What are some of the toughest classic books you have read but enjoyed?

Question

I know everyone says Shakespeare, but who else?

I have read a few pages of Catch-22 and found it to be horridly tough but I think it gets easier, does it?

Well what is the hardest thing you have read but got through and liked?

Answer 1

I read "Lolita" by Nabokov in a college literature class. The author uses French and German phrases to put inside jokes or clues about the plot. Besides at the time I did not enjoy about an adult seducing a teenager. But the more I read it, the plot became more about the Western culture portraying Victorian morals but having deep lusts.

Answer 2

I've read Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse" and am rereading "Mrs. Dolloway". There is the other one in the same genre, that is, the writers apply the writing style of 'streams of consciousness'; I mean James Joyce's "Ulysses". I thought years ago I would definitely NOT read this novel at all but some months ago I changed my mind and I think there must be something worth reading since this one and the above two are in the list of the 100 most meaningful books of all time.
The hardest thing is of course we need to concentrate and follow each 'stream' with care, or else we'd get lost. In brief, we read to follow, not merely to understand all episodes or characters in which they should be the task of, I hope, some kind and generous literature professors.

Answer 3

The Grapes Of Wrath was a little rough. It's a great story but it's long and there are several places where nothing much is happening for pages and pages. That made it hard to keep reading.

Ivanhoe was a little difficult to understand. The author uses a lot of French and Latin phrases, many of which are left untranslated.

Answer 4

Brothers Karamazov and Catch-22

Answer 5

Madame Bovary. It took me about eight starts to get through it because the story takes a long time to develop, but it was absolutely worthwhile. Flaubert describes all of these tiny little details of the way people interact with each other, so you feel like you're really there, in the book with the characters; it's breathtaking.

Answer 6

The Brothers Karamazov comes to mind, along with Moby Dick. Some history also would fit into this category. Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire took me over a year to finish, but was probably worth it.

Answer 7

I did not really like Jane Austen until about half-way through the book. Light in August is also a tough book but I ended up liking it.

Answer 8

Tough Guys Don't Dance by Norman Mailer

Answer 9

The Scarlet Letter

Answer 10

well, because english is not my native language i had a tough time reading catch-22 and shakespeares hamlet in original, but the most difficult thing to read, keep the track and like it at the same time was with dostojevskij: crime and punishment. a great book! specially when i read it in czech!