Most difficult read...?

Question

1)What book is/was the most difficult for you to read? Why?

AND / OR:

2)What author is the most difficult for you to understand? Why?

Answer 1

"Cosmicomics" by Italo Calvino is the hardest book for me to understand. It is easy to read, but hard to follow without having to do research on evolution. It also troubles me by making me question the origins of life. Reading this book is almost impossible if you actually try to understand Calvino's hidden messages for the future. It is a really interesting read, though.

Answer 2

Well I usually have no difficulty reading anything... Lord of the Rings was not hard at all I have read it at least 30 times.. But one book I cannot stand and have abandoned time and again is Moby Dick... I just dont like it. Its very boring to me, I really just cant get into it.. its like the author rambles on and on going from one subject to the next, and expounding so much upon nsignificant detail that by the time you get back to the actual story you forget what the rhythm was. I hated it and I try every few years to read it but it just irks me because I find it to be a very bad novel as far as continuity, pace and rhythm. The author goes off on a 10 page tangent every chapter.. its dull boring and I really dont see why it is considered a classic masterpiece.

I guess that the author of Moby Dick is the answer to #2 as well... I just don't get how Herman Melville even remembered what he was writing about after going off on so many ramblings throughout his book.

Answer 3

As far as fiction goes, anything by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

In addition to having incredibly articulated prose, and most of his stories being set in the byzantine complexity of the Russian aristocracy, the man had a positively dreadful sense of life. For example: "The Idiot" is the story of a Christ-like figure, who due to his goodness, ends up in an insane asylum as he can not come to terms with the evil around him.

If you set out to read Fyodor Dostoyevsky, be warned. His books are incredibly valuable works of literature, but they are not light summer reads.

As far as non-fiction goes, The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant is probably the most impenetrable book in the English language. If you do not have an IQ of at least 160, do not bother trying.

Answer 4

I thought Executive Orders by Tom Clancy was even harder than Lord of the Rings. There was just so many seperate plot lines to follow and connect, but it was a good book. The Sillmarillion (I know I didn't spell that right) by J.R.R. Tolkien was also difficult for the same reason.

Most difficult author for me to read is Tom Clancy.

Answer 5

1. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner was hard for me b/c of the writing style. Stream of consciouness is rough. He would switch characters in the middle of a paragraph that contains no punctuation. Geez! It was a great book, though! I can honestly say that I'm a better preson having read it.

2. There really is no one author for me that is hard to understand. When I find one who is like that, I stop reading his books! lol.

Answer 6

For a initiate i might surely advise The Hobbit by using J.R.R. Tolkien. yet another great occasion is The Lion, The Witch and The cloth wardrobe (e book a million of The Chronicles of Narnia). honestly, youngster's books are ideal for the initiating as they are often written using truly simplified language. Edit: now that I even have browsed in the process the dissimilar solutions, i've got have been given some greater issues to allow you already know. i would not pick Harry Potter on the initiating. i found the language greater complicated than interior the books i discussed above. until eventually you're a fan and are continual sufficient. and surely no longer Terry Pratchett! His books use a great variety of word-play and hard language. It became truly no longer hassle-free to get by using his novels in the initiating.

Answer 7

The Iliad. Is was hard to follow, but it was great liturature. The Oddesy was pretty difficult too. I am an experienced reader, and books have to be pretty hard for me to have a hard time reading them! The other books that I have a bit of trouble with are the book by G.A. Henty. They all have a great plot, but they were difficult to follow. He was an author that lived about a hundred years ago. He wrote historical fiction. His books are great for someone who likes advanced liturature.(LIke Me!)

Answer 8

1) I couldn't finish A House Divided...it was just too much for my poor little brain. I had no trouble at all with Gone With The Wind, but couldn't get through the first two chapters of A House Divided.

2) There are two authors I have trouble with. First is Tom Clancy...I love the stories, but I have trouble with all of the technical details, as well as the fact that he jumps from character to character, and all of them are men. I can't figure out who he's talking about, and spend most of my time going backward to straighten myself out.

The second is Ernest Hemingway. I can't pin down exactly why I can't get into his books, but I just can't. I have tried over and over again, with the same tragic results.

Answer 9

William Faulkner, Czeslaw Milosz, Ivo Andric....

Answer 10

Samuel Beckett's trilogy "Molloy," "Malone Dies," and "The Unnamable." Postmodern fiction can be tough- the absence of plot and character don't help, either. The reader is never made aware of exactly how the narratives connect- all you know is that the syntax deteriorates throughout the three.