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literature - - (+5|-1)
What are some of the most difficult to read books?(self)
6 commentsbyLarrySwinger

For funsies I thought maybe we could establish a tier list of most difficult to read texts. I nominate the following:

  • The Phenomenology of Spirit by Hegel
  • Finnegans Wake by Joyce
  • Zohar / The Book of Splendor
  • Mahabharata (because of its absurd length).

What are some other grandiosely difficult to read books? Books where it's a true achievement to read and comprehend them in their entirety.

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[-]RickSanchez3(+3|0)

Anything by Kant: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/315949.Logic In original German, the translations are not as good in English and you have to keep on looking up definitions of words in a dictionary.

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[-]LarrySwinger2(+2|0)

Bist du Deutsch?

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[-]RickSanchez2(+2|0)

I don't speak German but I know of others who do and read Kant. I'm part German and part Scot-Irish.

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[-]x0x72(+2|0)

The Voynich manuscript.

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[-]pumpkin2(+2|0)

Silmarillion (Tolkein) - difficult only because it's a gathering of additional LOTR-related information, rather than a coherent book. It's interesting but no fun.

Gravity's Rainbow (Pynchon) - it jumps all over the place and is interesting - especially in parts - if one has the patience for a long story like that; it can be exhausting

Swann's Way (Proust) - it takes one on various jouneys that require one to remain interested in narratives or risk boredom, because it's less about the plot(s) than it is about the psychology, memory, and the subjective perception of time, as the first of the 7-volume series, In Search of Lost Time

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[-]JasonCarswell1(+1|0)

Books that say they have the magical answer, praise blind faith, and claim they are the true religion and/or government are impossible to swallow much less digest.

Naked Lunch ~ William Burroughs One of his most famous, one of the beatniks, it seemed like a must read. I left it on the back of my toilet. It's all about needles, boys, and talking assholes.

On Beyond Zebra! ~ Dr. Seuss It's turtles all the way down.

One Nation Under Blackmail (Parts 1 & 2) ~ Whitney Webb Everyone says it's extremely dense. I've been called dense too. Maybe I should actually read mine.

The Singularity Is Near ~ Ray Kurzweil He was once respectable, even if narrow-sighted, clearly believing that all tech is good, never factoring in the evils of tech.

Two Hundred Years Together (Parts 1 & 2) ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Folks like Jordan Peterson talk about his Gulag Archipelago but ignore the real Zionist elephant in the room.

Most of my books are in storage. Maybe soon I'll have them on set to better look over them.

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