JR is fantastic and is my vote. It's definitely difficult (almost entirely dialogue), and I personally find it emotionally exhausting too. It's one of my very favourite novels. I think Gaddis's The Recognitions.
I read Moby-Dick this year and was surprised by how distinctly not-difficult it was given its reputation. Also Virginia Wolff is not incredibly tough. Beckett should be on the list, though I love him he's very hard to get through at times.
Every time anyone mentions Thomas Bernhard on ilx he always seems like the exact kind of writer I love. But he's never in any libraries or bookstores, why is that?
― franny glass, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 03:44 (ten years ago) link
kids are made to read moby-dick, that skews its rep
bernhard has been in translation for a while but a big push to translate his oooovray only happened recently, post-bookstore-collapse, so maybe people just aren't hep anymore. i saw several of the new ones in a b+n, when they still carried books.
― j., Wednesday, 6 November 2013 03:47 (ten years ago) link
xpost
Whoops
I think Gaddis's The Recognitions is arguably more difficult than JR - very very different style though so it's hard to compare. If you don't know much about art or greek mythology then The Recognitions is basically impenetrable.
― franny glass, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 03:48 (ten years ago) link
old masters on amazon from $4.63
― the late great, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 03:48 (ten years ago) link
is there an audiobook of j r
― the late great, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 03:51 (ten years ago) link
Trainspotting?!?!? Not hard to read at all. A case could be made for putting everything Irvine Welsh wrote later on the list, on the basis that it's almost unreadably bad.
Silmarillion is prob the hardest book to read on that list, in that it was never written to be read by anyone other than its own writer.
― ornamental cabbage (James Morrison), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 03:52 (ten years ago) link
xp I guess there's my excuse gone.
haha an audiobook of JR would be amazing.
― franny glass, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 03:55 (ten years ago) link
j. franzen wrote a whole essay about how unreadable 'j.r.' is, so i assume it can't be all bad.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 04:49 (ten years ago) link
the second half of "notes from underground" is very emotionally difficult.
― Treeship, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 05:04 (ten years ago) link
yeah, I can't work out the rubric here:
OLD?
LONG?
FORMALLY COMPLEX?
EMOTIONALLY DRAINING/TOUGH?
OPAQUE STYLE?
seems like a funky swirl of all of these qualities
― the tune was space, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 05:07 (ten years ago) link
I'd say the texts with the highest attrition rate on the list are either Proust or Spenser- the ratio of people who start to people who finish is not so good for them.
― the tune was space, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 05:09 (ten years ago) link
i think finnegans wake fares worse than proust in that regard
― Treeship, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 05:26 (ten years ago) link
There is an audiobook of J R – it's unabridged, 37 hours, came out a few years ago. Was on iTunes, but doesn't seem to be there anymore.
― with hidden noise, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 06:16 (ten years ago) link
Why's Pet Sematary on here?
― An Android Pug of Some Kind? (kingfish), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 06:20 (ten years ago) link
Xp there's an unabridged audiobook of the tunnel too, read by gass himself!
― you can get fuckstab anywhere in london (wins), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 06:41 (ten years ago) link
not dignifying this stupid fucking list with a vote, up yours Flavorwire
― . (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 06:51 (ten years ago) link
pretty sure the book is intentionally funny as fuck
― . (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 06:57 (ten years ago) link
FD was funny a lot of the time!
― you can get fuckstab anywhere in london (wins), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 06:58 (ten years ago) link
well exactly
― . (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 06:59 (ten years ago) link
the first half of the book is funny and bleak and jarringly modern for the year it was written. the second half -- where he is cruel to the prostitute and the reader is able to really feel, not just see, what it's like to be the underground man and truly hate themselves -- isn't funny anymore, in my view.
― Treeship, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 07:16 (ten years ago) link
i mean, i can see how the wretchedness of it is all has the structure of humor or whatever, but i don't think "funny" is a good word to describe it. goes without saying that i love that book.
― Treeship, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 07:18 (ten years ago) link
the parts where he is still with his "friends," sabotaging their night, is funny
― Treeship, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 07:20 (ten years ago) link
I bought one of those horrible plastic trash cans from target
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 07:35 (ten years ago) link
with the lid that pops up when you press the button
and the button broke so the lid is just up
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 07:36 (ten years ago) link
the button broke within a week
I weigh the trash can lid down with tristram shandy
this is the second shitty plastic target trash can this has happened to
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 07:37 (ten years ago) link
morelike nightsoil
― buzza, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 08:02 (ten years ago) link
Infinite jest and to a greater extent underworld are not remotely difficult reads. They're just long.
― tell it to my arse (jim in glasgow), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 08:09 (ten years ago) link
"the year of magical thinking" is a deliberately straightforward and relatable account of the grieving process
― Treeship, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 08:19 (ten years ago) link
Treeship, have you ever read 'The Double' by Dostoyevsky? It is also very funny/excruciating re. the subject of self-loathing.
― also known as Princess Chunk and Captain Chunk, real name: Powder (soref), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 09:37 (ten years ago) link
When I first read Dostoyevsky I was so surprised by how funny it was, I had always known him as a shorthand for difficult, heavy going literature, but the books are very readable, funny, lots of dramatic incident.
― also known as Princess Chunk and Captain Chunk, real name: Powder (soref), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 09:45 (ten years ago) link
yeah, Dostoyevsky's not really heavy going, he's super readable - the difficulty of the books arises purely from the awfulness of all of his people.
― c sharp major, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 10:21 (ten years ago) link
practically every dostoyevsky novel i have read i have read at breakneck speed, mostly because if i stop to think i will throw the book against the wall in rage at these terrible people constantly being terrible to one another.
― c sharp major, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 10:26 (ten years ago) link
No Beckett?
I just bought one of his books... from a bookstore! I've only read on of his book but I didn't find it difficult to read at all.
― Thomas K Amphong (Tom D.), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 10:40 (ten years ago) link
I am trying to be generous towards this list (exploit the dismal cult of difficult literature to recommend some odd books, decent rhetorical move imo) but it turns out I am voting for "Probably the greatest and most difficult satire by one of the world’s most storied satirists." Sharp blurb, flavorwire!
― woof, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 11:05 (ten years ago) link
I recently read the village of stepanchikovo, Dostoyevsky's only foray into straight-ahead comedy afaik. It's a lot of fun but a)pretty dark and b) not as funny as devils &c
― you can get fuckstab anywhere in london (wins), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 11:12 (ten years ago) link
gotta be Proust or Faulkner
Proust it will be ftw
― nostormo, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 11:24 (ten years ago) link
where is The Man Without Qualities?
no ulysses
― midwife christless (darraghmac), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 11:42 (ten years ago) link
?
Trainspotting, Irvine WelshPet Sematary, Stephen King
joke inclusions, as is silmarillion
― midwife christless (darraghmac), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 11:43 (ten years ago) link
the silmarillion is way better than lots of stuff on that list. easy to knock due to the hobbit's and the lord of the rings' ubiquity but up there with the fairie queene and the canterbury tales as extraordinary mythopoeic invention. not gonna defend trainspotting or pet semetary's inclusions except to say both are rad and too bad haters gotta hate
― reggie (qualmsley), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 11:58 (ten years ago) link
Tale of a Tub isn't a difficult satire so much as Swift realises halfway thru that he hates everything
― . (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 13:03 (ten years ago) link
DHALGREN
― ciderpress, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 14:26 (ten years ago) link
i haven't read most of these though
― ciderpress, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 14:27 (ten years ago) link
yeah the number of titles on this list which are in my opinion extremely readable and user friendly kinda belies the point
I mean all lists are corny clickbait, so that's got to be a given at this point, but I would learn something from, say, a list of the top 50 longest books, in order, that I'm not learning from this list because of its incoherence
but I like talking about books!
when I was in lol-college I wrote an undergrad paper about the unreadability of "Finnegan's Wake" with reference to Wittgenstein on private language- I have vague memories of my pained bleating about the work's resistance to being read as the asymptotic approach towards the conceptually impossible notion of a private language- like, we can't have a private language, but if we could, it would sound a lot like FW- probably just my attempt at a highfalutin justification for not being able to read the damn thing
― the tune was space, Wednesday, 6 November 2013 14:52 (ten years ago) link
nb qualmsley- i enjoyed all three but wtf at their placement on a list like this
― midwife christless (darraghmac), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 14:54 (ten years ago) link
Difficulty in constantly flipping back-and-forth from IJ's main text to endnotes shouldn't be underestimated, especially if one hand is busy smoking.
Kilopage books are heavy
― Sir Lord Baltimora (Myonga Vön Bontee), Wednesday, 6 November 2013 15:14 (ten years ago) link
Have just started Joseph McElroy's Women And Men which is reputedly both longer and more difficult than virtually everything on this list. 20 pages in; it's extraordinary - a gigantic poem of selves and selves-in-selves and a great communal Self that isn't even a self. Strikes me that it could be a fairly great work.
― veneer timber (imago), Tuesday, 19 November 2013 22:02 (ten years ago) link
A swirling, deistic reverie of compassion and our relationship to the void which extends from & into us. I can't even - this is twenty pages. After 1,200 I'll presumably reach Enlightenment
― veneer timber (imago), Tuesday, 19 November 2013 22:04 (ten years ago) link
Keep us posted!
xo
― Matt Groening's Cousin (Leee), Tuesday, 19 November 2013 22:31 (ten years ago) link
i love mcelroy but never did finish w&m
― lollercoaster of rove (s.clover), Wednesday, 20 November 2013 04:00 (ten years ago) link
also of all the vollmanns to pick!
― lollercoaster of rove (s.clover), Wednesday, 20 November 2013 04:02 (ten years ago) link
Haha yeah seriously, I think I scanned it as rising up rising down until I looked at the list just now
― Wendy Carlos Williams (jjjusten), Wednesday, 20 November 2013 05:04 (ten years ago) link
also w&m isn't longer than a number of the "long" books on this list. its just v. dense and imagistic.
― lollercoaster of rove (s.clover), Wednesday, 20 November 2013 05:22 (ten years ago) link
and yeah, i guess relatively long (but relative to what)
― lollercoaster of rove (s.clover), Wednesday, 20 November 2013 05:23 (ten years ago) link