Posted on 03/09/2007 11:22:35 PM PST by Blind Eye Jones
What is the most convoluted, opaque, impenetrable book you ever read?
==He captures the individual stories much better in his novels. My view.
Well considering that the Gulag Archipelgo was a history not a novel and was accumulated and compiled under threat of the secret police who were the subject of the history, it is a remarkable document.
"Tagamachi DVD Recorder Guide Owner's"
The dictionary... All kinds of difficult words, and o plot to speak of. ;-P
Its breathtaking shallowness is metaphorical for the breathtaking shallowness of his admirers.
In this peculiar, convoluted way, the mindless drivel has some kind of meaning.
Carter's use of "interesting rhythmic devices" of his poem "counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the Vogonity humanity of the poet's compassionate soul,"
Mark
Here's a favorite quotation for the proud "Irish in America":
"And a vast proportion of the real Americans are among the most courteous, intelligent, self-respecting people in the world. Some attribute this to the fact that a vast proportion of the real Americans are Irishmen." - G. K. Chesterton, The Flying Inn
Oh man, I did a quick search to see if anyone posted "The sickness..". That book was pure torture to read. It sits on my bookshelf like a trophy; the way a hunter commemorates a particularly memorable kill.
Has to be Ulysses by James Joyce. No one I ever met finished it and those that tried admitted they didn't understand half of it.
After all the good reviews, I'll have to give it a shot. I have a first edition that runs about 615 pages, not including the glossary, etc. at the end of the book.
While not as bad as the standard you set in the subject of this thread, I found 'Catcher in the Rye' to be fascinating and thought provoking at age 16.
I attempted to read it again at 25, 30 and again a couple of years ago and found it impossible to get through. Profoundly bad at almost every level. I think it's the kind of text that plays very well at a certain age and when you leave that age, it becomes impossible to get through.
As an adult, I couldn't get past the first chapter on each of my attempts. So awful it was almost like a parody of a book catering (and sucking up to) adolescents.
I'd put the Koran first.
Green Eggs and Ham.
Especially after hearing Jessie Jackson read it on Saturday Night Live.
Now there's the rub. Games are always funner when you know the rules.
A-friggen-men! I had to read it in high school and was just baffled. I've considered picking it up again as an adult, but haven't gotten around to it.
"Yes, at first I was happy to be learning how to read. It seemed exciting and magical, but then I read this: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I read every last word of this garbage, and because of this piece of s**t, I am never reading again." - Officer Barbrady, South Park
When I was in the seminary, I had to read a book by Karl Rahner (German Theologian). At the time (this was the early 70's) the only english editions were very poorly translated from the German. I must have spent an hour studying one paragraph, and I still couldn't figure out what he was saying.
I was first introduced to this work by my brother (genius level) who was also baffled.
I read it twice and could not come up with any meaning for it.
Second place honors go to "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy. The first chapter was an interminable description of the characters and I could not get past it.
Character sketches are a time-honored tradition, but he beat it to death.
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