# What is the most difficult modern English book to understand? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 19, 2012, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745 "2012-07-19T17:12:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Docta\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Docta\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Docta_G)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/81 "2012-07-24T22:00:55Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/82 "2012-07-25T12:22:30Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/83 "2012-07-25T14:49:28Z")
> [@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? ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/84 "2012-07-26T03:44:56Z")
What sort of monster sets Foucault for a class of 19 year olds? And more than one work? ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/85 "2012-07-26T03:57:43Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/86 "2012-07-26T04:13:36Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/87 "2012-07-26T04:20:31Z")
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! ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/88 "2012-07-26T07:34:20Z")
> [@Svejk\_1](#): > > 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.) ---
**Author:** ![Grrlbrarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrlbrarian/32/4048_2.png) [@Grrlbrarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrlbrarian)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/89 "2012-07-26T20:58:25Z")
> [@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. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![jordanr2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@jordanr2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jordanr2)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/90 "2012-07-26T22:57:26Z")
> [@Svejk\_1](#): > > 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!) ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/91 "2012-07-27T09:36:03Z")
> [@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?) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/92 "2012-07-27T09:42:15Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/93 "2012-07-27T10:10:20Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/94 "2012-07-27T14:54:14Z")
> [@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. > [@robert\_columbia](#): > > What is the most difficult to understand book, poem, or other document that is written in [Modern English](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_English) (yes, this includes Shakespeare and the King James Bible, but doesn’t include Chaucer)? ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/95 "2012-07-27T16:32:32Z")
> [@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… ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/96 "2012-07-27T17:51:51Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/97 "2012-07-27T18:11:23Z")
[William McGonagall](http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/) is difficult to read – easy to undestand, but difficult to read, in that it is Vogonesque. ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/98 "2012-07-27T20:10:10Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![epolo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@epolo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epolo)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/99 "2012-07-27T21:08:48Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2012, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745/100 "2012-07-28T02:19:03Z")
Read half of the Sound and the Fury and realized I had no idea what was going on. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-difficult-modern-english-book-to-understand/628745.md?page=6)