What is the most complicated novel ever written?

Question

I've heard that it is Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.

Answer 1

i'd go with either "ulysses" or "finnegans wake" - both by james joyce.

first you have to decipher it. then you can attempt to keep the characters straight...sometimes they are refered to in multiple ways.

:)

opening passage from "Finnegan's Wake":

riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend
of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to
Howth Castle and Environs.
Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passen-
core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy
isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor
had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse
to Laurens County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper
all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to
tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a
kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all's fair in
vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a
peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory
end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface.
The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur-
nuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later
on life down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of the
offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan,
erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends
an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes:
and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park
where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since dev-
linsfirst loved livvy.

- trust me, "war and peace" is light reading compared to this ;)

Answer 2

Finnegan's Wake, by James Joyce is without a doubt the most complicated novel ever written.

Gravity's Rainbow is intricate and dense, but it is at least written in one language instead of an amalgam of 60.

Ulysses took years for Joyce to write, but Finnegan's Wake took most of two decades.

The annotations are several times longer than the book. Good luck.

Answer 3

I have to agree that Finnegan's Wake is the most indecipherable book out there. Ulysses is very complicated as well. I would also throw in One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury where you have two characters named Quentin (uncle and niece) and one third of the novel told by a mentally handicapped man who can't speak.

War and Peace has lots of characters, but it is a straightforward tale. It's awesome, but not the most complicated novel ever written.

Answer 4

I found War and Peace to be long but fairly linear therefore, not too complicated. I've never liked Joyce's "stream of conciousness" style. To me it's garbage.
The most complicated novel I know is "Total Recall". You never know if it's a dream or not. In the same category is "Seven Keys to Baldpate."

The best mind bender I ever read was "Timekeeper" - a short story about one character that appears in three or four seperate guises to himself and the story is only about himself.

Answer 5

I would have to agree that it is probably Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce, simply because of Joyce's stream of consciousness style. Similarly, William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch is fairly difficult.

Here is an excerpt from "Naked Lunch." Burroughs is said to have written the entire novel, then cut it up line by line and rearranged it into what we have today.

"The Rube has a sincere little boy look, burns through him like blue neon. That one stepped right off a Sator-day Evening Post cover with a string of bullheads, and preserved himself in junk. His marks never beef and the Bunko people are really carrying a needle for the Rube. One day Little Boy Blue starts to slip, and what crawls out would make an ambulance attendant puke. The Rube flips in the end, running through empty automats and subway stations, screaming: "Come back, kid! Come back!", and follows his boy right into the East River, down through condoms and orange peels, mosaic of floating newspapers, down into the silent black ooze with gangsters in concrete, and pistols pounded Hat to avoid the probing finger of prurient ballistic experts."

And the fruit is thinking: "What a character!! Wait 'til I tell the boys in Clark's about this one." He's a character collector, would stand still for Joe Gould's seagull act. So I put it on him for a sawski and make a meet to sell him some "pod" as he calls it, thinking, "I'll catnip the jerk." (Note: Catnip smells like marijuana when it burns. Frequently passed on the incautious or uninstructed.)

"Well," I said, tapping my arm, "duty calls. As one judge said to another: 'Be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary.' "

Answer 6

Ulysses

James Joyce

Answer 7

I would say mine because it took me 7 years and 900 plus pages but it isn't. It is the Bible. If you take into consideration all the transcriptions and the people who have died doing just that, it'd be the Bible hands down, although all the other books you have mentioned are great books, none can compare to the rich history and humanity of the Bible.
God Bless and may you have a wonderful life!

Answer 8

The most complicated work that I have read was the Hermit by Eugene Ionesco. Its very rare, but if you find it, its an interesting read

Answer 9

I'd have to say War and Peace. It involves more than 500 different characters.

Answer 10

"In Search of the Proper Sinner" is fairly complicated and a very good story. I found "Ingenious Pain" very difficult