25 most difficult books you'll ever read

xe's right, silmarillion was a slog

>>8955784
I'm going to go out on a limb without reading the article and assume those aren't in order of difficulty

>>8955784
Why put philosophy on this list?

And if you're going to there's harder philosophy to understand than Baudrillard and Heidegger.

>>8955784
Whats the criteria for deciding their level of difficulty, are they door stoppers, or is the language archaic, or do they hit you right in the feels?

>>8955803
>Baudrillard
I don't know familia, Baudrillard fucked me up

>>8955805
>buzzfeed
It is the writers opinion. I wonder if he has read all those books or if he's just memeing.

>>8955784
>the Canterbury tales
I don't see how that would be a very difficult read, unless you're reading the original version with no knowledge of medieval english.

>buzzfeed

OYoS is very accessible.

>4. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (1967)
It's an easy, fun read. Maybe it'd be a 4 if I had to read it in Spanish.
>6. The Female Man by Joanna Russ (1975)
Difficult only because leftist drivel makes me vomit.
>12. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (1985)
Difficult only if you're a nu-male getting triggered every other page by problematic descriptions of the noble savage
>13. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (2001)
Hilarious.
>15. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1957)
A test of patience, not intellectual capacity
>21. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner (1936)
Absalom is a far more difficult read than The Sound and The Fury (ranked #2 on this same list)

Shit list all and all

>>8955809
It's not that outrageous a concept and it was written in the 80s.

Kant, Hegel, hell even Foucault and Derrida are less straightforward and have denser language.

100 years of solitude was hard but I'd never even dream of putting it in the 20 hardest books I've ever read. Canterbury Tales I can see if you're reading it in Middle English. Underworld on a page by page basis isn't hard at all, it's just long, and not worth the effort. I guess that's a challenge in and of itself: to care. Atlas Shrugged also, in fact I knew plenty of people with idiot-level intelligence who not only ready but clearly remembered and completely understood that book. The style is easy and there's no subtlety, it's like a middle school book extended to 1200 pages.

From what I've read of Franzen, (only Freedom) he was very, very easy to understand and read. And Moby-Dick is read by plenty of people in American high schools, which should tell you something.

>>8955820
Oh, I'm not talking about straight-forwardness or density of language or text. I'm just saying Baudrillard fucked my head up for a while and left me stumbling for a bit, especially with where I was in life working on advertising and television.

>>8955819
Woah, calm yourself anon.

>nu-male
>leftist drivel

We get it, you have been influenced by /pol/ but you don't need to have all your arguments reduced to memes.

>>8955784
Cloud Atlas shouldn't be there at all. There's only one section which could be considered difficult

>mommy this book is hard!!! I got to reread it 2-3 times before I understaaaaand!!!

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>>8955784

>25 most difficult books you'll ever read
>Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
>25 most difficult books you'll ever read
>Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
>25 most difficult books you'll ever read
>Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Posting the official /lit/ version of this list.

1. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce (1939)
2. Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (1973)
3. Ulysses by James Joyce (1922)
4. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner (1936)
5. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust (1927)
6.Ada or Ardor by Vladimir Nabokov (1969)
7. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (1869)
8. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (1996)
9. 2666 by Roberto Nolan (2004)
10. The Legacy of Totalitarianism in a Tundra by Anonymous (2014)

Someone send this Buzzfeed writer a copy of Hypersphere

>>8955784

>the borderline sexual thrill your average /lit/ poster clearly feels when given a chance to go "FNEH! FNEH! NOT EVEN HARD! MY FUCKING DOG COULD READ ALL OF THOSE! FNEH! FNEH!"

you know that's the only reason lists like this exist, right?

>>8955901
>you know that's the only reason lists like this exist, right?
I thought they were made to be reposted and liked on normiebook

>>8955813
>unless you're reading the original version with no knowledge of medieval english.
Just reading the introduction to a decent edition + footnotes is more than enough to understand and appreciate it its original form.

>>8955906
4chan is the autist equivalent to normiebook. Clickbait memes work on both.

>>8955914
>autist equivilent
I think your completely denigrating the merits that it has over facebook.

You're free to say what you want anonymously here, what you post in one thread does not matter in another thread. One person you argue with right now in this thread, could seem to be your best friend in another thread. You don't have the animosity or pressure to believe what others want you to believe and say here. Facebook is shit, yes 4chan is shit too, but 4chan is less shit.

>>8955863
Cloud Atlas is easier than at least 75% the books recommended on this board. The middle section with the made-up accent is a little jarring at first but it's not that hard to get into a rhythm to understand it. The separated plots are not at all difficult, tons of books have non-linear plots, that book is just way more heavy-handed about it and made it part of its theme

>>8955885
>2666

are we just listing memes? Its not difficult to read.

>>8955901
>FNEH!

What

>>8955885
you are fucking pathetic and so if your list.

>>8956038
Wow, someone had a bad day!

>>8955784
>no mention of Voynich Manuscript

C A S U A L
A
S
U
A
L

>8. Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet (1943)
A bit dense and the perspective changes subtly, but also not absurd. How has it been placed over Ulysses and The Recognitions is beyond me.

>>8955784
>4. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (1967)
>10. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851)
>14. The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (1924)
>15. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1957)
>20. The Castle by Franz Kafka (1926)
>22. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (1980)
>24. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1927)
is the author of this list just mentally challanged? we've read most of those in hs

>>8956041
nope, you're just a pleb

>>8955784
archive this shit
http://archive.is/BLqZr
http://archive.is/BLqZr
http://archive.is/BLqZr
http://archive.is/BLqZr

>the author of this article hasn't read any of them

>>8956081
The Name of the Rose is the fucking slog to end all slogs if like 100% of the human population you couldn't give two shits about gargoyles and stained glass.

>>8955784
Finnegans Wake and ye olde Canterbury Tales are the only difficult books on this list.
The rest are just long.

>>8955877
I never got that either.
I've seen Blood Meridian on more than one list of "challenging books," and it really isn't. Aside from some obscure words, lack of punctuation, etc., it really isn't a hard read at all.

>>8956170
go back to r/books

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>Sound and the Fury
>second-most difficult book of all time

>>8956211
This. It being difficult is a meme.
It's written so well, it's impossible to get confused by the time jumps or Quentin's stream of consciousness bits if you're paying any sense of attention.

>>8956170
t. a pleb

The fact that The Corrections is on this list is comical.

>>8956211
absolutely no trigger discipline

>>8955784
>Moby Dick

Am I secretly a patrician or is the person who wrote this just slow in the head? The Dick was in no way difficult.

>>8955784
You didn't read so many things dude. And you make lists. Wew

>>8955803
seriously? i study philosophy in college and i'd classify Heidegger (along with Hegel) among the hardest to understand philosophers

shitty list though. there's Ayn Rand there, i think that's enough of a reason.

>>8956204
I stopped reading Blood Meridian after I saw the author writing in his *biblical* style with no quotations. I was around the first Judge (or whatever he is named) scene.

It rubbed me the wrong way and offended me probably worse then the eventual gore would have.

>>8955940
Exactly if you read a lot it's not bother to you. I enjoyed it people here probably wouldn't want to read Mitchell but for a popular author he actually writes some interesting stuff

>>8955784
>mobile site
OP is the cancer here

>>8956483
It didn't bother me much, but I can see why it'd bother other people. It's almost like he thinks himself above English punctuation rules.

>>8955885
BOLAÑO.
And Abbadón, The Exterminator. By Ernesto Sabato is way harder than 2666.

>>8955828
What's difficult about 100 years of solitude?

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>>8955784
>11. The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien (1977)

>>8955784
>23. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (2004)

>>8956204
>just because you understood what was literally happening means you understood all the subtext and religious iconogrophy

duuuuude Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable by Samuel Becket

also "La nueva novela" by Juan Luis Martinez

>>8956370

>Pretty long
>Many references that will go completely over people's head
>Flowery prose (goat prose desu)
>Some chapters totally drain your average reader (cetology)

Moby Dick is pretty difficult for most people I would say.

>>8956206
Go back to whatever subreddit is dedicated to people with statue fetishes.

>>8956823
I know I probably won't have fully understood that, but that's not what the lists say makes the book challenging. It really just is the vocabulary and punctuation (or lack thereof).

>>8956170
You are pathetic and should knowingly carry that burden though life.

Name of the Rose is a cheeky, fun genre mystery with a great setting and a lively pace. I could read it again and again, and, in fact, have.

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>>8955784
> buzzfeed

>>8955805
It's buzzfeed, to write for them you must have given up halfway through the first Harry Potter and call 50 shades a masterpiece, this is probably a list of books their 9 year old grandkids was memed into buying and couldn't Read!

>>8955885
Infinite Jest, 2666, and ISoLT aren't hard, they're just long

>>8955784
One hundred years of solitude listed with Heidegger? Reading Marquez is like gently rocking in a hammock as the breeze blows across.

>>8955784
>infinite jest above Ulysseys
>The Castle
>Blood Meridian

>>8955784
>4. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (1967)
dismissed

>>8955820
foucault is shit

Where's Frankystine?

>>8955812
Memeing.

>>8955784
To be fair with the exception of Tolkien most of those are pretty difficult.

>>8955784
> One Hundred Years of Solitude
>Cloud Atlas
>. To the Lighthouse
I read each of these in a weekend.

>>8955805
It appears to be a mixture of all of those things.

>>8956456
Hegel?
Pop open Phenomenology of the Spirit and see.

I'm assuming they're saying The Canterbury Tales is hard in Middle English, because a child could read the translated version except for the length.

>>8956099
come on, they're too hard anyway
better listen kanye west and play dark souls

>>8956695
Nothing. Someone will say the similarity between characters's name.

>>8955831
Could you tell us more about how you feel about your work after having read Baudrillard? Genuinely interested.

>>8955784
>buzzfeed
yeah right

>>8955784
People who read Buzzfeed probably haven't heard of these.

>>8955803
>>8955809
>>8955820
philosophy is dead

I bought The Sound and the Fury for really cheap, having no idea what I was in for. It kind of blew my mind for a while trying to figure out what was going on. It certainly wasn't one of my favourites, but I'm glad I had the opportunity to do that.

>>8955784
No one has mentioned it;
Don Quixote

>>8961444

Wtf that's easy mode

>>8961638
Just my nomination for the list. I had more difficulty with it than some of the books in the list. Heck, I found Silmarillion and hundred years of solitude downright enjoyable and would never contemplate putting it on a list such as this.

>>8956456
Even Kant is harder than half of those books though

>>8959233
Who in their right mind would recommend Jean Genet to his 9 year old grandkids?

>>8956170
It is like sherlock holmes in the middle ages with psychedelic trips, medieval power politics and scholastic theological discussions. What is not to like?

>>8955784
That implies I'll ever read those snore-fests

>>8955934
So the autist equivalent of normiebook, got it.

>>8955784
>The Canterbury Tales
Assuming he means translations, keklmao
>Atlas Shrugged
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>>8964701
it is really difficult to get through atlas shrugged.

>>8955885
>War and Peace
>hard

Just because a book is long doesn't make it hard to read. In fact, there is no such thing as a 'hard' book, merely soft minds.

>>8955784
Yeah this list is autistic as fuck. Putting Baudrilliard below Marquez and McCarthy is hysterical. Putting To The Lighthouse instead of The Waves is dumb. Putting Kafka on there at all is dumb.

Bad list

>>8960134
Philosophy is dead because a large population such as you think that it is.

>>8964823
> In fact, there is no such thing as a 'hard' book, merely soft minds.

Let's not be silly here. You know as well as I do that if a book demands far more attention from its reader to be understood, it's harder than a book that requires the bare minimum from its reader to understand, it's a "hard" book.

when will the meme of middle english being hard end?
If you have trouble just sound it out. Any good edition will have footnotes for any archaic words.

>>8961740
pleb detected

>>8959215
my sides

Some of those really aren't very difficult to read, though they have complexity and depth. Who would consider Faulkner or Eco more difficult than Bottom's Dream?

>>8955837
>le pole boogiemen
Well meme'd my friend!

>>8955784
>buzzfeed
into the trash it goes

>>8956483
Sucks to be you.

>>8965269
If you class a book as 'hard' because you personally are too retarded to understand it then yeah, you do have a 'soft mind'.

>>8955819
Nah, One Hundred Years of Solitude is even easier in spanish.
Garcia Marquez is considered (((difficult))) because of the motifs in his work, but his prose is pretty tame compared to Rulfo and Sábato, for example.

>>8955819
blood meridian is written by a nu-male for nu-males

>>8966369
There's a difference between Camus and Musil, man...