Tough reads & why they're tough for you?

The Shocker · April 08, 2011, 12:27:17 PM

Don't want just a list, would like to see your reasons.

For me:

The Red Riding Series. Interesting, but there's a lot of British (and regional at that?) slang, inner monologues, stream of consciousness writing. Also about a hundred different characters to keep track of over the course of 4 books. Plus I'm not sure I even like the books...

giantchris · April 09, 2011, 03:55:38 AM

Cormac McCarthy's The Road - Had to read it for school I haven't been so bored by a novel since the Lord of the Flies or The Giver. The man's prose is awful its all like 5 word descriptive sentences. It reminds me of reading a shitty epic poem the way his sentences are worded.

In addition, they never actually say what the disaster was but imply it was a nuclear war and they essentially describe a nuclear winter. And being a huge nerd, scientifically the language the boy is using to speak to his father makes me believe the boy is between 5-9 years old. In addition to the fact that the boy was born AFTER the disaster. Most of the research I've read on nuclear winter estimated the period of cooling between 3-5 years until a large portion of the ash has settled. So if that is the case the descriptions of the world around them are absurd.

SpaceTrucker · April 15, 2011, 07:44:03 PM

The Occult By Colin Wilson.

It Was Very Tedious. Just having to stop and look up a word every other page tedious. But It could have been worse(a translation)

The Shocker · April 15, 2011, 07:47:25 PM

That reminds me of reading A Clockwork Orange.

GodShifter · April 15, 2011, 08:08:43 PM

Worst experience I've had was with McCarthy's Blood Meridian.

I think, for me, it's just his style that wears me down. Very little in terms of punctuation and the run on sentences just kind of blur together and the imagery is lost. Besides that fact, I didn't like any of the characters very much so it made it difficult for me to have much investment in anything that happened to any of them. The plausibility of situations was often contrived and much of it rang very hollow with me.

Isabellacat · April 18, 2011, 12:34:33 AM

Quote from: deaner33 on April 15, 2011, 07:47:25 PM
That reminds me of reading A Clockwork Orange.

funny i read A Clockwork Orange when i was 19, from start to finish, and understood it. i guess i was in love with Alex, especially Malcom McDowell from the movie well enough to want to read the whole book.but yea that Nadsat slang can throw you off. i had to re-read some of the paragraphs.the book is way more violent than the movie,and has a different ending tho.

One book that's hard for me to read is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. someone loaned that to me awhile back. i remember thumbing through the chapters thinking what a bunch of nonsense! Who is John Galt??? like who gives a crap! next thing i know i'm using it as a door stopper.

Dejube · April 25, 2011, 12:55:34 AM

I have 3 of Ayn Rands books sitting in box. I've tried reading them all but after a page my eyes can't take it anymore.

74000riffs · April 25, 2011, 02:45:33 AM

It shouldn't be difficult, but I have always tried to read the Lord of The Rings series to no avail. I start the first book, get bored and quit, every time. I liked the Hobbit though.

lowdaddy · April 25, 2011, 03:24:58 AM

james joyce's ulysses. i've begun it 5 or 6 times and never made it more than 30 or 40 pages in. i guess i'm just not that smart. after my last attempt i decided life's too short and i'm done trying to climb that particular fucking mountain.

The Shocker · April 25, 2011, 08:20:47 PM

Quote from: 74000riffs on April 25, 2011, 02:45:33 AM
It shouldn't be difficult, but I have always tried to read the Lord of The Rings series to no avail. I start the first book, get bored and quit, every time. I liked the Hobbit though.

I've read the first 2 books twice, never made it through the 3rd.
My dad read the Hobbit to me and my sister when we were kids. A chapter or two every night until it was finished.

GodShifter · April 25, 2011, 09:33:40 PM

Somewhat recently I tried to read Heller's Catch 22, and found it utterly impossible. What is I guess ironic & funny to smarter people than myself came across as simply frustrating & disjointed to me.

Isabellacat · April 25, 2011, 11:05:02 PM

i tried reading Lord of the Rings too and got bored really quick. It's that same feeling i had while trying to read the Player's Handbook for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons,just really makes me sleepy.

Same with Dune. tried reading that and gave up very quick. just seems incredibly boring.

74000riffs · April 26, 2011, 12:41:11 AM

Quote from: isabellacat on April 25, 2011, 11:05:02 PM

Same with Dune. tried reading that and gave up very quick. just seems incredibly boring.

I found Dune really exciting, probably because I played the old PC game before reading the books, so I was already into harvesting spice and sand worms and all that.

giantchris · April 26, 2011, 03:16:29 AM

I am finding Philip K. Dick's book Valis extremely hard to read. I actually like almost all of his work but this one is a little more...Incoherant then his other works. I would recommend Ubik or The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch way over Valis so far.

frobbert · April 26, 2011, 04:45:34 AM

I finished Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco and Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson's The Illuminatus Trilogy and I'm actually quite proud of that. Those were some tough motherfuckers.

I once started in Tolkien's The Hobbit but I gave up after a few chapters. I love horror and some SF but the fantasy genre is obviously not my thing. I'm not gonna bother myself with his LOTR trilogy.

Another book I just couldn't get into was The Catcher In The Rye. I found it to be boring and dated.

Other books I had some difficulty with but which I'm going to re-attempt one day:
Joseph Heller - Catch 22
Herman Hesse - The Steppenwolf
Herman Melville - Moby Dick
Thomas Pynchon - V.

By the way, I'm a big Cormac McCarthy fan and yes, his style takes a bit of getting used to. I've not only read Blood Meridian, I've read it twice and will give it a third time someday. Once you're used to his style his imagery is pretty striking.

lowdaddy · April 26, 2011, 05:01:56 AM

moby dick was tough for me as well. there's something about the writing style of alot of the mid-nineteenth century americans that i don't dig at all. melville, hawthorne, edgar allen poe, et al. they write these long convoluted passages. extremely long sentences. weird diction. it comes across as pompous and unnatural. certainly people didn't talk like that. where did these guys get this bizarre, unnatural style? i don't know. and then you look at mark twain who was a contemporary of theirs. he wrote concise, witty, beautiful stuff. much more natural. much easier. much funnier. i don't know but i've wondered about those guys from time to time (poe, melville, hawthorne, others). melville is worth the trouble in my opinion. i can do without hawthorne and poe is truly terrible. 2 cents.

SabbathJeff · April 26, 2011, 11:25:04 AM

Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show On Earth. I understand and fully endorse the "theory" of evolution just fine, but this book is a whole lot of scientific talk. I heart Dawkins' The God Delusion, but this one that came out after it had a cold mechanical feel to it. Still got through it though. Will try going back to to it.

Isabellacat · May 03, 2011, 04:56:29 AM

Quote from: lowdaddy on April 26, 2011, 05:01:56 AM
moby dick was tough for me as well. there's something about the writing style of alot of the mid-nineteenth century americans that i don't dig at all. melville, hawthorne, edgar allen poe, et al. they write these long convoluted passages. extremely long sentences. weird diction. it comes across as pompous and unnatural. certainly people didn't talk like that. where did these guys get this bizarre, unnatural style? i don't know. and then you look at mark twain who was a contemporary of theirs. he wrote concise, witty, beautiful stuff. much more natural. much easier. much funnier. i don't know but i've wondered about those guys from time to time (poe, melville, hawthorne, others). melville is worth the trouble in my opinion. i can do without hawthorne and poe is truly terrible. 2 cents.

yea Charles Dickens also comes to mind with that unnatural style. try reading David Copperfield....i got so bored with that book i just skipped over to the chapter about Uriah Heep. not only is that shit hard to read but the words are soo tiny and like 500 + pages long .

Edgar Alan Poe was drugged out of his mind when he wrote most of that stuff. Absinthe and opium. interesting stuff but i think you have to be in the right mood.

Lewis Carroll too. tried reading Alice in Wonderland in 5th grade and while it was interesting it was kinda tough to read. much rather watch the cartoon.

The Shocker · May 03, 2011, 08:08:25 AM

I liked Moby Dick, but I'm into books about the sea. Easier to read if you're way into the subject.

GodShifter · May 03, 2011, 09:38:25 AM

More evidence that Deaner is my brother from another mother. I couldn't agree more on both counts.

The Shocker · May 03, 2011, 09:43:30 AM

Quote from: GodShifter on May 03, 2011, 09:38:25 AM
More evidence that Deaner is my brother from another mother. I couldn't agree more on both counts.

Love you man, don't forget Everest/mountain climbing books...

GodShifter · May 03, 2011, 02:47:39 PM

Right on. Also true crime!

Mr Neutron · May 04, 2011, 03:26:30 AM

Quote from: GodShifter on April 15, 2011, 08:08:43 PM
McCarthy's Blood Meridian.
I think, for me, it's just his style that wears me down.

+1

Others that I had to fight, or gave up on:

Infinite Jest
Gravity's Rainbow
The Pope's Rhinoceros (never finished)
Three Trapped Tigers

mostly due to dense style, the infante book because of word-play, and double meanings (in a translated book!)

Eyehatehippies · May 14, 2011, 05:36:04 AM

Most of the philosophy I read was very dense and obscure.

I think I always had the same problems with Thus Spoke Zarathrustra that any young pseudointellectual had when I was in college for the first time - I took it as a nihilist manifesto, rather than one of the most profoundly beautiful spiritual journeys ever documented by a human being. Nietzche was one of the most spiritual writers, ever, and far from a nihilst...

Another one that has always been difficult is Kierkegaard...who was he writing to? Who is the "one person who will someday understand him"? Some think it was his lost love, and that is obviously a part of it, but there's more to the story...

NCR600 · May 14, 2011, 11:12:36 AM

Quote from: isabellacat on May 03, 2011, 04:56:29 AM

yea Charles Dickens also comes to mind with that unnatural style. try reading David Copperfield....i got so bored with that book i just skipped over to the chapter about Uriah Heep. not only is that shit hard to read but the words are soo tiny and like 500 + pages long .

Try reading "Pickwick Papers". It was originally a serialised story in a men's magazine and moves along at a cracking pace. It's a pretty good introduction to Dickens and was the one that motivated me to read the rest of his stuff again after having been forced to study David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities in highschool and hating it.

Catch 22 is a fucking awesome book, but took several reads to "get it". One of my all time favourites, I'll just open my copy at random and start reading, even after having read it many times.

The one book I've never been able to get into is "A Suitable Boy" by Vikram Seth. It's not hard to read, it's just super-detailed, long and as boring as bat-shit. Imagine if you wrote down everything you did for 20 years, padded it out with everything everyone you knew did for 20 years and published it, and you'd be pretty close to the mark. It's a pity, because I have a little book of fable style prose by V.S. with his own illustrations and it's fucking awesome.