'Difficult' books

[Ein Heldenleben]

Has anyone read Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities?

Or “ A Glastonbury Romance “? I’ve not read either nor met any one who has ..

[RichardB]

Has anyone read Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities?

Yes. For me it's a very important work. I have a lot of time for At Swim-Two-Birds and A Confederacy of Dunces, since those have been mentioned.

[Joseph K]

Beckett's Murphy is one that's defeated me.

[Serial_Apologist]

Beckett's Murphy is one that's defeated me.

I haven't read that - or very much Beckett at all for that matter, I have to admit - and the comments in the linked publication below might or might not proffer any enlightenment on it. However, they seem to me (from what I understand about Beckett's outlooks on life) to present interpretations I could go along with.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/333314.Murphy

[RichardB]

Beckett's Murphy is one that's defeated me.

Really? What is it you have difficulty with? It's his first published novel of course, and a bit too taken up with being clever, rather than stripping that somewhat Joycean surface away to reveal Beckett's own world. The protagonists in most of Beckett's early prose can be seen as a "reduced" version of the previous one: Belacqua, Murphy, Watt, Molloy, Malone and finally the Unnamable. It's a sort of evolutionary process through which the starting point for the rest of his output is reached.

[teamsaint]

I would say that the most “difficult “ works of fiction I’ve read are

First three vols of In Search Of Lost Time
Dr Faustus
Ulysses

Also confusing are : At Swim Two Birds, Confederacy Of Dunces and Gravity’s Rainbow


But the most difficult to follow , largely because they are designed to confuse (or the product of a senile brain if you believe F.R. Leavis) , are The Wings Of A Dove and The Golden Bowl. I’ve read both four times and there are whole sentences that just don’t make sense.

What did you find confusing about Dunces ?
Seems a very easy and high quality read to me .

[teamsaint]

I guess that some people might think that The White Hotel by DM Thomas had difficulties of one sort or another.
The difficult bit for me was when my mum asked to borrow my copy. TBH, I think it was probably outside of her usual genres…….

[Joseph K]

Really? What is it you have difficulty with?

I think, at the time - and I'm not sure why this is the case, given some of the other books I've read! - I just found it hard to follow and, for whatever reason, perceived its intricacies as somewhat irksome. I actually have all of Beckett's works on my shelves, embarrassingly little of which I've actually read Maybe 2023 should be a year that I rectify that; despite owning lots of other unread books, I ought to put my foot down and read Beckett...

[RichardB]

What did you find confusing about Dunces ?
Seems a very easy and high quality read to me .

Highly amusing also.

[teamsaint]

Highly amusing also.

Very funny indeed. Occasionally off- putting though……

There a no other novels, I think, in which hot dogs play such a prominent part

[ChandlersFord]

I find one big factor in making a book difficult is a lack of paragraphs and punctuation - this applies to at least one Beckett work mentioned above (The Unnameable), which is not a long book but which looks more formidable than it should owing to its appearance on the page as a long, breathless monologue.

There's also that recent book by Lucy Ellman, which is over 500 pages long and consists of two sentences. I don't propose reading it.

One novel I'd advise everyone to avoid is Georges Perec's A Void (see what I did there?). It's untranslatable and the version I read obviously had more to do with the 'translator' than with the original author.

[Ein Heldenleben]

What did you find confusing about Dunces ?
Seems a very easy and high quality read to me .

Can’t remember. I enjoyed it but can’t remember a single thing about it . Ooh sounds just like life in general ..
But not this so far tedious game of footy….

[Ein Heldenleben]

Ive just bought The Man Without Qualities on RB’s recommendation only to discover it’s 1152 pages long…

[RichardB]

There a no other novels, I think, in which hot dogs play such a prominent part

Or valves.

[RichardB]

Ive just bought The Man Without Qualities on RB’s recommendation only to discover it’s 1152 pages long…

And it isn't even finished!