http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/827.Most_Difficult_Novels
Do you agree with this list?
>8. Crime and Punishment
>10. Infinite Jest
>13. The Brothers Karamazov
>49. Jane Eyre
>50. Tess of the d'Urbervilles
How the fuck is Dostoyevsky so high up? Why are Jane Eyre and Tess even on there?
Pic unrelated
>>7885713
They're long and don't have dragons.
>>7886248
Dostojewski is so high up because he's one of the greatest novelists of all time desu
Tess is relatively hard for the genre. Also a fucking masterpiece.
But no, obviously noone here agrees with this. I wonder why you even have to post it.
Seems to be "popular literature... that's also difficult". There's obviously more obscure lit that's harder to read. I'm confounded on how Finnegan's Wake is considered easier than Ulysses.
I'm always surprised by what people find difficult. My mother, who reads 2-3 (modern) books a week, and also has self-published a few novels, had a difficult time reading Wuthering Heights after I suggested it to her. Fucking Wuthering Heights. She said the language was too old and hard to put together, and she had to spend a long time trying to evaluate what it means. I just didn't understand that.
>>7886264
It trips up more people than you'd think
I'm perplexed by Moby Dick being up there though. It's just (somewhat) long!
>5. Gravity's Rainbow
Really?
>>7886248
>lolita
>no Ada
Lolita is probably Nabokov's easiest wtf
>The Stranger
hahahha wow
>>7886264
People who only read recent novels targeted at their particular demographic tend not to have a deep understanding of English throughout its development or an appreciation for the cultural context of older fiction. It takes some doing to acquire that kind of perspective. I'm 24 and have read avidly since I was a small child but would say I'm just now close to the minimum standard for being well-read in that sense.
>>7886298
Go read the Canterbury Tales in middle english
>>7886311
Already did. That was one of the most important steps in my literary development.
>>7886293
Ada isn't even that difficult aside from that weird texture of time chapter and the intro chapter
>ulysses harder than finnegans wake
interesting
>1. Ulysses
>2. Finnigans Wake
>4. Moby Dick
>5. Gravity's Rainbow
kek wat
>>7886285
gr's fun but difficult to slog through given how detail oriented and how syntactically complex the individual sentences are
>>7886248
>heart of darkness is #9
>Atlas Shrugged and Catch-22 in Top 20
what kind of bib-wearing retards are responsible for this
>>7886371
It's likely because less people voted for Finnegans Wake because Finnegans Wake is less well known BUT
I say I think Ulysses is a harder read for the average reader than Finnegans Wake because people try to pin Ulysses to every detail. Finnegans Wake, when it is read, is taken mostly as a piece of gibberish jabberwocky, and the narrative elements are pretty well covered in most editions' notes/ literary criticism.
House of Leaves being on this list at all is ridiculous. And it's at 25
>>7886456
sitting through a racist book for a few hundred pages IS hard, probably the hardest thing out there.
>>7886293
Lolita is far from his easiest.
>confirmed for only having read three Nabokov books
>>7886516
>moshi moshi beito desu
>>7886248
Because good reads is full of literal retards.
>>7886519
Different anon, have only read Lolita and Pale Fire, but Lolita didn't seem particularly hard to read. What's his easiest in your opinion?
>>7886467
At first this was what I thought. But after finishing ulysses and trying many times to read finnegans wake my opinion changed. Ulysses makes sense, most of the time- for this it's easier and in my opinion more fun
>>7886456
less-than-redditors
>1000 pages of drivel? I'll say it was hard so that I can legitimize all those hours I wasted on the Libertarian Manifesto
it's all a giant wank-off
>>7886248
>Animal farm
>A book that is literally read by children is on a list of most difficult novels.
>>7887404
Its because of all those subtle allegories animal farm is full of.The books is actually NOT only about pigs that take over a farm
>Ulysses more difficult than FW
>The Sound and the Fury difficult at all or at least more difficult than Absalom, Absalom!
>Moby-Dick being difficult at all
>Gravity's Rainbow being difficult at all when the chapters are either about bananas, scat, or rockets
>Heart of fucking Darkness is fucking 90 pages long you plebs
>Lolita
>Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Don't show this to Old Man Bloom or else he'd stroke out
>>7889099
YOU DON'T SAY?!!??
>>7889115
Gravity's Rainbow being difficult at all when the chapters are either about bananas, scat, or rockets
Sounds like u skimmed the book without understanding it / are incapable of reading books beyond the plot and the jokes.
>>7889150
It's a meme, you dip
>>7886248
How on earth is crime and punishment difficult? Part of the reason it's so great is it's accessibility for a classic novel.
>>7889158
I really hope you're joking. Meme status is not mutually exclusive with legitimacy; Gravity's Rainbow achieved critical acclaim long before it became appropriated by /lit/-culture.
>>7889099
WHAT??!?!???
>>7889177
You fucking idiot
op's pic really made me want to read ij.
is anyone kind enough to tell me whats good about it? all ive seen here are memes
>>7886516
>a few hundred pages
it's short as fuck m8, try literally 150 pages.
in no concievable way could it be considered top 10 most difficult novels. tbch that's not even a novel, it's a novella.
>>7889183
i no u r
>Toni Morrison on a list of difficult reads
>Wittgenstein's Mistress doesn't make the list
>Moby dick being in the top 5
>an Oprah book club book being in the top 10
I kek'd. This list is just a meme OP.
>>7886257
But he isn't difficult by a long shot.
>>7886248
why ulysses is above finnegans
Why is Tess even on there, i just finished it and not once did i find anything complex about the way it was written
If you add audio books as read on good reads, would this go the same way with watching a Shakespeare play and adding it as read?
>>7886283
In fairness, as much as I love Moby Dick, it's not simply just "long," anon. There's some fairly abstract prose that Melville uses (whether it's poetic comparisons between the beating of Ahab's leg on the deck to his heart, or the full chapters on old whaling methods) which can be somewhat distracting or may require a few re-readings of such passages before the reader can be somewhat familiar with it. It's not the most difficult book of all time of course, but it's not necessarily a walk in the park either.
>>7886248
>crime and punishment is harder than tbk
literally how?
>>7889506
because they didn't read brothers karamazov
