# What's the last novel you read that you didn't understand? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 6, 2017, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966 "2017-05-06T01:39:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Evin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/59ef9b/32.png) [@Evin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evin)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/41 "2017-05-08T17:11:07Z")
John Barth’s _Giles Goat-Boy_. Read it cover to cover. I knew by osmosis not to tackle _Finnegan’s Wake_, etc. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/42 "2017-05-08T17:41:36Z")
I have attempted to read Joyce’s _ **Finnegans Wake** _ about 4 or 5 times in my life, and have always given up quickly in despair and disgust. _ **A Clockwork Orange** _ baffled me twenty-five years ago… but then it made perfect sense to me three years ago. Go figure. Faulkner’s \*\*\*The Sound and the Fury \*\*\* was gobbledygook for 20 minutes… then something clicked, and I found it made sense. I have no idea why. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/43 "2017-05-08T21:22:59Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > While everything isn’t _tied up_ at the end in the sense of being unresolved, since the plot lines are still in motion at the end, I think things are pretty much tied up in terms of unanswered questions (unless of course there’s something huge I missed which is a distinct possibility). It’s just that they’re suddenly answered in a hamhanded expository way rather than being gradually revealed. I think a few questions, perhaps even the major ones, are left unresolved.The very beginning of the book, which takes place after everything else, has Hal babbling incoherently. I know one theory is that his toothbrush was dosed with a nasty drug by someone at the academy, but I think I picked up a reference to Hal and Don digging up a copy of one of Hal’s father’s films, something his father created especially to get Hal to come out of his shell. For that matter, how do Hal and Don eventually meet? They’re arguably the two main characters, and spend most of the book practically neighbors, but never encounter one another.It’s been years since I read it. I don’t recall what happened to the Quebecois separatists, where they got the Entertainment, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Patx2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/73ab20/32.png) [@Patx2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patx2)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/44 "2017-05-08T23:27:58Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > I didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on in **As I Lay Dying** , by William Faulkner. Could not get past the dialect. > > Also, while not a novel, I want to mention T. S. Eliot’s **The Waste Land** , which I also didn’t understand. Can’t use dialect as an excuse for that one. I haven’t picked up a copy of The Waste Land in years, but I am with you on that, I was clueless and I really don’t think another attempt would do me much good. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/45 "2017-05-09T02:08:19Z")
> [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > Well, I’ve never had anything I couldn’t understand Then you should definitely read _The Children’s Home_ and see if you understand it. It makes way, way less sense to me than either _The Crying of Lot 49_ or _The Books of the New Sun_ did. from what I managed to take away from the ending, it ultimately had something to do with the holocaust, alternate dimensions, and cabbage patch kids being real children. Yes, I’m actually serious about all three things. ---
**Author:** ![MacSpon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@MacSpon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacSpon)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/46 "2017-05-09T02:20:09Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > The Final Encyclopedia by Gordon Dickson. It’s the grand culiminating finale of the whole Dorsai cycle…and I am just bodgered if I can see what the point was supposed to be. For what it’s worth, it isn’t the finale. Dickson wrote a few more books in the series. In particular, _The Chantry Guild_ continues on after the end of _The Final Encyclopedia_. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/47 "2017-05-09T02:48:32Z")
_Too Like the Lighting_ by Ada Palmer. I could probably manage to give a reasonable description of the premise and plot, but I still feel like I … missed more than I got, somehow, especially in the last third or so. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/48 "2017-05-09T17:04:15Z")
Long, long ago I read Robert Shea’s and Robert Anton Wilson’s _Illuminatus Trilogy_. I did not realize it was a trilogy when I purchased and read book one _The Eye in the Pyramid_, which left me befuddled. Then I discovered there was a second book, _The Golden Apple_, which I was sure would help make sense of everything. Nope. Then I read book three _Leviathan_. I was still hopelessly confused. ETA: from Wikipedia, > [@](#): > > The plot meanders between the thoughts, hallucinations and inner voices, real and imagined, of its many characters – ranging from a squirrel to a New York City detective to an artificial intelligence – as well as through time (past, present, and future), and sometimes in mid-sentence. Much of the back story is explained via dialogue between characters, who recount unreliable, often mutually contradictory, versions of their supposed histories. There are even parts in the book in which the narrative reviews and jokingly deconstructs the work itself. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/49 "2017-05-09T18:00:02Z")
“The Bead Game”, by Herman Hesse It’s such slow slogging, and it’s not short. I made it past 3/4 through. But then I almost lost the will to live, and gave up. Ugh. ---
**Author:** ![eulalia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eulalia/32/457_2.png) [@eulalia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eulalia)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2017, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/50 "2017-05-10T05:32:10Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > “The Bead Game”, by Herman Hesse > > It’s such slow slogging, and it’s not short. I made it past 3/4 through. But then I almost lost the will to live, and gave up. Ugh. I kind of liked that one, but then I made the mistake of trying to read Steppenwolf. I couldn’t even get interested. ---
**Author:** ![eulalia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eulalia/32/457_2.png) [@eulalia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eulalia)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2017, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/51 "2017-05-10T05:33:32Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Long, long ago I read Robert Shea’s and Robert Anton Wilson’s _Illuminatus Trilogy_. > > I did not realize it was a trilogy when I purchased and read book one _The Eye in the Pyramid_, which left me befuddled. Then I discovered there was a second book, _The Golden Apple_, which I was sure would help make sense of everything. Nope. Then I read book three _Leviathan_. I was still hopelessly confused. > ETA: from Wikipedia, I don’t think you’re really supposed to understand that trilogy. I enjoyed it anyway. ---
**Author:** ![eulalia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eulalia/32/457_2.png) [@eulalia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eulalia)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2017, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/52 "2017-05-10T05:34:41Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > I tried to read _Slaughterhouse Five_. I got maybe a hundred pages in. While I understood what was literally going on, I couldn’t for the life of me understand why people rave about that book. It was boring. Cat’s Cradle was better, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2017, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/53 "2017-05-15T03:07:22Z")
Speaking of _Finnegans Wake_, widely acknowledged to be… complex, is there an edition with simple footnotes giving variant readings for each word? For example, if the text reads, “wipe your glosses with what you know”, then on the bottom half of the page one would find glosses = glasses, asses, etc. Seems to me that would go a long way towards helping the otherwise intelligent reader not miss something just because they are not fluent in German or Irish or whatever is packed into a particular word. Maybe a 50/50 mix of text and apparatus on each page? ---
**Author:** ![chizzuk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@chizzuk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chizzuk)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2017, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/54 "2017-05-15T03:35:15Z")
Another vote for _As I Lay Dying_ here. I tried to read it 3 times and could not even grasp what was happening on a basic level. The stream of consciousness writing style and the constant perspective switching between characters who all seemed a few sandwiches short of a picnic left me utterly confused. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2017, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/55 "2017-05-15T13:50:31Z")
I keep waiting for someone else to mention “House of Leaves” but maybe I’m the only one who couldn’t figure out what the heck was going on there. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2017, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/56 "2017-05-15T21:36:24Z")
I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel I didn’t understand, but I have read novels that puzzled me until I read them again. My best example is _The Source_, by James Michener. I read it and didn’t understand why I didn’t like it, as I did most of his novels. Then I read a lot more history, particularly Biblical history, and things were more clear, and I actually ended up liking the book very much. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2017, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/57 "2017-05-15T23:43:48Z")
Confession Time: many years ago. Years before it became a TV series, I made three attempts to read Game of Thrones (I mean the actual book of that title) and gave up around page 60ish or so because I couldn’t tell who was who or what was going on. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2017, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/58 "2017-05-16T00:03:13Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > _Too Like the Lighting_ by Ada Palmer. I could probably manage to give a reasonable description of the premise and plot, but I still feel like I … missed more than I got, somehow, especially in the last third or so. It doesn’t help that it’s part of a series (trilogy?), so that you don’t really reach the end at the end. I’m not even sure it had reached the beginning at the end. If you can’t put up with an exposition-laden, digressive narrative voice pretending that you, the reader, are arguing with him about his narrative choices, then this isn’t the book for you. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2017, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966/59 "2017-05-16T00:06:56Z")
Goodnight Moon. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-last-novel-you-read-that-you-didnt-understand/785966.md?page=2)