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literature - - (+5|-0)
What are some of the most difficult to read books?(self)
5 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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[-]RickSanchez2(+2|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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[-]LarrySwinger1(+1|0)

Bist du Deutsch?

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[-]RickSanchez1(+1|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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[-]x0x71(+1|0)

The Voynich manuscript.

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[-]pumpkin1(+1|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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