What is the most difficult modern English book to understand?

[jayrey]

I'm embarrassed to admit that, for me, "War and Peace" was almost indecipherable. Of course, when I was reading it, I'd been in chemotherapy for three months and really had no brain left to keep track of all those multisyllabic names. Maybe the characters had been "Smith" or "Clark" I would have had an easier time of it. As for Faulkner, I won't go near him. I felt stupid enough struggling with W&P.

I'm glad to see someone else mention "Fifty Shades of Gray." I know it doesn't really qualify as the hardest book to read, but certainly ranks near the top of the Worthless Books to Read list.

[njtt]

Originally Posted by PlainJain

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
by Robt. Pirsig

What!! I first read Zen and the Art . . . in a single night, unable to put it down. And I read it again (something I very rarely do with any novel). It was a major best seller, too. I don't think I was the only person who really liked it.

[Crotalus]

I'll admit to not having attempted many difficult books. I read Joyce's Ulysses when I was in my 20s. It was a struggle and there wasn't much reward, but I finished it and convinced myself at the time that I understood it fairly well. Finnegan's Wake is incomprehensible to me, the most incomprehensible book I have attempted to read. There are parts of it that are a pleasure to read, I mean sentences or at most paragraphs, pleasurable just for the wordplay and the rhythm. The quote that poster FinnAgain uses for a sig is an example of this. It's fun in a Gertrude Stein kind of way. I just have been unable to absorb any meaning out of any consecutive paragraphs or pages.

Infinite Jest, while difficult, I found understandable and rewarding enough to have reread.

I'm convinced that I have become a somewhat lazy reader in my late 50s. I still read a lot, but challenging fiction is too much work. I guess this means that my plans to read some important old classics in my old age will probably not work out.

[thelurkinghorror]

Originally Posted by Sitnam

I found House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski difficult. The confused side notes, digressions and asides are part of the theme and I'm pretty sure you aren't even supposed to make sense of it.

Still isn't Finnegan's Wake though.

Oh yeah. I have a copy, barely cracked it because it's so intimidating. And I am an obsessive person who needs to read and understand every word.


Oh, and to nitpick (multiple posts):

The book is Finnegans Wake

The song is Finnegan's Wake

It's easy to remember. The title that rapes the rules of grammar is the work that rapes the English language.

[MrSquishy]

I know it's not a book, but I'm still surprised nobody has mentioned the Time Cube yet.

[Atomic Mama]

Originally Posted by aesop

I have tried to get through Faulkner's As I Lay Dying at least twice. You know how if at first you don't succeed you're supposed to try, try again? Whoever said that never read Faulkner.

Or you never been to Mississippi.

[ralph124c]

Does anybody remember the old 50's movie "The Young Lions"?
In the flick, Montgomery Cliff plays a Jewish corporal who is being hassled by his company sergeant. The sergeant spies a copy of "Ulysses" in Cliff's footlocker, and yells at him "that's a dirty book-get rid of it".
It always made me wonder how an army DI/sergeant would have known anything about such a weird book as "Ulysses"-much less browbeat a private for having a copy.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by ralph124c

It always made me wonder how an army DI/sergeant would have known anything about such a weird book as "Ulysses"-much less browbeat a private for having a copy.

No, that's actually pretty accurate. Ulysses was at the center of a major censorship controversy so many people who had never read it knew it was a "dirty" book.

[thelurkinghorror]

Originally Posted by ralph124c

Does anybody remember the old 50's movie "The Young Lions"?
In the flick, Montgomery Cliff plays a Jewish corporal who is being hassled by his company sergeant. The sergeant spies a copy of "Ulysses" in Cliff's footlocker, and yells at him "that's a dirty book-get rid of it".
It always made me wonder how an army DI/sergeant would have known anything about such a weird book as "Ulysses"-much less browbeat a private for having a copy.

My response would be: "You would throw out a book about the guy who helped win the Civil War? Commie!"

Or alternatively, the book about the guy who spent 20 years at sea due to hubris.

[Slow Moving Vehicle]

Foucault's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco. It's one of my very favorite books, and has helped shaped my world-view, but it is extremely allusive and abstruse and thus challenging. Doesn't help that it starts in medias res with a narrator who may or may not be experiencing a psychotic break. It's worth slogging through, though, and there is in fact a decent plot.

[carnut]

Originally Posted by Athena

Anything by James Joyce.

You can close the thread now.

Noooo, I love James Joyce. His wit can be obscure, but figuring it out is part of the fun.

[carnut]

Le Guin's Buffalo Gals was a very tough read for me. At the time, I was having a lot of difficulty in my life and I actually gave up on it. She's an author I adore and I actually gave the book away (it was laughing at me, I'm sure). I wonder, if I read it now that I am older and have my head on straighter, will it still be nonsensical to me?

[Ravenman]

I think Joyce takes the cake, but I am compelled to insist that Mason & Dixon is a much, much harder read than Gravity's Rainbow. GR is Ikea directions for building an MC Escher infinite staircase. M&D is backcountry yokels trying to describe how to build a semiconductor.

[Animastryfe]

Originally Posted by jayrey

I'm embarrassed to admit that, for me, "War and Peace" was almost indecipherable. Of course, when I was reading it, I'd been in chemotherapy for three months and really had no brain left to keep track of all those multisyllabic names. Maybe the characters had been "Smith" or "Clark" I would have had an easier time of it. As for Faulkner, I won't go near him. I felt stupid enough struggling with W&P.

Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov was the first Russian novel I read, and I had a very difficult time with it because of the Russian names, and how seemingly every character has a dozen different names. War and Peace was the second Russian novel I have read. I was more used to the Russian naming style by then, but I think I will read it again within the next year (I originally finished it late last year). Now I'm reading Anna Karenin, which I find is much easier to understand than the other two books I mentioned due to my current semi-familiarity with Russian names.

[sewalk]

I can't believe that no one's mentioned Atlanta Nights by Travis Tea.

Or does it not count because it was intentionally written so as to be indecipherable (missing chapters, duplicate chapters, random computer-generated text, etc)? I bought a copy of it a few years back just to see if it was as bad as described. It was.
On a related note, I challenge anyone to read aloud The Eye of Argon, in one sitting, without any breaks for laughter (or crying - from the pain brought about by trying to stifle the laughter).

[bppubjr]

I accidentally picked up Samuel Delaney's Dhalgren in an airport some years back. Couldn't get through much of that at all. Went back later and read about it on wikipedia, and realized I wouldn't have cared for it even if it had been a little easier.

[DianaG]

Originally Posted by Sitnam

I found House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski difficult. The confused side notes, digressions and asides are part of the theme and I'm pretty sure you aren't even supposed to make sense of it.

I love that book. it's probably in my top five. It's also a ton of fun to read on the subway, and enjoy the bewildered looks from people who see me turning it aroundandaroundandaround.

I actually came in here to mention Mason & Dixon, which I gave up on. Just didn't care enough to keep going. I haven't attempted Gravity's Rainbow yet but it's on my list of things to do before I die. So is Infinite Jest, which has sat on the shelf taunting me for years now.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by elbows

"The Glass Bead Game", by Hermann Hesse.

Yeah, yeah, it won the Nobel Prize, it was still a slog to get through, and I adored some of his other books!

As is usually the case, Hesse won the NPfL for his entire body of work, not just for that novel.

[Sunspace]

I found that Radix by A A Attanasio was a pretty hard slog. And I speak as one who enjoyed Rudy Rucker's book on infinity. It was a long time ago and I don't remember whether I finished it.

[Beastly Rotter]

Originally Posted by Baron Greenback

Who can fail to be moved by this passage from page 362 of volume 1?

Too many characters and not enough plot.

[The Lizard of Oz]

Originally Posted by smsaks2000

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Brutal....

I thought that was a wonderful book... definitely not as brutal as Finnegans Wake. Not even close. I had to reread some things a couple of times, but that's what makes a good book.

[jordanr2]

Originally Posted by drewtwo99

Finnegans Wake is not a book. It's a joke. It's also only arguably English, so it gets disqualified for two reasons.

Simply not true.

[jordanr2]

Originally Posted by thelurkinghorror

It's easy to remember. The title that rapes the rules of grammar is the work that rapes the English language.

It doesn't necessarily "rape the rules of grammar," though - read it as an imperative or as a complete sentence!

[jordanr2]

Anyway, my vote is to William Gaddis's JR. I read The Recognitions with pleasure, though it took a long time, but this gave me a headache that got worse with each page. I'm sure someday I'll read it, probably when I'm old and gray, but for now I think it's just too much.

[woodstockbirdybird]

Didn't finish Finnegans Wake (did anybody?), but I have read Gravity's Rainbow and Ulysses, and found GR much more difficult. And I maintain that if you can get through the first 150 pages of GR, you can basically tell people you've read it - it's not as if it becomes increasingly more brilliant in the following 600 pages or anything (IMHO).

I also found John Dos Passos's USA Trilogy pretty far up there on the difficulty scale.

[thelurkinghorror]

Originally Posted by jordanr2

It doesn't necessarily "rape the rules of grammar," though - read it as an imperative or as a complete sentence!

Needs a comma then: "Finnegans, wake!" as in, Finnegan family, wake up! Without the comma, it sound better to me as "the Finnegans wake."

[lisiate]

Originally Posted by DianaG

I love that book. it's probably in my top five. It's also a ton of fun to read on the subway, and enjoy the bewildered looks from people who see me turning it aroundandaroundandaround.

I actually came in here to mention Mason & Dixon, which I gave up on. Just didn't care enough to keep going. I haven't attempted Gravity's Rainbow yet but it's on my list of things to do before I die. So is Infinite Jest, which has sat on the shelf taunting me for years now.

Originally Posted by Ravenman

I think Joyce takes the cake, but I am compelled to insist that Mason & Dixon is a much, much harder read than Gravity's Rainbow. GR is Ikea directions for building an MC Escher infinite staircase. M&D is backcountry yokels trying to describe how to build a semiconductor.

I agree that Mason & Dixon is a harder read than Gravity's Rainbow. I know I read it, but I couldn't tell you anything about it, other than it wasn't worth the effort.

[Ellen Cherry]

Originally Posted by smsaks2000

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Brutal....

I read about 50 pages and gave up. I'm willing to work for my literature, but not that much.

Faulkner's the Sound and the Fury is the one that does it for me. Jaysus. Even my literature degree didn't penetrate that one, and I studied it in two different classes!

[nikonikosuru]

Originally Posted by 2ManyTacos

Holy shit. I remember having to read The Scarlett Letter in the 11th grade and wanting to tear the fucking book to shreds the entire time. It's been a few years since then so maybe now I could get a better handle on it, but gawddamn that book made no fucking sense to me at the time.

I came in here to post the exact same book! Exact same grade as well. God, I hated that book with a passion. And this is coming from a person who loves to read. I went back to my old high school and found that they don't use that book anymore, can't say I'm surprised.

[Docta G]

Originally Posted by Baron Greenback

Who can fail to be moved by this passage from page 362 of volume 1?

RIP Logicism

[Docta G]

Originally Posted by aesop

I have tried to get through Faulkner's As I Lay Dying at least twice. You know how if at first you don't succeed you're supposed to try, try again? Whoever said that never read Faulkner.

I don't begrudge you.

[Mona Lisa Simpson]

I was supposed to read most of the work of Michel Foucault for a course one year, and although it was easy enough to read each page I could never understand the great sweeping arc of what the heck he was about. I didn't really understand the course either, evidently. I was 19 and spent most of that year majoring in wine from the depanneur and dating a bunch of theatre students, so maybe it isn't Michel Foucault's fault. I still have the incomplete from that course on my transcript because I never did a paper. I kept my books from that course until my most recent move, realizing that in 20 years they had just sat on my shelf, as someone put it "taunting me" so now they are property of my ex local library. Incase someone wants to read a barely cracked copy of "The Archeology of Knowledge"

Reading his wikipedia entry, he might actually be interesting enough for me to read now, especially the stuff on the care of the mentally ill, seeing as I work in that field. However those books are gone where they can no longer give me a panic attack or a case of the guilties for having an incomplete on my record.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by Docta G

I don't begrudge you.

I read As I Lay Dying in High School and loved it. I didn't think it was difficult at all, but maybe a lot of it went over my head...

One other thing about Hermann Hesse (mentioned above). I don't think any of his books were written in English. German, no?

[lisiate]

What sort of monster sets Foucault for a class of 19 year olds? And more than one work?

[drewtwo99]

Originally Posted by nikonikosuru

I came in here to post the exact same book! Exact same grade as well. God, I hated that book with a passion. And this is coming from a person who loves to read. I went back to my old high school and found that they don't use that book anymore, can't say I'm surprised.

There is some sort of prologue thing to that book, that is completely arbitrary and makes absolutely no sense. Skipping the first 50 or 60 pages really helps. Skipping around even once you get to the main story helps more. It's actually decent.

[Biffy the Elephant Shrew]

Originally Posted by woodstockbirdybird

Didn't finish Finnegans Wake (did anybody?)

Of course. I've read it straight through twice, and read parts of it innumerable times.

I also found John Dos Passos's USA Trilogy pretty far up there on the difficulty scale.

I've just started reading this for the first time. Haven't run into anything actually difficult yet, but I'm not very far in.

[Švejk]

I've been reading William S. Burroughs Naked Lunch, which I've been enjoying, although I don't really know what it is about. It does not really have a plot or a narrative that I can discern, or characters, so I'm not really sure that it's a novel. Maybe more of a long winding poem in paragraph form. It does paint a certain picture or emotional image, it conveys something, but just not very clearly.

As for Foucault and Hegel, those are 1) not really English books; 2) not really entry level reading. They're also not novels. That does not make them easy, but if they'd be allowed then surely the answer to the OPs question must be some incredibly obscure tome in physics or something that only a handful of specialists really understand.

That said, I've studied Hegel's Phenomenology and there are major parts of it where no consensus exists on how it should be interpreted - and that is not because there's strongly opposed viewpoints that everyone rallies to, but rather because people actually don't know. Foucault is actually a lot more accessible and his ideas can be more or less clearly interpreted, which is more than one can say for Hegel - but I think the man was a terrible writer and should not have been allowed to publish a single word of his gibberish. Awful, awful gibberish!

[Mona Lisa Simpson]

Originally Posted by Švejk

I've been reading William S. Burroughs Naked Lunch, which I've been enjoying, although I don't really know what it is about. It does not really have a plot or a narrative that I can discern, or characters, so I'm not really sure that it's a novel. Maybe more of a long winding poem in paragraph form. It does paint a certain picture or emotional image, it conveys something, but just not very clearly.

As for Foucault and Hegel, those are 1) not really English books; 2) not really entry level reading. They're also not novels. That does not make them easy, but if they'd be allowed then surely the answer to the OPs question must be some incredibly obscure tome in physics or something that only a handful of specialists really understand.

That said, I've studied Hegel's Phenomenology and there are major parts of it where no consensus exists on how it should be interpreted - and that is not because there's strongly opposed viewpoints that everyone rallies to, but rather because people actually don't know. Foucault is actually a lot more accessible and his ideas can be more or less clearly interpreted, which is more than one can say for Hegel - but I think the man was a terrible writer and should not have been allowed to publish a single word of his gibberish. Awful, awful gibberish!

You are right, Foucault is not English nor novel, so it doesn't count. It is just the longest I ever kept something on my book shelves without completion.

The usual Joyce novels come to mind, but I was never foolish enough to own them, just tried once out of the library realized that I could have read six books on my bucket list in the time I could parse out 10 pages.

I read "Candide" in French and had no idea it was funny until I gave in and started reading it in English along side. That doesn't count though, but at age 17 I had trouble understanding humour in French. (You still do, points out my boyfriend when I smile 4 times during "Et Dieu Crea LaFleque" while he is rolling around on the floor howling.)

[Grrlbrarian]

Originally Posted by aesop

I have tried to get through Faulkner's As I Lay Dying at least twice. You know how if at first you don't succeed you're supposed to try, try again? Whoever said that never read Faulkner.

Really? I ADORED that book, read it several times. To each her own taste, I s'pose. On the other hand, never have read Finnegan's Wake.

[jordanr2]

Originally Posted by Švejk

Foucault is actually a lot more accessible and his ideas can be more or less clearly interpreted, which is more than one can say for Hegel - but I think the man was a terrible writer and should not have been allowed to publish a single word of his gibberish. Awful, awful gibberish!

Foucault's written prose leaves a lot to be desired, but I think his lectures are far more lucid: I've been working through Hermeneutics of the Subject for the past couple of months and it's challenging, but I'm certainly not struggling to understand his meaning - it's just very dense. (And that entire sentence feels a lot more pretentious than I meant it to!)

[JoseB]

Originally Posted by sewalk

On a related note, I challenge anyone to read aloud The Eye of Argon, in one sitting, without any breaks for laughter (or crying - from the pain brought about by trying to stifle the laughter).

Oh, this brings me memories... In 2008 I took upon myself the task of translating "The Eye of Argon" into Spanish, trying to keep the... uh... idiosyncrasies that pervade the original in English.

It was an eye-opening effort, it provided an unforgettable experience, it helped me hone my translating abilities to the max, and it is something that I won't ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER try to do again. The subsequent mental scarring is not worth it.

If anybody wants to have a look at my translation of "The Eye of Argon" into Spanish, message me. I will be happy to provide a copy.

(Yes, misery loves company, why do you ask?)

[Nava]

Originally Posted by JoseB

If anybody wants to have a look at my translation of "The Eye of Argon" into Spanish, message me. I will be happy to provide a copy.

I may already have... weren't you circulating it at a meeting, or fragments of it? I still say that as bad as it is, it is not much worse than the books which inspired it. Robert E. Howard was amazingly bad.

[Muffin]

I don't think that Finnegans Wake was written in English. Derived primarily from English, but not written in English.

Might as well be speaking in tongues.

[njtt]

Originally Posted by Mona Lisa Simpson

You are right, Foucault is not English nor novel, so it doesn't count.

The OP does not specify novels – quite the contrary – and, pace Švejk, it also does not specify “entry level reading”, even by implication. It does specify “written in Modern English”, but from the context it is the “modern” that the OP is concerned with. He wants to exclude stuff like Beowulf, which is really in a different language. I think it is within the spirit of the OP to include translations into modern English from other languages.

Originally Posted by robert_columbia

What is the most difficult to understand book, poem, or other document that is written in Modern English (yes, this includes Shakespeare and the King James Bible, but doesn't include Chaucer)?

[JoseB]

Originally Posted by Nava

I may already have... weren't you circulating it at a meeting, or fragments of it? I still say that as bad as it is, it is not much worse than the books which inspired it. Robert E. Howard was amazingly bad.

Indeed I did I actually organized a public reading during the 2008 RAM (with the usual rules about trying not to giggle, keeping a straight face and being all dramatic and stuff) and it was a great success! I have passed it around in other gatherings. You may have had a look at it during one of those...

Nonetheless, if you want a copy, ask and I'll send it

Re.: Robert Howard and "Conan", even though he was over-the-top and bad and everything, he at least managed to somehow "suck" you into the story to a certain extent. Poor Mr. Theis only "sucked", generally speaking...

[Švejk]

Originally Posted by njtt

The OP does not specify novels – quite the contrary – and, pace Švejk, it also does not specify “entry level reading”, even by implication. It does specify “written in Modern English”, but from the context it is the “modern” that the OP is concerned with. He wants to exclude stuff like Beowulf, which is really in a different language. I think it is within the spirit of the OP to include translations into modern English from other languages.

You're right, I went back and noticed that too. At the risk of offending the OP, though, that's a pretty bad question. Is that proof that 1+1=2 more or less difficult than Finnegans Wake? Do you allow for a distinction between things that are potentially understandable, let's say if you actually know the mathematical symbols or the philosophical concepts, and things on the other hand that are just very difficult to approach regardless of background knowledge, like some of the novels that have been mentioned? If you want to have a meaningful answer to that question, you'd have to restrict it to genre somehow and come up with a working definition of 'difficult'. People have mentioned some of the Russian novels in here as difficult, because they don't get the Russian names, but that is difficult in a very different way than let's say some of Joyce's or Pynchon's work.

[Muffin]

William McGonagall is difficult to read -- easy to undestand, but difficult to read, in that it is Vogonesque.

[Gedd]

Originally Posted by Ravenman

I think Joyce takes the cake, but I am compelled to insist that Mason & Dixon is a much, much harder read than Gravity's Rainbow. GR is Ikea directions for building an MC Escher infinite staircase. M&D is backcountry yokels trying to describe how to build a semiconductor.

I didn't know "Mason & Dixon" was anything more than a line, so I looked it up. From the Wikipedia entry:

The novel's scope takes in aspects of established Colonial American history including the call of the West, the often ignored histories of women, Native Americans, and slaves . . .

I'm with you so far.

. . . plus excursions into geomancy, Deism, a hollow Earth, and — perhaps — alien abduction. The novel also contains philosophical discussions and parables of automata/robots, the afterlife, slavery, feng shui and others. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Nevil Maskelyne, Samuel Johnson, Thomas Jefferson, and John Harrison's marine chronometer all make appearances

I almost want to read it just to see how all those fit into one book.

[epolo]

Of Pynchon's tomes, I loved Mason & Dixon and haven't yet read GR, but I found Against the Day to be seriously hard going.

I'm currently reading 2666 by Bolano, and it's getting to be a real slog.

Someone mentioned Le Guin upthread. I found Always Coming Home to be quite a challenge when I read it (as a kid). It's basically an anthropology dissertation on a tribe that doesn't actually exist.

In the vein of Time Cube, one might also mention the Book of the SubGenius or even a bottle of Dr. Bronner's soap. The soap bottle gets extra difficult-to-read points for being printed in tiny font on a slippery bottle.

One of the things that made Infinite Jest so hard was all the freaking end notes (sometimes with their own footnotes) breaking up the narrative. Has anyone yet written an actual work of literature expressly for the web? Something where the narrative goes in different directions down various hyperlinked paths and you can't tell whether you've even read the whole thing? I could imagine such a work being both rewarding and incredibly frustrating.

[Laggard]

Read half of the Sound and the Fury and realized I had no idea what was going on.