Most difficult book you've read?

[SomethingUnrelated]

I've never been able to finish 'The Amber Spyglass', regrettably, as I found it a difficult read. I was a few years younger at the time, though. Another difficult one was 'The Children of Hurin', which I've also yet to finish.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

All four volumes.

It's not so bad once you get used to the language, just have a dictionary handy, because there are words in there that we don't really use anymore. XD

Oh dear Lord... you managed that? I just randomly pick it up (or used to) to read bits and pieces when I'm in the mood for something hardcore about Rome. I find it OK for about a few paragraphs, and then it's heavy going.

My old man's a chemist, so he taped over the word 'Roman' with 'poison' on the spine of Vol 2.

Well of Echoes/Song of Tears saga by Ian Irvine. It's not hard to read... it's just soul destroying stuff. I know it's a cliche for the hero to lose until the last chapter and then win in a blaze of glory, but this series has left me crying for the pain to stop...

 

[Spacelord]

The Lord of the Rings just trudged on, and on, and on.
It was a difficult read at the time, when I was eleven or twelve years old.

Very much this.

 

[PleaseDeleteMe]

Sophie's world

 

[E-Penguin]

The Silmarillion
that is all.
Seriously odd structure.

I tried to read it trough an entire summer. It was the heaviest read I've ever done. I did not manage to finish it.

 

[Axolotl]

I've read quite a few of the books mentioned in this thread, Imanaged to read Atlas Shrugged in under a week, I've read Dante's Infeno and I've read Kafka.

But they're a light breeze compared to the hardest baook I've eer read. Being and Time by Martin Heidegger. My God is that a hard book to read/understand, I was only able to make it past the introduction because I'd spent three years studying ancient Greek.

 

[Raistlinhawke]

Many philosophical texts I've read have really numbed me the first (read: dozen) times through. Especially with the drier thinkers, like Kant.

But for the utmost hardest? Hmmm....I'd have to go with a poorly translated copy of Dostoyevsky's "Diary of a Writer".

Sophie's world

Here here, especially in the High School AP class I was taught it in. Fascinating read though, once the ponderous dust settles.

 

[Raistlinhawke]

- Edit - (Double Post)

 

[Ohhi]

Anthem by Ayn Rand I could not get through that book not because it was hard but beacause of the ideas and concepts were so old that it made it hard for me to completley grasp what she was trying to say but once I understood it, it was a pretty good read.

 

[ShyBunny]

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
Damn difficult to read but it was a real good book

 

[Desenova]

The House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski just because it's an absolute mind fuck.

or

And the Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave for the language and words.

 

[hazabaza1]

The Hunger Games.
God is it boring.

I mean honestly, a book about teenagers killing each other for sport in the post apocalypse, and the killing part doesn't even start until page 170 something. And even then the main character is a little wimp and runs away.
Plus, it's just so... dull.

 

[espada1311]

i dont know, ive only started reading it, but i must say, "A Clockwork Orange" is really difficult to undrstand with the vocabulary change maybe im just not used to it

No, no. I think pretty much anyone who's tried to read it feels that way. It's overgrown so badly with Russian-esque lexicon that it flows, as a favourite critic put it, "like a river of bricks". Exceedingly hard to follow only because of that.

well thats good to hear, at least im not the only one

 

[Antwerp Caveman]

War and Peace. Leo Tolstoy
Nitpick: The first few pages has you learn a lot of names.

Also: Dante's Divine Comedy.

Best/hardest book I finished:
God is not Great. How Religion Poisons everything. By Christopher Hitchens

With regard to your comments on War and Peace, that seems like a fairly common issue for a lot of people. My advice is for people to familiarize themselves with Russian names a bit before attempting the major works. Understanding the structure a little better (first name + patrynomic (distinct from a middle name) + last name) goes a long way in breaking down the confusion. People should also realize that any given character will be referred to in several different ways depending on the aforementioned structure. For example, Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov could be referred to as Rodia (affectionate form; depending on the given first name, there can be more than ten different variations), Rodion Romanovitch, Raskolnikov (which Dostoevsky favors), etc.

I suspected as much, recently, when I watched the film The Last Station, about the last years of the life of Leo Tolstoy.

But do you agree that it's a very intricate piece of writing that belongs in a topic like this?

 

[Balmong7]

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski.
Bear and the Dragon by Tom Clancy.

These also happen to be two of my favorite books ever, so it was worth the trudge through it.

 

[Aetera]

Ulysses, by James Joyce. I hate James Joyce SO MUCH. I'm an English Lit major, and I still can't stand him. I warn all incoming freshman to avoid any class that makes you read anything by Joyce. His writing is intentionally obtuse. You can practically hear him smirking at you through the pages.

I would rather read Chaucer. I would rather read Beowulf. I'd rather read ANYTHING but Joyce.

 

[Griffstar]

Gah! Inkheart is an amazing book but seriously, 4,000 pages?

 

[thylasos]

Finnegans Wake, most likely, though The Death of Ivan Illyich was depressing enough to make it very hard to read to the end.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Every Dostoyevsky book I've read, it's not that they were bad, it's just really heavy reading material and I don't get a chance to read regularly.

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
My god, I've never had to read a book with a dictionary close by before, and I'm sure that will be the last time too.

 

[3AM]

I've read Gravity's Rainbow and I loved it. It had some troublesome passages but it was very rewarding. Ulysses on the other hand, I haven't read it all only sections. Damn you Leopold Bloom!

I think some books require you to be at a certain place or mindset or something. It took me 3 tries to get through Gravity's Rainbow. The 1st 2 attempts were painful but something about it wouldn't let me give up completely. Being a Pynchon fan was a big part of that I'm sure. Some years later I picked it up again and it was an utter joy to read. Have you tried his latest - Inherent Vice? It's glorious.