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What is the most convoluted, opaque, impenetrable book you ever read?
Blind Eye Jones
Posted on 03/09/2007 11:22:35 PM PST by Blind Eye Jones
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To: MadIvan
Joyce is a great-uncle on my mother's side. I never warmed to his work. (btw...my BA major was CompLit) I liked the Germans and Americans best (after the Bard of Avon of course). The Russian writers drove me crazy too.
201
posted on
03/10/2007 6:21:22 AM PST
by
wtc911
("How you gonna get back down that hill?")
To: Blind Eye Jones
"Das Kapital," by Karl Marx. It was required reading in a college class, "Marxist Economics." I never did read that book, just things other people wrote about it. And on the final exam, I just parroted back what the professor had said over the semester, and wrote down some stuff that really didn't make any sense to me. I wound up with a B+ in the class, which really ticked off my roommate, an Economics major who was also in the class (I was a computer science major).
That one class did more to turn me towards becoming a "small 'l' libertarian" or Jeffersonian Liberal, than anything else.
Mark
202
posted on
03/10/2007 6:21:23 AM PST
by
MarkL
(When Kaylee says "No power in the `verse can stop me," it's cute. When River says it, it's scary!)
To: Blind Eye Jones
In 1977, this book gave me many headaches.
To: TomB; Blind Eye Jones
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden BraidMake that two votes. I forced myself to finish it and am still suffering from dain bramage as a result. /grin
204
posted on
03/10/2007 6:24:59 AM PST
by
tarheelswamprat
(So what if I'm not rich? So what if I'm not one of the beautiful people? At least I'm not smart...)
To: JB in Whitefish
200 hundred posts and not one mention of Saul Bellow's "Henderson the Rain King" This is absolutely the worst dreck it has ever been my misfortune to come across. I had to read this in high school. I normally read 1 to 2 books a week at that time. I could not get through this at all. Somebody mentioned "Catch-22", I loved that book in high school. I must have read it 4 or 5 times. Each time you read it something else pops out at you. I think the problem people have is the whole book is a series of events that happen out of order, kind of like the movie "Pulp Fiction"
I read "Atlas Shrugged years later and except for the 70 pages speech at the end enjoyed it.
To: Snickersnee
206
posted on
03/10/2007 6:25:40 AM PST
by
wtc911
("How you gonna get back down that hill?")
To: Blind Eye Jones
207
posted on
03/10/2007 6:25:52 AM PST
by
GladesGuru
(In a society predicated upon Liberty, it is essential to examine principles, - -)
To: WestVirginiaRebel
"Anything by William S. Burroughs."
I had to do a double-take on that. But O.K. - no problem. After a little research I realized I was confusing him with Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of Tarzan and a bunch of science fiction.
208
posted on
03/10/2007 6:27:15 AM PST
by
ChessExpert
(Reagan defeated the Soviet Union despite the Democratic party. We could use another miracle.)
To: Silly
"The gospel is: you are more sinful and flawed than you ever dared believe yet you can be more accepted and loved than you ever dared hope at the same time because Jesus Christ lived and died in your place."
Tim Keller(DG Conference)
You are in a church that is truly making a difference. Great teaching!
209
posted on
03/10/2007 6:28:07 AM PST
by
keeper53
( "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Jim Elliot)
To: wildbill
But when I go to a book fair and see a copy of Silas Marner, I just flip out. I buy it and tear it to pieces in front of the seller, muttering things like, "You're never gonna prevent some kid from enjoying reading books." LOL! My feelings exactly. God, I hated that book in high school, and also "How Green Was My Valley" or some such.
To: wildbill
I quite liked Silas Marner. It's a nice little self-contained morality tale.
Sound and the Fury, though, is a pile of crap that should never again be let through the door of a high school.
211
posted on
03/10/2007 6:29:27 AM PST
by
Eepsy
(The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.)
To: SamAdams76
Read Poe as the struggle of a terrified, alone, and possibly abused boy, grown into a man, driven to the brink of psychosis by his mother's death and therefore abandonment of him, longing for her return from death but terrified by the fear that she might return, and it is all clear--but horribly sad.
He sat in the front row, night after night, watching his mother play Juliett, killing herself and then returning to life in her dressing room, and when she died, he was left completely alone--and very confused.
The Raven is one of the most depressing things I've ever read.
Understanding all this didn't make Poe enjoyable, but it made it far more understandable (and less impenetrable) for me. Instead of being shocking and horrifying, his writings became depressing journeys to the brink of madness.
212
posted on
03/10/2007 6:29:36 AM PST
by
Savage Beast
(MESSAGE TO BUSH: Free U.S. Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean NOW!!!)
To: REDWOOD99
213
posted on
03/10/2007 6:30:19 AM PST
by
Tribemike
(Here is the text of the article....)
To: wildbill
But when I go to a book fair and see a copy of Silas Marner, I just flip out. I buy it and tear it to pieces in front of the seller, muttering things like, "You're never gonna prevent some kid from enjoying reading books."
LOL, that is funny!
214
posted on
03/10/2007 6:30:49 AM PST
by
keeper53
( "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Jim Elliot)
To: bkepley
Jonathon Swift - Gulliver's Travels ..for some reason. It has a lot of embedded satire, some of which may have been related to current issues, and therefore meaningless to us.
However, about twenty years ago, some friends of mine, who also worked in R&D, rediscovered his "University of Lagado" section and began sending xeroxes of it to each other, and we we all laughed till we cried..People were calling each other on the phone and reading it to each other and breaking up laughing so hard we could not finish sentences.
Excert from http://library.ucsc.edu/exhibits/gulliver.html
: The English visitor also describes:
a project for "extracting Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers...to warm the Air in raw inclement Summers;" "an Operation to reduce human Excrement to its original Food;"
replacing silkworms with spiders ("because they understood weave as well as spin);"
"softening Marble for Pillows and Pincushions;" and, a method to "prevent the Growth of Wool upon two young Lambs" in order to "propagate the Breed of naked Sheep."
The visitor goes on to describe projects conducted in the part of the Academy devoted to "speculative Learning" (or the Arts and Social Sciences).
Memorable among these is the "Literary Engine," a device designed to produce random strings of words, so that "the most ignorant Person...may write Books in Philosophy, Poetry, Politicks, Law, Mathematicks and Theology, without the least Assistance from Genius or Study."
I suspect that after one has spent a few decades writing white papers and grant applications, progress reports, and summary reports, etc. this satire becomes side-splitting.
215
posted on
03/10/2007 6:33:34 AM PST
by
Gorzaloon
(Global Warming: A New Kind Of Scientology for the Rest Of Us.)
To: Blind Eye Jones
Any bill before the U.S. congress or senate
216
posted on
03/10/2007 6:34:45 AM PST
by
StoneColdTaxHater
(Those who sell their liberty for security are understandable, if pitiable, creatures. Those who sell)
To: SE Mom
After noting that many of these books were (and still are) required reading in humanities classes in college, I am overjoyed that I majored in chemistry - PChem seems simple in comparison.
217
posted on
03/10/2007 6:35:41 AM PST
by
reg45
To: FreeManWhoCan
"Dune by Frank Herbert"
This has been mentioned several times, to my surprise. I just thought it was long. But I liked it. Maybe it conveyed mood more than intellectual content. I probably would not have the patience to read it today.
218
posted on
03/10/2007 6:38:07 AM PST
by
ChessExpert
(Reagan defeated the Soviet Union despite the Democratic party. We could use another miracle.)
To: Woodman
Are you sure it was Crime and Punishment? I don't think it is that long a book. Maybe you are thinking of The Brothers Karamazov? Either way, I love Dostoyevsky!
I also, could never get through:
any Pynchon
James Joyce
Rushdie
and sadly, Paradise Lost. (over my head)
219
posted on
03/10/2007 6:38:40 AM PST
by
keeper53
( "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Jim Elliot)
To: Blind Eye Jones
So many books, so little time.
Anything by James Joyce or Nietzsche.
220
posted on
03/10/2007 6:38:56 AM PST
by
Tolkien
(There are things more important than Peace. Freedom being one of those.)
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