I'm reading Deborah Curtis' biography of Ian Curtis tonight and really struggling to force myself to read it, mainly because he seems so much like my ex husband that I can almost physically feel her pain. Silly yes, but I'm having to put it down every few pages because I hate to think of another human being going through the shit that I went through - plus of course flashbacks and some bad memories.
What have you found really really hard to read?
Please distract me!
Finnegan' s Wake
aaagh!
LOL
not in the same sense
but the first 200 pages of catch 22 and the middle of moby dick nearly broke me
i have found it very hard to read The Life of Saint Swithun
it is only about six pages but ENDLESSLY DULL
I found touching from a distance
hard to read as well. However it is a good book.
I found the life of pi hard to read as well but that's juts because it bored me stupid.
Also
Watership sodding down , which bored me I don't believe I got past the second chapter. Oh hearing this my dad called me souless.
road to wigan pier by george orwell
so dull.
no way! it's awesome!
i love his descriptions of life there so much and then the polemic at the end is a brilliant bit of political writing
^ This
Dermaphoria
By Craig Clevenger...totally worth it though.
yeah i suppose the descriptions are good
i just find it monumentally boring.
I really enjoyed Road To Wigan Pier
when I read it about 20 years ago
I just finished a book about AC/DC yesterday and it was a piece of turgid crap. How someone could have got a book deal out of rehashing old interviews which appeared as each album was released, a potted history of the band and padding it out to about 250 pages with 50 Amazing Facts type stuff, none of them amazing and the majority probably not even factual, along with other bollocks and the same stuff being repeated over and over. The crapness of the book actually made me angry. It's called Two Sides To Every Glory, AC/DC, The Complete Biography by Paul Stenning.
Heh
my point wasn't so much about dullness - although her writing style is pretty damned annoying - more on books that tear at heartstrings and therefore are hard to read.
emo ftw!
Naked Lunch
Pages and pages of absolutely mind-mangling filth, drug use, homosexual pedophilia, all for the occasional genius comedy routine... by the same token, the end of Burroughs' Place of Dead Roads, when it's set in Venus, arrrgghhh, disorientating and disturbing.
Naked Lunch
Is my favourite book of all time. Some of the the writing is so unimaginally brutal, it blows me away. If I need to get myself in the mood for some thing I'll pick open by well-worn copy at a random page and start reading.
It's called pushing the boundaries
Naked Lunch
I'm reading that at the moment, it's hard to keep on top of what he's going on about, it makes your brain spin a bit, but it's interesting.
impenetrable:
http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/1107691
Catch 22
Was a difficult one for me, not because it sounded too familiar, obviously, but it was just a hard book to get through. It was rewarding though.
I found Catch 22
a great and easy read. This thread has inspired me to go into 'the cupboard', tear out numerous boxes, books, junk etc and use a hoover attachment to reach up and knock my copy of Catch 22 off the shelf to take to America with me next week. It really is that good. It was either that or Under The Volcano by Malcolm Lowry which is also a great book
I don't really find books 'difficult', sure, some will push a button which reminds us of harrowing times in our lives but if it's a good book it'll be worth it.
as i said up there
the first 200 pages are well difficult because all the characters and chronology are out of sync and things are only mentioned in passing. once it begins to reference itself, it becomes far easier to understand.
i could only read the first bit in one go to proceed - my earlier attempts at a chapter at a time were futile as i'd forget too much
The Story of the Eye
But mainly because I can't speak French.
its also
kinda hard to read in an entirely different way...
agreed on......
.....Naked Lunch
Also I struggled with And the Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave, but that was because I was younger then and he used big words.
Gravity's Rainbow
is a very inaccessible book by Thomas Pynchon, and nothing like the Klaxons song.
I brought Gravity's Rainbow
on the back of liking the Klaxons take on the title... and you are right, it's nowt like the song.
It's the literary equivalent of some epic overly complex mid-70s prog piss-take, awkward meters with way too many ideas crammed into short spaces and pretentious overblown characters and concepts...
I couldn't really get into it, yet, from what I read, I did actually enjoy it. Maybe I should give it another go?
Glad I'm not the only one
remember reading it, as an eager teenager. And finding it incredibly dense but not very cohesive or engaging at all.
I love Pynchon,
but even I find Gravity's Rainbow hard work. Last attempt I got about 600 pages in then gave up, it's a book that you need to take notes throuh in order to keep understanding the story. That said there are still alot of wonderful patrs within it it, it just requires effort.
ulysses
is it a book about wanking?
*wumping*
William Burroughs-Cities Of The Red Night
a wee bit confusing
Testament of youth
vera brittain
Ill Seen, Ill Said, by Beckett
Much as I love the man I found his later stuff increasingly inaccessible, particularly that one.
Lord of the Rings trilogy
took me ages, and was spectacularly anti-climactic.
The Book of Dave (by Will Self) was also pretty difficult, due to the fact that in the early stages I had no idea what was going on, and Self had written in a made up language akin to A Clockwork Orange.
Well that was an easy read
not.
Terrible book. Can't even begin to describe how much I find the writing style appalling; it's reassuring to know that Curtis' soul is still alive and well in my ex huband's body - my one regret is that the fucker didn't finish the job off properly when he jumped out of a window after I left him.
Tortured geniuses - they can all fuck right off. If ever you want to pin down the most selfish and detestable people on earth, just look to find a tortured 'genius'.
ian curtis
was a complete shit, i rwad that book and he was a complete bastard, clever but a git.
mm
my secret life by walter was tricky
all 12 volumes
The Sound and the Fury
VALIS by philip k dick
ever wanted to read a book about a man trying to rationalise an encounter with God / a god / a supreme being / an alien being / some kind of funky pink light written by an author who is trying to rationalise an encounter with God / a god / a supreme being / an alien being / some kind of funky pink light, whilst at the same time exploring the tenants of gnostic christianity? OH YEAH YOU GOT IT.
God bless that man
I found myself re-reading parts of Three Stigmata as well.
VALIS is apparently
the first part of a trilogy as well :|
Three Stigmata is ace, probably my favourite of the ones I've read.
VALIS
is also one of the most awesome not just pieces of literature but things in general of all time. I didn't find it hard to read at all, I read it all the way through on a plane. Apparently a lot of 'Sister' by Sonic Youth is based on its themes.
oh
i really enjoyed it, don't get me wrong. but all the quotes from fat's exegesis got a bit much..
"sister" was generally based on PKD's work, the title is a reference to his twin who was stillborn..
Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy
I'd been meaning read it for a while after watching a Cock & Bull Story. Fucking hell it's infuriating. I'm only about a third of the way into it, but I don't want to give up yet.
the two towers
in (i think) the second book of it all it is is a seemingly endless description of sam, frodo and gollum climbing hills and plodding through marshes with very little happening. i enjoy tolkien but that almost made me give up.
_
doctor sax by jack kerouac. it hurt my head a little. it was just denser and more abstract than i expected, i guess.
i struggled with naked lunch too
but worth it. pynchon is utter bollocks, though - i'd rather stab my eyes out than read any of his diarrhoea again. i've always found joseph conrad to be difficult territory n'all - not enjoyable in the slightest.
I thought Dr Sax was fantastic
But yeah, it's not exactly the kind of book you read in an afternoon is it? Took me about three months to finish it.
I struggled with Big Sur more. In fact I'm still struggling with it.
Last Exit To Brooklyn
by Hubert Selby Jr. Not only is it very uncomfortable in places but he writes in almost continuous prose without speech marks and very few paragraphs so it's difficult to take in who's who. I kinda let the first half wash over me before giving up.
you're silly
it's a WONDERFUL book. WONDERFUL.
Oh and can I add Don Quixote to the list too.
just about the longest, least grabbing book ever written.
I struggled with reading Don Quixote too. SOO DIFFICULT to get into
argh. I didn't finish it.
Jane austen
I have to read pride and prejudice and Persuasion for my course. The intentionally meandering dialogue is hard to follow when you find a piece of text more dull an than watching paint dry.
is this a book?
no. V for vendetta was difficult when I thought about it but the fact that its a comic meant i didn't think much about the whole theme which is quite a bleak one.
The Collector by John Fowles
Nasty little book which left a bad taste in my mouth when I'd finished it.
The 'Collector' is a repellent character.
100 years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
An absolute slog of a book but totally worth it. I've not read anything else quite like it.
riddley walker by russel hoban
it is written in a kind of broken/devolved english. i have managed a few pages and find it easier to read if you do it out loud. but christ, that is tough.
It's really easy once you get into it
the roots of the words make a lot of sense and the way he devolves then rebuilds the english language is incredible; creates new ambiguity from old associations.
It's one of the best books I've ever read, so plough ahead.