There's a play called "
Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?", but she is not the only novelist with a daunting reputation of being a worthy, but challenging read. I'd be very interested in people's opinions of Melville, Satre, Joseph Heller, Bret Easton Ellis - anyone who is considered good but difficult. Have you tried these guys, and are they worth it?
First up, I hope nobody minds if I airlift (from the Your Day thread) these posts about James Joyce: they are the spark that made me think people might like to share their reading experiences, their triumphs and defeats when facing down these literary giants.
Quote from: innerspaceboy on Jan 01, 2025, 06:13 PMI'm so honored. A dear friend of mine is a phenomenal artist who painted the framed portrait of Miles Davis I have displayed in my home which I've shared previously.
I was giving him a set of spare canvas frames for New Year's and he surprised me by using one to frame a canvas print of his portrait of the great James Joyce!
I have Joycean treasures all over my home. This new addition is now my favorite. Thanks, brother!
(Note: He accepts commission work!)
(https://i.imgur.com/9hqjHSPl.jpg)
Quote from: Buck_Mulligan on Jan 03, 2025, 07:15 PMGreat Portrait!
"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed" is the first line of James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses.
^ That's a nice portrait of the artist as a not so young man, ISB ! - and that literary reference for your username went sailing right over my head, Buck Mulligan. :-[
Quote from: Guybrush on Jan 03, 2025, 07:54 AMThat painting of James Joyce is really cool.. I haven't managed to finish one of his books yet 😅
The only book of his I managed to finish was
Dubliners, which is a book of easy-to-read short stories. It's his debut album, before he got into the weird stuff. If you are challenged by
Revolution No.9, this was his
Love Me Do; if you don't like
Tales of Topographic Oceans, this is just
Yes from 1969. It's
Can't Buy a Thrill, not
Aja. Anyway, I'm sure you get where I'm going with these analogies.
You could probably add Cormac McCarthy to the list! I am technically reading Blood Meridian, but kinda fell off as I didn't have a grasp on what was going on.
I am attracted to weird, avantgarde things in other mediums (movie, music). But in litterature, I don't like it when it becomes too dense. I generally am not good at deciphering tricky symbolism. I don't necessarily enjoy meta writing, like writing the same story in different styles. I don't enjoy it when chronology is jumbled. I basically enjoy stories that I can understand and follow and prefer authors who write for readers rather than other writers.
I did enjoy Robert Chambers' trick with the unreliable narrator in the first of his short stories that make up The King in Yellow. In that story, there is a book (or play) called The King In Yellow that changes those who read it, making them insane. The book is written as narrated by our protagonist, so when he tells us he read The King in Yellow, we know him to be mad and unreliable.
It was of course a huge influence on Lovecraft who stole much of it and placed it in his own cosmos.
I must admit, I really wanted to read Moby Dick, but after about three or four chapters I had to throw it down in disgust. It's just sooooooo boring! I mean, if you weren't aware of what happens in the story later, you'd be like, "Dude! What the fuck?!" Talk about being slow to get started! I also very much enjoyed Les Miserables, but Hugo's determination to essentially catalogue the entire Napoleonic Wars in the middle had me skip, skip, skipping many chapters. I don't even see what the point of it was. Well, I do, sort of, but it didn't add anything to the novel, or, more importantly, skipping it did not take anything from the story.
Quote from: Trollheart on Jan 04, 2025, 06:40 PMI must admit, I really wanted to read Moby Dick, but after about three or four chapters I had to throw it down in disgust. It's just sooooooo boring! I mean, if you weren't aware of what happens in the story later, you'd be like, "Dude! What the fuck?!" Talk about being slow to get started! I also very much enjoyed Les Miserables, but Hugo's determination to essentially catalogue the entire Napoleonic Wars in the middle had me skip, skip, skipping many chapters. I don't even see what the point of it was. Well, I do, sort of, but it didn't add anything to the novel, or, more importantly, skipping it did not take anything from the story.
Did you at least get to the part where Ishmael and Queequeg shack up together for a night? :laughing:
Moby Dick is one of my favorite novels, though there are definitely slow/tedious parts.
For difficult authors I have yet to crack, I'd add James Joyce to my list too. I tried "Ulysses" to no avail - and then I found out that's not even his most difficult book! (Finnegans Wake)
I was able to read and love Malcolm Lowry with "Under the Volcano" though - the stream of consciousness style makes you feel almost as inebriated as the protagonist!
Is Brett Easton Ellis considered 'difficult'? To be honest, I only ever read "Less than Zero" from him, and I hated it (though I didn't find it a difficult read in any sense of the word). It's like a modern version of "The Sun Also Rises" for Gen-X'ers (hated that novel too).
I did also try Melville and did get to the part where they shack up, but not much further. Yes, it did seem tedious.
Tolstoy was easier, but War and Peace was just introducing more and more characters without outlining much of a plot. Why should I continue? Though someone did bring a bear on a drunken binge which seems fun and very Russian.
I tried Don Quixote. Snooze.
I can't remember if I tried Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake, but I actually enjoyed the start which seemed to be about a witty gay couple having breakfast?
I wouldn't say Melville is difficult and Tolstoy and Cervantes certainly aren't. The fact that Tolstoy isn't difficult is the main reason why he's a genius
Quote from: SGR on Jan 04, 2025, 06:48 PMI was able to read and love Malcolm Lowry with "Under the Volcano" though - the stream of consciousness style makes you feel almost as inebriated as the protagonist!
I think I might have read that too, and I definitely read
Dark As The Grave Wherein My Friend Is Laid on account of its irresistable title. What I "enjoyed" more, though, was a rather depressing biography of Malcolm Lowry, which gave a very sad picture of how ML's drinking caused misery to his wife and everyone around him.
(And if you are interested in an insider's view of drunkeness, I can recommend the powerful
The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson. The genius of the book is there in the title: it's only one weekend, but it's packed with that alcohol-infused intensity, and includes euphoria, the slump of remorse, and mortifying lapses of judgement, all laid out in meticulous, as-they-are-happening, detail.)
QuoteIs Brett Easton Ellis considered 'difficult'? To be honest, I only ever read "Less than Zero" from him, and I hated it (though I didn't find it a difficult read in any sense of the word). It's like a modern version of "The Sun Also Rises" for Gen-X'ers (hated that novel too).
^ I don't know, tbh: I read a review, though, (probably of
American Psycho) that said his book was a struggle because it goes inside the mind of a dispassionate materialist and is thus full of long descriptions of possessions without any emotional depth to get you involved in the protagonist.
Quote from: Trollheart on Jan 04, 2025, 06:40 PMI must admit, I really wanted to read Moby Dick, but after about three or four chapters I had to throw it down in disgust. It's just sooooooo boring! I mean, if you weren't aware of what happens in the story later, you'd be like, "Dude! What the fuck?!" Talk about being slow to get started! I also very much enjoyed Les Miserables, but Hugo's determination to essentially catalogue the entire Napoleonic Wars in the middle had me skip, skip, skipping many chapters. I don't even see what the point of it was. Well, I do, sort of, but it didn't add anything to the novel, or, more importantly, skipping it did not take anything from the story.
^ I remember you telling us about reading Dickens to your sister, Trollheart, so you are very well aware of this: back in the old days, books were often written precisely to be long time-fillers, so that they could be the evening's main entertainment through the long winter months. Today, with our attention spans dictated by Tiktok, that style of writing can get kind of annoying, imo, unless you are in the mood for it, or it has some other special merit going on.
I think I lasted about 10 pages with
Moby Dick; on the other hand, I avidly read
In The Heart Of The Sea, which is a modern, non-fiction account of a whaling ship called The Essex. It's the story of the original shipwreck that inspired Melville, which he came across when he himself was based in Nantucket. If you want to immerse yourself in the startling world of 19th century whaling, then that book is a painless way to do it. Lots of eye-opening detail that will stick in your mind for ages.
Quote from: Guybrush on Jan 04, 2025, 06:13 PMI did enjoy Robert Chambers' trick with the unreliable narrator in the first of his short stories that make up The King in Yellow. In that story, there is a book (or play) called The King In Yellow that changes those who read it, making them insane. The book is written as narrated by our protagonist, so when he tells us he read The King in Yellow, we know him to be mad and unreliable.
It was of course a huge influence on Lovecraft who stole much of it and placed it in his own cosmos.
^ Wow! that itself is very Lovecraftian: that there is an obscure tome that predates the stories of Cthulhu. I've never heard of
The King In Yellow, but it sounds intriguing right from the get-go.
Anything written by an economic theorist is tedious because they write obnoxiously.
But the only book that's really given me trouble is The Divine Comedy. Almost like a completely different language.
Quote from: Guybrush on Jan 04, 2025, 06:13 PMYou could probably add Cormac McCarthy to the list! I am technically reading Blood Meridian, but kinda fell off as I didn't have a grasp on what was going on.
I am attracted to weird, avantgarde things in other mediums (movie, music). But in litterature, I don't like it when it becomes too dense. I generally am not good at deciphering tricky symbolism. I don't necessarily enjoy meta writing, like writing the same story in different styles. I don't enjoy it when chronology is jumbled. I basically enjoy stories that I can understand and follow and prefer authors who write for readers rather than other writers.
I did enjoy Robert Chambers' trick with the unreliable narrator in the first of his short stories that make up The King in Yellow. In that story, there is a book (or play) called The King In Yellow that changes those who read it, making them insane. The book is written as narrated by our protagonist, so when he tells us he read The King in Yellow, we know him to be mad and unreliable.
It was of course a huge influence on Lovecraft who stole much of it and placed it in his own cosmos.
Blood Meridian took some getting used to but it was great. Frown recommended that one to me.
When it comes to unconventional writing that makes you think "What the fuck is going on, here?" Naked Lunch fits right in. Im surprised that Lynch actually pulled a plot from that acid trip enduced word salad of a book.
Quote from: Lucem Ferre on Jan 06, 2025, 12:32 PMBlood Meridian took some getting used to but it was great. Frown recommended that one to me.
When it comes to unconventional writing that makes you think "What the fuck is going on, here?" Naked Lunch fits right in. Im surprised that Lynch actually pulled a plot from that acid trip enduced word salad of a book.
Yes.. I am technically also reading Naked Lunch :laughing:
I'm not sure I will finish Naked Lunch, but I will give Blood Meridian a fair attempt.
^ "technically" :laughing: Yes, Naked Lunch is a wild ride !!
Not only did I read it, but I went on to read a couple of other William Burroughs novels. I quite liked the unique use of language and the strange images that WB's writing style generated. Mind you, that was when I was 18, and I was more open/patient with authors. I don't think I'd like his stuff if it had been recommended to me recently. That said, I still carry in my mind a WB phrase: "Narborhood In Aqualung" Sounds great, but what does it mean?!
I feel like I need more hallucinogens to truly understand it.
Quote from: Lucem Ferre on Jan 06, 2025, 06:14 PMI feel like I need more hallucinogens to truly understand it.
Maybe you should try that approach with
The Divine Comedy, Lucem !! That's not a book I've ever attempted. In fact, having struggled to "do" Shakespeare at school, I have a kind of cut off point for old books and have given up exploring much-praised classics from the past, like Danté, Cervantés, Plato, etc.
I feel like anything written before 1800, more-or-less, is just not going to overlap with my idea of reading: that my purpose or expectations in reading aren't going to match the writing intentions of those old guys, however worthy their words may be.
I quite enjoy my copy of The Divine Comedy, but I will admit it's because of the wonderful art of Gustave Dore. One day, I want to try to actually read the words and not just look at the pictures. Can't go wrong with Italian poetry from the renaissance.. probably? 👌
Yes, I tried The Divine Comedy too, but it's all the checking back to the appendix to see who he's talking about or slagging off - which, if you don't do this, makes the book pretty nonsensical - that put me off. You'd really need to have two copies, one open to the appendix, which you could keep referring back to. Oh, and four arms.
I also found Paradise Lost a big disappointment. I loved the first part, the big battle with Satan, but then Adam just licks Michael's metaphorical angelic ass for chapters and it becomes a total bore. Talk about a game of two halves!
Honestly, I don't want to read anything about whaling. I never realised how up-close-and-personal-savage-and-cruel it is. I mean, I knew it was cruel, but I kind of thought it was harpoon the whale and reel him in (bad enough) but when you read the lengths they go to/went to - no thanks. Not for me. Save the whales! Sixteen blue whales will get you a teaset at the local garage, maybe.
so by difficult you mean both 'complex' and 'difficult to get through'? the divine comedy is neither imo, it's a hell of a lot of fun (well, especially the inferno. the boredom increases the higher dante gets. except there's the hilarious moment when he reaches paradise and you finally meet that Beatrice he's been simping about for the entire book and then she turns out to be a massive bitch lol. Have I talked about that before on here?)
I get the thing about a time cutoff for books, even though I don't do it. I enjoy reading something that clases with my modern ideas of a book sometimes, and findign the bits that don't clash. By the way, Cervantes in particular holds up remarkably well considering all that.
I agree on naked lunch being difficult. It asks you to go with the associative flow and pay attention at the same time, which is hard. I liked it a lot though. James Joyce and Virginia Woolf are difficult too, of course. Others, sticking with the definition of 'complex': Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges (I like him but I think sometimes his stories are the worse for being stripped of the usual storytelling frills). And Proust is an odd one considering that he uses no 'abstract' writing style (and he spends a lot of time just gossiping), but he writes about very abstract things and uses complex language. Nabokov's Ada or Ardor, which is not super hard to follow once you get used to it but there are a lot of jokes and puns and references which you don't catch without looking at annotations or reading extremely closely. the sound and the fury can be added too, I suppose, even though it's not so much really difficult as initially confusing; it doesn't take a terrible effort to piece it all together and then it's a pretty straightforward book.
Quote from: Trollheart on Jan 06, 2025, 08:05 PMYes, I tried The Divine Comedy too, but it's all the checking back to the appendix to see who he's talking about or slagging off - which, if you don't do this, makes the book pretty nonsensical - that put me off. You'd really need to have two copies, one open to the appendix, which you could keep referring back to. Oh, and four arms.
I also found Paradise Lost a big disappointment. I loved the first part, the big battle with Satan, but then Adam just licks Michael's metaphorical angelic ass for chapters and it becomes a total bore. Talk about a game of two halves!
Honestly, I don't want to read anything about whaling. I never realised how up-close-and-personal-savage-and-cruel it is. I mean, I knew it was cruel, but I kind of thought it was harpoon the whale and reel him in (bad enough) but when you read the lengths they go to/went to - no thanks. Not for me. Save the whales! Sixteen blue whales will get you a teaset at the local garage, maybe.
the whole point about reading the divine comedy is
not to worry too much about who is who lol. That just slows the story down, and it makes perfect sense without that info. Just enjoy the imaginativeness of the punishments, the weird demons, and dante's opinions on which sins are worse etc.
But yes, paradise lost isn't great. ideologically it's despicable, the verse lacks shakespeare's flair, and there's not enough fun to make up for it
The fun is in the first part. I thought, wow if it's all like this I am IN! And then Satan gets his arse kicked, moans about how he now has to completely redecorate Hell (and neither of the Property Brothers around to help him) and off we go to Eden, where things just get so sycophantic it's like being at a Trump rally. Pass.
I do remember him simping, but I don't remember her being a bitch.
I do remember him writing about all the poets in purgatory telling him how great he is.
I just have a hard time with the old writing style it was in, rather than it being boring. I remember being completely confused by what was happening most of the time.
If that's directed at me
@Lucem Ferre I'm not sure what you mean about "her being a bitch". All I know is that after the Big Battle, Adam spends literally chapters telling Michael how cool he is, how he wishes he was like him, how he wants to be an angel when he grows up etc. It just gets stomach-churningly sycophantic, and frankly, it's so thick you'd spend days just trying to trowel it off and still get nowhere. Such a comedown!
Quote from: Trollheart on Jan 07, 2025, 06:33 PMIf that's directed at me @Lucem Ferre I'm not sure what you mean about "her being a bitch". All I know is that after the Big Battle, Adam spends literally chapters telling Michael how cool he is, how he wishes he was like him, how he wants to be an angel when he grows up etc. It just gets stomach-churningly sycophantic, and frankly, it's so thick you'd spend days just trying to trowel it off and still get nowhere. Such a comedown!
No, it was directed at Mary about Dante's Inferno.
I was intrigued by the variety of responses to The Divine Comedy:-
"...given me trouble...completely confused..."
"...quite enjoy..." (but for the illustrations!)
"..all the checking back to the appendix..."
"...it's a hell of a lot of fun..."
So, I decided to give The Divine Comedy a go myself, (if reading 4 out of the 100 cantos counts as "giving it a go".) My personal take:-
At its core, reading for pleasure is all about effort and reward: how much work you have to do and how much pleasure you get out of it. I found
The DC to be right on the borderline, but just tilting into the negative: quite a lot of effort and not really sufficient reward. I adopted Marie's approach, skipping almost all the notes, etc. and I had to adjust my usual reading style: I had to read faster than I wanted to catch the ideas that often spanned across two or three stanzas, then I had to go back if I wanted to relish the imagery, etc. Even then, I struggled a bit to follow the story, or who was saying what. Still, I made it across the First Circle of Hell, aka Limbo, and to the gates of the Second - far enough to discover that Dante was promoting that rather discredited notion: using the fear of Hell to bully people into being loyal churchgoers. Well, it was 1321, so perhaps we should give him a pass on that point.
I enjoyed most of the "old-timey" language, although, out of habit I kept misreading the archaic, "Lo!" as "lol", which actually perked up Dante's text a little! Though of course it's only part-Dante: I was surprised to realise that the 1949 translation I was reading was by Dorothy L. Sayers. Quite a departure from her crime novels, but she did a good job in terms of vocab and rhyming, I thought. Some images were good enough for me to go back and check them out again, for eg:-
"This dreary huddle has no hope of death,
Yet its blind life trails on so low and crass
That every other fate it envieth."
Anyone who has been stuck at work on a wet Thursday afternoon in February can surely relate to that! So there are some gems, and I might read on, but I'm not planning to read it through to the end, mainly because I only have this slender extract:-
(https://pictures.abebooks.com/inventory/31306947534.jpg)
It's that old style of writing.
I'll probably try it again eventually.
Tolstoy has been mentioned a couple of times, and he certainly has a huge reputation. I remember an assessment I once read about him: that he was a very "complete" novelist, who lived a full life and could write about any aspect of human experience. I haven't read enough of his stuff to know if that's true; I more-or-less enjoyed
Anna Karenina, sometimes thinking, "Wow, this is really good", but at the same time being rather relieved when I'd finally finished it and could go on to something lighter.
I haven't tried
War and Peace, but I can sympathise with your comment, Guybrush:
Quote from: Guybrush on Jan 05, 2025, 08:34 AMTolstoy was easier, but War and Peace was just introducing more and more characters without outlining much of a plot. Why should I continue? Though someone did bring a bear on a drunken binge which seems fun and very Russian.
That sounds like my experience with
Dostoevsky's
The Brothers Karamazov. I didn't realise that in order to find out about the brothers, Dostoevsky would first walk me through a sprawling geneology of Russian families and try to baffle me with all those options of Russian names. Here's a quote from someone facing a similar struggle with
Doctor Zhivago:
QuoteA common criticism of Russian books is that the names are confusing and I am beginning to understand what the problem is. Yuri, Yura, Yurochka, Yuri Andreyevich and Zhivago are all the same person - and every character, large or small, has the same bewildering multiplicity of names.
At some point during the recitation of the Karamazov family tree, I realized that Dostoevsky was in deep with this attitude:-
Quotethe inclusion of a patronymic (father's name) adds another layer to a person's full name, making it appear like they have multiple names; this practice reflects the cultural emphasis on family and respect within Russian society
At heart I prefer to judge people as I find them, instead of working out how illustrious their families are first, and that's why I binned
The Brothers Karamazov before the book really got started, disappointed that Dostoevsky did not have a more modern, equal-opportunity attitude.
The comparison to Dostoevsky is not really accurate though, they're very different writers (Dostoevsky seems to be many people's idea of a russian novelist, even though he's fairly atypical). The start of the brothers Karamazov is clunky and shamelessly expository, Tolstoy isn't nearly as bad. War and peace does start slow, though. Anna Karenina less so, it has my favourite opening paragraph.
None of the russian writers of that time are difficult though.
It's not on the same literary scale, I know, but I found Stephen Donaldson's
Lord Foul's Bane, the first in
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever very hard going, so much so that I was ready to give it up until something interesting happened and then I was happy I stuck with it. I tend to describe Donaldson as being "a writer who describes every blade of grass", and it's appropriate I feel. But it just shows that sometimes novels can be slow to get going, but often reward persistence. I tried this with
Moby Dick, before anyone asks, but it just defeated me. So flat and boring and ho-hum.
^
"...a writer who describes very blade of grass" is a good phrase, Trollheart, and illustrates a dilemma for a novelist, about how much to put in and how much to leave out.
I don't read many fantasy books, so I can't comment on
Lord Foul's Bane, but I did read the five exhausting volumes of
Game of Thrones, and would say that George RR Martin is also guilty of putting in too much: not so much too many details (although he does go on to excess in describing meals eaten, and coats of arms). With G Martin I thought there was just too much storyline: the intrigues and rivalries go on and on, way past the point where my interest ran out. He was the Duracell bunny, leaving me behind - though I did, in fact, struggle on and finish the books.
Quote from: Marie Monday on Jan 10, 2025, 11:24 AMThe comparison to Dostoevsky is not really accurate though, they're very different writers (Dostoevsky seems to be many people's idea of a russian novelist, even though he's fairly atypical). The start of the brothers Karamazov is clunky and shamelessly expository, Tolstoy isn't nearly as bad. War and peace does start slow, though. Anna Karenina less so, it has my favourite opening paragraph.
None of the russian writers of that time are difficult though.
^ Yes, I only put them together to mention the issue of Russian names. Perhaps Dostoyevsky springs to people's minds as a Russian novelist because he serves up a good measure of gloom, both material and intellectual - and isn't that what we in the West expect from Russia ? Also, of course, he was persecuted by the Czars, so he's like a proto-Solzhenitsyn figure too.
QuoteNone of the russian writers of that time are difficult though.
^ Well, everyone has a different perception of "difficult", Marie. It sounds like you can breeze through books that I often find to be a bit of a slog.
A phrase comes to mind, not sure where I heard it: a classic is something everyone wants to have read, but nobody wants to read.
everything about that phrase is depressing
You make a good point about Dostoevsky, Lisna. I also think it's because he's weirdly the most accessible of the Russian writers: on the one hand because the constant drama means that, for better or worse, at least his books are comparatively fast-paced compared to the likes of Tolstoy; on the other hand, his clunky way of writing means that the underlying themes are comparatively on-the-nose. I certainly don't breeze through Dostoevsky, by the way, or quite a few other writers mentioned in this thread. It's just that all my discipline in life seems to be concentrated in the ability to finish books.
Quote from: Marie Monday on Jan 11, 2025, 09:39 PMYou make a good point about Dostoevsky, Lisna. I also think it's because he's weirdly the most accessible of the Russian writers: on the one hand because the constant drama means that, for better or worse, at least his books are comparatively fast-paced compared to the likes of Tolstoy; on the other hand, his clunky way of writing means that the underlying themes are comparatively on-the-nose. I certainly don't breeze through Dostoevsky, by the way, or quite a few other writers mentioned in this thread. It's just that all my discipline in life seems to be concentrated in the ability to finish books.
Good for you on your reading discipline, Marie ! In fact, it's very rare for me to abandon a book too, which is why I remember my prob with
The Brothers K: it was exceptional.
In bold: I've never thought of that before, but, like in music, a certain element of clunkiness can work well, adding to the impact or sincerity of the song or book.
Quote from: Trollheart on Jan 11, 2025, 07:16 PMA phrase comes to mind, not sure where I heard it: a classic is something everyone wants to have read, but nobody wants to read.
^ :laughing: There's an element of truth in that isn't there? I'm guilty in as much as I'm prepared to voice an opinion about a book I haven't read (though I stay honest and say I haven't read it). I also find that a biog of a novelist is often more enjoyable than reading the guy's novels - on the topic of which...
Samuel Becket turns up as a character in this biog of Giacometti:-
Spoiler
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51dTpVhQz3L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg)
Apparently the playwright and the sculptor were great drinking buddies in Paris; according to biographer, James Lord, "Both men had a mind like a steel trap."
Does anyone have a verdict on Becket's famous
Waiting For Godot? I haven't read it, but I have watched this filmed version of the play which is available complete on YouTube:-
My own verdict: I quite enjoyed it as a virtuoso display of wordiness, but I wasn't much the wiser at the end of it. Have I missed something?
And finally,
Jane Austen - not because she's "difficult", but because she shows up in TH's amusing Futurama fantasy of visiting Great Books.
Godot is my favorite stage play of all time. I had the esteemed pleasure of seeing it performed by the great Vincent O'Neill, the co-founder and former Artistic Director of the Irish Classical Theatre Company (ICTC) in Buffalo, New York. The man is a legend in the theatre community. It's one of my fondest memories in the arts!
The film you linked on YouTube is the next best thing, in my opinion.
Quote from: Lisnaholic on Jan 12, 2025, 04:21 PMGood for you on your reading discipline, Marie ! In fact, it's very rare for me to abandon a book too, which is why I remember my prob with The Brothers K: it was exceptional.
In bold: I've never thought of that before, but, like in music, a certain element of clunkiness can work well, adding to the impact or sincerity of the song or book.
^ :laughing: There's an element of truth in that isn't there? I'm guilty in as much as I'm prepared to voice an opinion about a book I haven't read (though I stay honest and say I haven't read it). I also find that a biog of a novelist is often more enjoyable than reading the guy's novels - on the topic of which...
Samuel Becket turns up as a character in this biog of Giacometti:-
Spoiler
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51dTpVhQz3L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg)
Does anyone have a verdict on Becket's famous Waiting For Godot? I haven't read it, but I have watched this filmed version of the play which is available complete on YouTube:-
My own verdict: I quite enjoyed it as a virtuoso display of wordiness, but I wasn't much the wiser at the end of it. Have I missed something?
And finally, Jane Austen - not because she's "difficult", but because she shows up in TH's amusing Futurama fantasy of visiting Great Books.
I love godot, it's hilarious. It's absurdist so I think it's meant to leave you feeling that way; life is pointless too.
I can definitely understand people abandoning Dostoevsky. I love amateurish art for the same reason you mention, but the problem with his books is that it's not clunky in a naive way, but in the rushed way of someone who wants to churn out a book without taking proper care about the details of the craft, so I don't enjoy it as much. The absurdity of it (and even more so, of the constant drama) does make me laugh sometimes though; that's the only reason I've been able to finish some of his books. To be fair, Dostoevsky was brilliant and there is a lot of fantastic stuff in there worth thinking over, but it's hidden in the mess.
By the way, as far as I've read (which is only 3 books) the Brothers Karamazov is even the least bad of the bunch lol. In the Idiot there's a scene (if you can even call it one single scene) with virtually all the book's characters crowded together in a room for some plot-convenient reason and it's just an endless fever dream of incoherent raving monologues and people throwing fits and acting insufferable to each other for no discernible reason. That was a fucking struggle to get through
I certainly would not call Dickens difficult, far from it, but the only one of his novels I could not - well, did not want to finish was Martin Chuzzlewit. I was reading it for Karen as part of our attempt to get through all his novels, and I'd say maybe less than a third of the way in I looked at her, she looked at me, and we both said "It's not very good, is it?" Agreed, we decided to dump it and move on.
It's interesting to note that Chuzzlewit was the worst-received of his novels, sold the least, and in fact he wrote A Christmas Carol around the same time, perhaps to placate his readers and show he was not losing it. Oddly, he thought Chuzzlewit was his best work at the time, but sales said otherwise. I personally don't rate it, though in fairness I didn't finish it, so maybe at some point I'll tackle it again.
Quote from: Marie Monday on Jan 12, 2025, 09:36 PMI love godot, it's hilarious. It's absurdist so I think it's meant to leave you feeling that way; life is pointless too.
Aha! That's a key observation ! Now I can place Godot better in the scheme of things: rather like the Seinfeld sitcom, it's a play about nothing !
QuoteI can definitely understand people abandoning Dostoevsky. I love amateurish art for the same reason you mention, but the problem with his books is that it's not clunky in a naive way, but in the rushed way of someone who wants to churn out a book without taking proper care about the details of the craft, so I don't enjoy it as much. The absurdity of it (and even more so, of the constant drama) does make me laugh sometimes though; that's the only reason I've been able to finish some of his books. To be fair, Dostoevsky was brilliant and there is a lot of fantastic stuff in there worth thinking over, but it's hidden in the mess.
By the way, as far as I've read (which is only 3 books) the Brothers Karamazov is even the least bad of the bunch lol. In the Idiot there's a scene (if you can even call it one single scene) with virtually all the book's characters crowded together in a room for some plot-convenient reason and it's just an endless fever dream of incoherent raving monologues and people throwing fits and acting insufferable to each other for no discernible reason. That was a fucking struggle to get through
Thanks for the warning about
The Idiot ! I've also read 3 Dostoevsky books (
Crime And Punishment, House of The Dead and
Notes From Underground), but I didn't notice those elements of absurdity and drama that you mention. What I remember most is a rather humourless exploration of how people confront crises. Mind you, at the time, those were exactly the kind of books I was searching for.
Quote from: Trollheart on Jan 13, 2025, 01:22 AMI certainly would not call Dickens difficult, far from it, but the only one of his novels I could not - well, did not want to finish was Martin Chuzzlewit. I was reading it for Karen as part of our attempt to get through all his novels, and I'd say maybe less than a third of the way in I looked at her, she looked at me, and we both said "It's not very good, is it?" Agreed, we decided to dump it and move on.
It's interesting to note that Chuzzlewit was the worst-received of his novels, sold the least, and in fact he wrote A Christmas Carol around the same time, perhaps to placate his readers and show he was not losing it. Oddly, he thought Chuzzlewit was his best work at the time, but sales said otherwise. I personally don't rate it, though in fairness I didn't finish it, so maybe at some point I'll tackle it again.
I've enjoyed some Dickens, and love the way some of his convoluted sentences wind around before they finally make excellent sense. On the other hand, I have got pretty fed up with some of his implausable, exaggerated characters. I liked
Tale Of Two Cities, but paradoxically, given that it was so autobiographical, I found that
David Copperfield was disappointingly un-Dickensian: it was far too straightforward !
To really appreciate the length of some of Dickens' sentences, try reading them aloud! I remember there was one paragraph (can't remember which book it was) that took up the whole page! By the time I had finished it I was literally gasping for breath, and I said to Karen "Jesus that was one long sentence!" Considering his books were meant to be read out to an audience, I can't understand that. The man used more semi-colons, hyphens and colons than I think are in the entire Declaration of Independence, if there are any in it, which I don't know but assume there are.
Yes, a real challange to read CD out loud I should think: not just the amount of breath you need to reach the end of a sentence, but working out, as you go, the right intonation and stuff so that the sense is maintained.
Here's a CD sentence which a quick google search turned up:-
QuoteCharles Dickens, "Barnaby Rudge." 216 words.
"There he sat, watching his wife as she decorated the room with flowers for the greater honour of Dolly and Joseph Willet, who had gone out walking, and for whom the tea-kettle had been singing gaily on the hob full twenty minutes, chirping as never kettle chirped before; for whom the best service of real undoubted china, patterned with divers round-faced mandarins holding up broad umbrellas, was now displayed in all its glory; to tempt whose appetites a clear, transparent, juicy ham, garnished with cool green lettuce-leaves and fragrant cucumber, reposed upon a shady table, covered with a snow-white cloth; for whose delight, preserves and jams, crisp cakes and other pastry, short to eat, with cunning twists, and cottage loaves, and rolls of bread both white and brown, were all set forth in rich profusion; in whose youth Mrs V. herself had grown quite young, and stood there in a gown of red and white: symmetrical in figure, buxom in bodice, ruddy in cheek and lip, faultless in ankle, laughing in face and mood, in all respects delicious to behold—there sat the locksmith among all and every these delights, the sun that shone upon them all: the centre of the system: the source of light, heat, life, and frank enjoyment in the bright household world."
I particularly like this bit, where, in a sentence already bursting with non-essential detail, he just can't stop himself from piling on just one more non-essential phrase after another, for the sheer pleasure of their sound:-
"
...and stood there in a gown of red and white: symmetrical in figure, buxom in bodice, ruddy in cheek and lip, faultless in ankle, laughing in face and mood, in all respects delicious to behold..."
Yes I tried that one out loud and it wasn't a problem. I think my issue was twofold: one, if the paragraph described action (think maybe Bill Sykes escaping - or so he thought - into the marshes at the end of Oliver Twist) and you kind of have to keep the sense of breatheless (almost literally) excitment going. Especially with dialogue, where you can't really pause. When I have time I'll look and see if I can find a paragraph that illustrates this.
The other issue I had was that, no matter what I was reading (not Dickens now) I had to be constantly scanning ahead as I read, as Karen would not like to hear, say, extended sex scenes or scenes of cruelty to animals, and it was a challenge for my eyes to be sort of reconnoitring ahead and reporting back to my brain, which had to get the signal to my mouth - jump over this bit! Skip all the next paragraph! Add in your own description so as to avoid a potentially embarrassing or upsetting one!
I remember doing something like, let's say a dog got run over on a motorway. I would have to think up, on the fly, very quickly, alternate reasons why the car swerved, or the kid screamed or whatever. And I had to make it look as if I wasn't doing that. Occasionally, I just had to say "Well, we'll just leave all that out - you don't want to hear about that!" and she would just agree and accept that. But once or twice the eyes got tired and the brain was still waiting for the go-code when the mouth was already as it were in the drop zone. Great fun.
Well, you developed some real skills by doing all that,TH. Just the reading aloud well is quite an accomplishment, but editing as you go - that's really difficult. But where to make the best of those skills? There is a library here where they have a children's story time every Saturday morning, so you could fly out here once a week if you like, or perhaps get a guest slot on Jackanory - or better still, as more serious, do an actual audio book !
...and if you want a challenge, how about recording Virginia Woolf's
The Waves ? This exercise in stream-of-consciousness writing is an unusual reading experience. According to Wiki:-
QuoteThe Waves is a 1931 novel by English novelist Virginia Woolf. It is critically regarded as her most experimental work, consisting of ambiguous and cryptic soliloquies spoken mainly by six characters: Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jinny and Louis. As the six characters or "voices" speak, Woolf explores concepts of individuality, self and community. "Each character is distinct, yet together they compose a gestalt about a silent central consciousness", according to a reviewer.
In a 2015 poll conducted by the BBC, The Waves was voted the 16th greatest British novel ever written.
Whether intentional or not,
The Waves makes a good title because you end up letting the words wash over you and shouldn't expect too much in the way of plot or action. Things do happen, but they are kind of submersed in the ruminations of each character. From memory, Rhoda was pretty wacky and her sections were a real chore, but Bernard was more level-headed and his sections gave you a chance of understanding what was going on.
About the Divine Comedy, this turned up in my youtube feed.
Some of this AI content (here often inspired by Dore) is interesting.
Thanks for that Lisna. Yeah, I kind of in a way always find my eyes/attention skipping ahead when reading anyway, to the extent that if I see a small paragraph on its own or capital letters which are going to give something away, I have to force my eyes to wait till my reading mind catches up with them, if you know what I mean. It wasn't actually so hard; as you read you kind of look at the next few lines anyway, and there are vital seconds from step 1) read the lines in your mind, step 2) read them out aloud and step 3) read the next lines in your mind, so there is actually usually ample time to sort of "pre-censor" what you're going to read. Also, on occasions you could guess where the text was going: "Jimmy took the old horse out to the shed and looked sadly at his Winchester" is not going to end well, is it? Sometimes it wasn't entirely possible to know, but you could get hints, especially with the sex scenes, so you'd get a kind of "his hand slid up her next morning the sun was shining" etc. :laughing:
Karen wasn't a prude but she was very embarrassed by any sort of sexual content in literature, at least, anything read out to her, so I had to be very aware of that. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that I was her brother. Sometimes it was almost impossible, as important information might be exchanged or revealed during "the act", and then I'd have to perform REAL mental gymnastics! Could be challenging, I tell you.
And speaking of challenges, no thanks. I've been challenged enough, and have plenty more to challenge me in my writing, be it journals, stories or the book I'm trying to write about her. I'm for a quiet life, personally, and I don't enjoy stream-of-consciousness writing; I'm very much someone who wants a plot that can be followed, logic and reason for me within the context of the writing of course (how DID Gandalf survive that fall at Moria, and what WERE the paths he walked upon, of which he will not say?) but something that makes some sort of basic sense.
It's an interesting exercise, reading to someone. You have to keep your voice up, expect interruptions as questions are asked, have a sort of ongoing conversation with the person listening as you read. Sometimes Karen would ask me to re-read sections of text (whether she had not heard/understood or just liked it and wanted to hear it again) and she certainly had me read certain books two or three times; that could get wearing. But the whole idea of reading to her I found generally quite rewarding and very relaxing. Now it just reminds me of course. But I'm glad Karen didn't have to lose the joy of reading (or hearing someone else read to her) as one of the many things MS took from her. It was little enough to do, but I'm glad I was able to do it.
Quote from: Lisnaholic on Jan 14, 2025, 01:42 PMWhether intentional or not, The Waves makes a good title because you end up letting the words wash over you and shouldn't expect too much in the way of plot or action. Things do happen, but they are kind of submersed in the ruminations of each character. From memory, Rhoda was pretty wacky and her sections were a real chore, but Bernard was more level-headed and his sections gave you a chance of understanding what was going on.
I never understood the imagery of Rhoda's visions (if they even have a definite meaning, they felt like an artistic calling or maybe just a longing for death) but I found her moving, so detached from the world and lonely. I liked the earthy fierceness of Susan
Quote from: Guybrush on Jan 04, 2025, 06:13 PMYou could probably add Cormac McCarthy to the list! I am technically reading Blood Meridian, but kinda fell off as I didn't have a grasp on what was going on.
I am attracted to weird, avantgarde things in other mediums (movie, music). But in litterature, I don't like it when it becomes too dense. I generally am not good at deciphering tricky symbolism. I don't necessarily enjoy meta writing, like writing the same story in different styles. I don't enjoy it when chronology is jumbled. I basically enjoy stories that I can understand and follow and prefer authors who write for readers rather than other writers.
I did enjoy Robert Chambers' trick with the unreliable narrator in the first of his short stories that make up The King in Yellow. In that story, there is a book (or play) called The King In Yellow that changes those who read it, making them insane. The book is written as narrated by our protagonist, so when he tells us he read The King in Yellow, we know him to be mad and unreliable.
It was of course a huge influence on Lovecraft who stole much of it and placed it in his own cosmos.
The process of analyzing the text is sometimes the entire point of "lit fic". In some sense these writers produce critical thinking textbooks. Often you will want to spend more time reading essays about the book than the book itself, and this is just the nature of difficult literature. The writer is intending to enrich the conversation.
For example, I picked up Sartre's "Naseua", but a fair amount of it is lost on me because it's intended to create a dialogue within philosophy classrooms.
Quote from: Guybrush on Jan 14, 2025, 05:05 PMAbout the Divine Comedy, this turned up in my youtube feed.
Some of this AI content (here often inspired by Dore) is interesting.
^ Hey, that's a nice way to get a small taste of Dante's vision, but with 3 things going on, my attention was like this:-
Top: nice pics
Middle: what's that music I recognise?
Spoiler
Erik Satie
what's that annoying voice-over guy saying?
...so not a complete success in expanding my appreciation of
The Divine Comedy :laughing:
Quote from: Trollheart on Jan 14, 2025, 05:16 PMThanks for that Lisna. Yeah, I kind of in a way always find my eyes/attention skipping ahead when reading anyway, to the extent that if I see a small paragraph on its own or capital letters which are going to give something away, I have to force my eyes to wait till my reading mind catches up with them, if you know what I mean. It wasn't actually so hard; as you read you kind of look at the next few lines anyway, and there are vital seconds from step 1) read the lines in your mind, step 2) read them out aloud and step 3) read the next lines in your mind, so there is actually usually ample time to sort of "pre-censor" what you're going to read. Also, on occasions you could guess where the text was going: "Jimmy took the old horse out to the shed and looked sadly at his Winchester" is not going to end well, is it? Sometimes it wasn't entirely possible to know, but you could get hints, especially with the sex scenes, so you'd get a kind of "his hand slid up her next morning the sun was shining" etc. :laughing:
^ This sounds like the silent movies that my mum told me about: there'd be a scene of late night smooching, then cut to a blank screen with the words
"Came the dawn..." and then you'd see the lovers, still looking impeccable, but now stretching and yawning. :laughing:
QuoteKaren wasn't a prude but she was very embarrassed by any sort of sexual content in literature, at least, anything read out to her, so I had to be very aware of that. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that I was her brother. Sometimes it was almost impossible, as important information might be exchanged or revealed during "the act", and then I'd have to perform REAL mental gymnastics! Could be challenging, I tell you.
^ Yep, with sexual content, who you're watching it with makes a huge difference, with close family, especially, cranking up the embarrassment imo.
QuoteIt's an interesting exercise, reading to someone. You have to keep your voice up, expect interruptions as questions are asked, have a sort of ongoing conversation with the person listening as you read. Sometimes Karen would ask me to re-read sections of text (whether she had not heard/understood or just liked it and wanted to hear it again) and she certainly had me read certain books two or three times; that could get wearing. But the whole idea of reading to her I found generally quite rewarding and very relaxing. Now it just reminds me of course. But I'm glad Karen didn't have to lose the joy of reading (or hearing someone else read to her) as one of the many things MS took from her. It was little enough to do, but I'm glad I was able to do it.
^ Thanks for sharing those details, Trollheart - and yes, it was such a great gift that you gave her: a chance to escape for a while into a fictional world. :thumb:
Quote from: Weekender on Jan 14, 2025, 08:07 PM...I picked up Sartre's "Naseua", but a fair amount of it is lost on me because it's intended to create a dialogue within philosophy classrooms.
^ I didn't know that about the bolded bit, and I suppose a person doesn't know what he doesn't know, because I found
Nausea a surprisingly easy read: clearly some philosophising going on, but also plenty of easy to follow events/reactions, etc.
The Age of Reason, on the other hand, I found impossible to read, because...
"the perspective changes from chapter to chapter throughout... but the viewpoint shifts more rapidly, moving sometimes within a single phrase from one character's perspective to another's... The lack of punctuation, the juxtaposition of perspectives, and the intensity created by the single focus of a multiplicity of characters work together to convey the common humanity and intersubjective experience of the French on the verge of war"...or in the case of some readers, works together to make a hopelessly confusing mess, which they abandon because it just feels like a lack of courtesy to the reader, that Sartre doesn't supply basic narrative signposts about who and where he's talking about. :(
It's easy to follow but it's just boring if you aren't picking up on the philosophical implications of what he's saying. Potentially revolutionary if you are.
But what is difficult for one, might be easy reading for another!
Yes well, as was said in Red Dwarf:
Holly (AI Computer, IQ either 6000 or 6, depending on who you listen to): "Wasn't it Jean-Paul Satre who said, hell is being locked in a room with all your friends?"
Dave Lister, space bum: "Holly, all his mates were French!" :laughing:
A good catalog of modern novels, and more...
https://www.themodernnovel.org (https://www.themodernnovel.org)
^ Thanks for that link, BM. I might come back with a comment when I've looked through it a little - probably in about 2035 ! ;)