09

drjay1966

Don't read no books.

They're all too hard.

[reply]
6/12/09

sellytapgirl

Ooh, The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky. I've been reading it for like 2 years. Still just CAN'T finish it, and I'm so lost, I think I need to start over.

[reply]
6/12/09

Againsthegrainblog

Anything by Hemmingway because I found him sooo boring. And I love to read but I cannot get into his works. I've tried several times. I also found the first Shakespeare play I read to be quite difficult. And it was Romeo and Juliet which I'm not a huge fan of even now.

[reply]
6/12/09

expatriare

Les Miserables, was, well, miserable.

[reply]
1. 6/12/09
  
  LolitaV
  
  lol, i read it in french and I cried for Cosette. I mean the whole book was hard (emotionally)
  I also had a hard time with the last chapter of the H.Potter series. I cried all the way through it, in the dark (flashlight) @ 2am.
6/12/09

SheGo

For me it was Catch 22

[reply]
6/12/09

JonnyDunMind

I gave up on lord of the rings (but to read something else),

then my 4 brother, 4 years younger than me went and read all 3, plus the hobbit

[reply]
6/12/09

Alcomum

Had to read Les Jeux Sont Fait for my French A-Level. In French. I still have no idea what it was about.

[reply]
6/12/09

Rory

#1 - Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
#2 - first time I tried to read Dune - Frank Herbert (I tried again a couple of years later and it was a breeze ... wierd.)

[reply]
6/12/09

nothingprofound

The Daily Racing Form. I haven't picked 12 winners yet.

[reply]
6/12/09

ushakrishnan

I find Salman Rushdie to be quite a difficult read. Very intense. Dune was hard to get through too; the first part wasn't too bad, but then it just got very very long...

[reply]
1. 6/13/09
  
  Flatbadger
  
  Definitely Dune!
6/12/09

dcarroll

I had a tough time reading The Color Purple in the beginning. When I adapted to the way it was written, then it was fine.
Other than that, has anyone read a cliff-hanger of a college philosophy text? GOOOOOD READDDDing!!!

[reply]
6/13/09

Chucklington

Titus Groan is slow going, but it's very rewarding.

[reply]
6/13/09

heathengrounds

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. Despite having seen the excellent movie before read the book, it took me two readings to really get a full grasp of the vocabulary and dialect used.

[reply]
6/13/09

funispower

Pathophysiology: A biological basis for disease in children and adults, is a fun read, but it gets ya after a while.

[reply]
6/14/09

lovelila

Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut

I had to read some pages a few times to figure out WTF was going on.

[reply]
6/14/09

egenie

If a book get's difficult, I just get a different one. I usually read fantasy, wizards and magic. I tried Sci Fi, but a lot of them use names that I can't even pronounce.

[reply]