http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/ 827.Most_Difficult_Novel

Not much
I already knew that you can't take goodreads seriously regarding anything

>Catch-22 on #20
What?
What's even hard about it

why do you keep making this thread you retard

>>7892780
It's equivalent to the length of a LOT of facebook posts

>>7892773

What about The Republic?

What about In Search of Lost Time?

Fucking moby dick is hard? Are you kidding me?

>>7893438
Monolingual anglos, don't mind them.

>>7893438
my dick is hard

How is Crime and Punishment a difficult novel?

>>7893458
Because is le long and le old, and its boring because there are no teens with cancer or supernatural powers :S

>>7893555
that nightmare with rats is still stuck in my head after 10 years. amazing.

War and Peace has some of the simplest language and grammatical structures you're likely to find in a book. The only difficult part is the length, which is not that difficult because of how easy it is to read. I will never understand why people call that book difficult.

>>7893458
It's a very hard task to convince yourself that the shitty translation you are reading reaches anywhere near the original text

>>7892773
moby dick did slow me up a bit compared to other novels. im reading V now and its a significantly faster read. anecdotal evidence but still id have to agree moby dick was a tough one

>>7893563
Plebs praising themself for having reached the end

>>7892780
It wasn't written for 14 year old females.

>>7893438
In Search of Lost Time is on the list.

There's nothing difficult about Moby Dick.

I am reading Ulysses right now and the only difficult thing is getting all allusions and keeping up the concentration on the dullest bits. I am getting the impression that those who call it 'very difficult' are quite simply insensitive to the art of putting words together: Joyce is a master of it, and even the boring parts of Ulysses are full of delicious moments. His dialogues are delightful.

These books might be difficult to understand completely, but so are D. Quijote and King Lear. They are not difficult to read at all. Looks like these GoodReads users have never a touched a math textbook in their lives...

>ulysses is more difficult than finnegans wake
?

No Women and Men? No The Tunnel? No Carpenters Gothic? No Goulds Book of Fish? No Take it or Leave it?
Dropped.

>>7893758
I guess they haven't read Finnegans Wake and so voted for Ulysses.

That would explain why, say. The Cantos aren't above Moby Dick: they haven't read it.

>>7893751

>thinks Ulysses is hard because of allusions
>meanwhile thinks moby dick is easy

does not compute

you did not "get" moby dick, my friend

>>7893770
Isn't J R more difficult than Carpenter's Gothic?

This is not a list of the most "difficult" novels.

This is a list of the novels that common people have bought but not read.

I.e., the most popular novels to find on middle-class bookshelves with uncracked spines.

>>7893865
The whole idea of 'getting' a book is quite empty. One never 'gets' a book until he has arrived at the same interpretation that *you* have. This is ridiculous, specially when every single rereading of a great book is enough to give it a whole new order of meanings.

Moby Dick is easy to follow, easy to read, and the interpretations that have been made of it are easy to understand. Not all great books have to be difficult, you know? Swift and Cervantes are both greater than Meville and both highly enjoyed by intelligent children.

>edgelords trotting out the "Ulysses isn't even challenging!!!" argument again

you're either lying to us or lying to yourself

How is the Voynich manuscript so low? I couldn't even read the first symbol.

>>7893989
>>7893434
underrated keks

>>7893969
How exactly is Ulysses challenging? What exactly is so hard about it?

I believe there's a misunderstanding here: when I say it's not challenging, I mean to say it's not difficult to read and enjoy, which it really isn't; when you say it's challenging, you're probably saying it takes some work to be properly understood, which it somewhat does.

Have you ever learned a new language? Have you ever read a maths textbook?

>>7893969
The people that don't think it's challenging just don't understand it. They think that because they read all of the words that they actually comprehended everything that the author was trying to convey etc

>>7894008
>thinks joyce is smart
>gives a shit what joyce thinks
undergrad general

>>7894008
No one ever comprehends a whole book. You read literature for pleasure and sentimental growth. 'Understanding' is what you get from philosophy and science. It's not particularly hard to derive pleasure and growth from Ulysses. You only keep saying it's oh-so-difficult because you want to look like you have won some sort of challenge after reading it.

Now if you're going to write a bloody paper about it, then of course it becomes much harder. Same for Don Quijote and Gulliver.

>>7892780
I read it a while ago but it's probably due to how Yossarian refers to bizarre things in passing without giving any context until much later.

One example I can think of is how he remarks that he is "tiptoeing around the dead man in his tent" and then immediately moves on. Which makes you think "What the fuck, What'd I miss?" Then you either skim what you've already read for context or move on without explanation.

You only find out chapters later that he's referring to a dead tent-mate's possessions that he is forced to tiptoe around but there's absolutely no way you could have inferred that because he never even mentioned he had a tentmate until that point. So the author fucks with you in subtle ways that are both enjoyable and frustrating.

File: Harry_Potter_and_the_Deathly_Hallows_(US_cover)[1].jpg (49KB, 351x500px) Image search: [Google]

49KB, 351x500px

This one was a legitimately difficult read.
The part where they are camping around in various places was almost impossible to slog through. I about gave up on it.

>>7893563
>simplest language
>in Russian

File: 2003_tb.jpg (11KB, 300x169px) Image search: [Google]

11KB, 300x169px

>>7894084
However I'm not sure why 'the sun also rises' ' The heart of darkness' or 'the stranger' are on this list. Maybe the Stranger is hard to read because it's incredibly dry and boring for the first 3/4ths.

Dr. Zhivago should be way above any of these titles.

>>7894238
Excellent poop post friend.

>>7893932
>swift is better than Melville
lol fuck off

>>7892780
It's difficult to read because of how bad and unfunny it is.

>>7894417
Fuck you nigger

>>7894849
>being this mad cause he's right

>7: One Hundred Years of Solitude

I get that a lot of the list is comprised of books that are commonly used as examples of extreme length and dryness, but the inclusion of this baffles me. Wasn't this an Oprah book club selection at one point? It's not that long and the style is intentionality simple.

I'm confused by the fact that Ulysses is over Finnegans Wake, which is an intentionally unreadable book.

>>7894977
It's a list of unread books ranked by commonality of ownership.

>>7893795

That explains the entire list and here I was thinking someone who read these books picked something like animal farm over dhalgren

>>7894973
It surprised me as well.
The only aspect I can see to provoke this effect would be the names can be confusing, specially if someone reads a bit, then leave the book alone for a couples of days or a week and come back to it.

>>7892773
>Goodreads

Why on earth would you go there?

>>7893575
T b h, reaching the end of War and Peace is a minor accomplishment. I felt good when I did it.

War and Peace is an overly long childrens book

>>7893555
why the french?

File: 1458586883583.gif (2MB, 300x259px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 300x259px

>>7895463
MWHAHAAAAAAAA THA FRENSH.... champaigne... has always been known for its... excellence...