50 Incredibly Tough Books for Extreme Readers

[Mila]

What I already read:

Pet Sematary, Stephen King

Coin Locker Babies, Ryu Murakami

Battle Royale, Koushun Takami

Out, Natsuo Kirino

War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri

 

What I began reading at one time, but didn’t complete:

The Castle, Franz Kafka

The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

 

Let’s begin with the last list. The Castle – it’s freaking depressing, like all Kafka’s works for me. Maybe I didn’t find the right book or something, but it isn’t my author.

The Gulag Archipelago. Ok, firstly, it’s big. Secondly, it’s big book about very hard life. I read Solzhenitsyn’s In the First Circle. It’s about the same time, but with fewer details. I loved it.

 

First list.  Ryu Murakami and  Koushun Takami are “quirky” authors. And yeah, I would add to this authors Poppy Z. Brite (I read three of her books), Clive Barker, and Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. I don’t understand what Out is doing in this list. It wasn’t tough, it wasn’t quirky. For me it was quite boring. You could read Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment –
it would be tougher book. I like Pet Sematary, I re-read it several times. I wouldn’t say that this is a “tough” book.

Divine Comedy is a treat. It’s a pleasure, it’s a marvelous book, and it’s always in my bookshelf. But yeah, I think it’s only for a selected group of people. Not many would find it interesting.

War and Peace. In Russia you actually need to read this book for school. Many, many, many pupils just read short retelling and then lived happily ever after. I’m an avid reader. I re-read War and Peace 4 times. Enough said I think.

 

[poppyshake]

I've only read three of them. I wouldn't call Moby Dick difficult .. sometimes it's hard to sustain interest in all the cetology but apart from that it's detailed but fairly easy going. To the Lighthouse is difficult .. you have to be in the right frame of mind and also .. because there's no plot to speak of .. it can be frustrating (though I loved it.) The Sound and the Fury is an absolute beast though  

[Eleonora]

I dare say there's a great piece of italian literature missing.. or at least, we are taught it's a masterpiece in our literature, but I'm not too sure because everytime I try to read it I can't go further than page 30: Foucault's Pendulum written by Umberto Eco.

I never haven't heard of some of the books in the list, not even published here, but I think there are some books that shouldn't have been mentioned. They're just long, such as Moby Dick, but not difficult.

[pontalba]

I fully agree. I don't think I would've finished had it not been a RG challenge read. I'm very happy to hear I'm not the only one who didn't get it that much... Phew

 

We are not alone.

 

Regarding Didion...I just received the Dec/Jan 2014 issue of Book Forum magazine and there is a great article comparing Didion and Nora Ephron.  I've read one book by Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck, and truly enjoyed it. 

 

I just have to quote something here from the Book Forum article, written by Heather Havrilesky

 

 

 Closing her last two books, it's hard not to implore of the book-jacket,  "but, Joan, how do you actually feel about all of this?"     Ephron, on the other hand, tells us exactly how she feels every stop of the way--whether she's clashing with her former boss, New York Post owner Dorothy Schiff, or reflecting on cheesecake and pot roast and the futility of making egg rolls that aren't even as good as cheap Chinese takeout.  Ephron does all this in the plainest language, with the least fanfare and the greatest amount of humor she can manage.

 

"likewise when Ephron discovered that her husband, Carl Bernstein, was cheating on her while she was pregnant with her second child, she translated that nightmare into the surprisingly giddy bestselling novel Heartburn, which subsequently became a film starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.

 

When life gave Ephron lemons, in other words, she made a giant vat of really good vodka-spiked lemonade and invited all of her friends and her friends' friends over to share it, and gossip, and play charades.  Whereas when life gave Joan Didion lemons, she stared at them for several months, and then crafted a haunting bit of prose about the lemon and orange groves that were razed and paved over to make Hollywood, in all of its sooty wretchedness--which is precisely what this mixed up world does to everything that's fresh and young and full of promise.

 

Lack of feeling is exactly what bothered me about Joan Didion's book.....she was frozen.  Which is one way some people handle grief.  But to write a book in that vein is just.......wrong.

 

I've lost close loved ones, and I know the stages of grief very well.  Didion's book simply did not ring true for me.

 

I don't mean to hijack the thread.....but I thought you'd enjoy reading the excerpt above.  I tried linking the online article, it's worth reading, but it isn't online yet.

 

Back to your regular programming.......

Edited November 15, 2013 by pontalba

[Adrenalise]

I've only read three of them. I wouldn't call Moby Dick difficult .. sometimes it's hard to sustain interest in all the cetology but apart from that it's detailed but fairly easy going. To the Lighthouse is difficult .. you have to be in the right frame of mind and also .. because there's no plot to speak of .. it can be frustrating (though I loved it.) The Sound and the Fury is an absolute beast though  

 

The Sound and the Fury is only difficult because of the first 2 chapters, and ironically enough, it is usually because the reader seriously overcomplicates it. The one piece of encouragement I would give to people wishing to read it for the first time is this:

 

It is like a jigsaw puzzle. In the beginning, you have fragments of information, names and places but nothing that seems to connect. This is normal and things will get better later. Until then you must be content not knowing, you must experience what it is like to be confused, to hear words but take no meaning from them. It is important and everything matters.

 

As you read further you are given more information, more pieces of the puzzle. There are 4 chapters and you will not really begin to see purpose or meaning to what you are reading until the 3rd chapter. After that the peices rapidly begin to fall into place and you begin to build up a picture. At some point you will know what it is that you are seeing and reading and you will intimately of the lives you are reading about because you have lived them. It will arrive like an epiphany.

 

I have never read a novel before or since that does anything like this. Whatever pain you must go through to reach that point will be worth it when you get to look down from the summit.

[Adrenalise]

I think of Finnegan's Wake as being like The Sound and the Fury but without the awakening.

 

It is like a river of words. Like a river, the words flow in an ebb and current that you are powerless to control. At various points along the river you grab onto a rock - a pun that you think you understand, a joke that you think you get. Something solid and tangible that you can cling onto to make sense of the moment you find yourself in. But the words flow inexorably and eventually you must let go.

 

The most difficult thing about Finnegan's Wake is being subjected to a force you cannot control and letting it sweep you away. I do not think it is a novel that you can truly read (and i use this term in the loosest sense). You follow the river to its source, which is both its beginning and its end. 

 

I think it is a difficult thing to comprehend and depending on your mood, it may be a difficult experience to put yourself through. I often find the thought of putting myself through it too much but every once in a while I want to let go and I'm drawn to it for a moment.

 

I have never read it from the first page to the last page and I don't feel as there are any logical start or end points. I jump into the river at any point on any page and begin drowning. Sometimes I have to stop whilst other times I can look at the words on the page for a time and get lost in the wake. Either way its not something I could say that I "read" and I'm not sure how much you can get from it by atomising it. However if its something you wish to do in a scholarly capacity, it would probably keep you preoccupied for a life time.

[Kreader]

.

 

 

 

 

Moby-Dick, Herman Melville

 

Pet Sematary, Stephen King

 

 

The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer

 

 

These are the ones that on the list that I've read.  I didn't find Moby-Dick hard going.  Pet Semetary was a bit disturbing.  To think I brought this book up in a child psychology discussion at uni.  I don't think I'd read Battle Royale, watching the movie was disturbing enough. I'm not inclined to read The Silmarillian either.  I picked it up one day and couldn't get past page two.  I decided it was not for me even though I've read The Lord of The Ring and The Hobbit.

[willoyd]

I've read:

 

Moby Dick - Herman Melville

To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer

The Gulag Archipelago - Alexander Solzhenitsyin

The Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

The Silmarillion - JRR Tolkien

 

Of these, I'd put the first 4 amongst top 10-15 books ever: brilliant reads!  I'm surprised to see To The Lighthouse there - I found it a fairly easy read, and certainly far easier than The Waves, which was the most dificult Woolf for me.  I read Gulag Archipelago many, many years ago, and all I can remember is that I wasn't impressed - at a time when everybody but everybody was raving about Solzhenitsyn.  I've never been tempted to go back. The Heart of Darkness left me cold, as does most Conrad.  I loved Lord of the Rings and, to a lesser extent, enjoyed The Hobbit.  The Silmarillion, which I tried about the same time as GA, was, for me, as dull as ditchwater, and somewhat over self-indulgent.

[poppyshake]

The Sound and the Fury is only difficult because of the first 2 chapters, and ironically enough, it is usually because the reader seriously overcomplicates it. The one piece of encouragement I would give to people wishing to read it for the first time is this:

 

It is like a jigsaw puzzle. In the beginning, you have fragments of information, names and places but nothing that seems to connect. This is normal and things will get better later. Until then you must be content not knowing, you must experience what it is like to be confused, to hear words but take no meaning from them. It is important and everything matters.

 

As you read further you are given more information, more pieces of the puzzle. There are 4 chapters and you will not really begin to see purpose or meaning to what you are reading until the 3rd chapter. After that the peices rapidly begin to fall into place and you begin to build up a picture. At some point you will know what it is that you are seeing and reading and you will intimately of the lives you are reading about because you have lived them. It will arrive like an epiphany.

 

I have never read a novel before or since that does anything like this. Whatever pain you must go through to reach that point will be worth it when you get to look down from the summit.

I did read it all but found that, unfortunately, it didn't get better for me. It did eventually begin to build a picture as you say but I didn't like that picture all that much and hated the early struggle. Still, it's one of those books that people either love or hate I think and there are plenty of people who do love it and find it rewarding  

[Anna Begins]

Hm... I've got:

Sound and the Fury (Liked it)

Naked Lunch (hated it)

War and Peace (loved it)

Gulag Archipelago (loved it)

 

I don't know what is so Incredibly Tough about them though, and I wouldn't necessarily call myself and Extreme Reader

 

TBR

Pet Sematary

Trainspotting

Sophie's Choice

Moby Dick

Edited December 6, 2013 by Anna Begins

[anisia]

I've read:

 

Trainspotting 

The Castle

 

There are a few books on the list that I've wanted to read for a very long time.

[sadya]

I love Proust and I enjoyed Moby Dick, but I was surprised to find Kafka difficult to finish reading, I did understand what he was saying, but it was so depressing and some stories didn't seem interesting, while there were a few others I enjoyed better. 

[Nollaig]

I've only read Battle Royale and The Silmarillion, though I studied some of The Canterbury Tales in uni.

 

I'm gonna go through the list in detail and pick out some for the TBR pile

[emelee]

I haven't read any one from that list. I think I can figure out why. I do want to read House of leaves, Heart of Darkness, The Castle and Pet Semetary. I believe 3 of them are already in my book shelf.

But no way in this world will I ever try to read Divine Comedy or War and peace. Just no. 

Edited January 26, 2014 by emelee

[Jeckyll]

I've read Hopscotch and Heart of Darkness and I really enjoyed them.

[BSchultz19]

I have heard that Heart of Darkness is a really tough read, but I think I'm going to give it a try in the near future. 

[Anna Begins]

I have heard that Heart of Darkness is a really tough read, but I think I'm going to give it a try in the near future. 

Isn't Les Miserables difficult?  I'd love to read it someday.