The Most Difficult Book
On the last episode of Sword & Laser they asked “What was the most difficult book you’ve ever read?”
It’s an interesting question that brings several answers to mind:
- Crime and Punishment – Had to read it for school at my last year. Being a good reader, I got my hands on the full version and started reading. I broke down around page 50. I tried the abridged version and didn’t last to page 30. I ended up settling for the quick synopsis. It was so boring, with a character I wish I could just shoot in the head (And I’m sure he would thank me for it) and walk away from.
- The Summer Tree – I took it as my only book for a school seminar. I had several days and only one book. I really did try to read it but fell apart before page 150. It started out good but dragged on and became so boring that I preferred not to read than to read that.
- The Lord of the Rings – This one is probably an obvious choice. It’s so long and tend to seriously drag on at a lot of parts and only a bit of it is really interesting. But this one kept my interest going all the way to the end. I would probably go back to it at one point in the future, see if my opinion has changed.
- Anathem – It was also mentioned. Neal Stephenson writes smart books and this is why the reason why he’s so good. Snow Crash was smart and computer geeky but it was my thing. Cryptonomicon was smart and cryptographic, also kind of my thing. The Diamond Age was nanotechnological but seemed oriented younger. Anathem was astrophysical and cosmological and simply mind boggling but this is also kind of my thing so I managed to keep up despite the massive scope and complex interchanges. I wouldn’t say it was difficult but it certainly took effort.
- But I think that if I really have to choose a really difficult book that I loved… no, scratch that, LOVED nonetheless, I’ll have to go with Blindsight. This is probably the only book I could say that is truly and significantly smarter than me. It is strategical and biological and neurological and medicinal and astrophysical and astrobiological and… philosophical. I know that a book is smarter than me when there are many segments I have to reread just to be sure I understood what happened there and not because it was badly written or boring but because the discussion was two levels above my grey matter grade and when I’m reading and suddenly realization dawns and the manipulation and subtle hints that flew above my head two pages finally come into focus as a clear gestalt. This one was difficult but well worth it.
Do you have a difficult book or books? I would love to hear about it.
Posted in Geekdom, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with 2 comments.
Ohh tough question!
I thought about it for several days now and I think I have some answers for you, at least partial answers:
Left side of darkness –
this was the kind of book that seriously twisted my mind in knots. Apparently it is very hard for someone whose mother tongue is hebrew to think in gender neutral terms and especially hard to do when the book is translated to hebrew and in hebrew every bloody thing is genderized.
in hebrew even tables have genders, regardless of the meaningless of attaching male-female dichotomy to something that simply do not breed, sexually or a-sexually.
I tried very hard to imagine a world with no fixed gender but simply couldn’t do it to my satisfaction.
in one edition of the book you have several more stories added after the conclusion of the main one. in one of them the whole story is told from the female point of view and I found to my annoyance that my whole perception of the characters was completely warped by that element. I read the whole story again changing in my mind all the female to male and the story changed again.
It was near impossible for me to simply see the characters as people outside that gender induced stereotyping effect.
maybe if they were simply aliens it would have been easier but I doubt it.
another book that is difficult in its own way is world war Z-
it portrayed a world so vivid that it managed to disturb and pictures of its scenes still resurface from time to time
as a catastrophe book Nation was just as strong but where Z is morbid, Nation is uplifting. – diffidently a much better experience to undergo.
1984- I highly suggest to everyone who really love life the universe and everything to avoid this book. it is the most depressing work I have ever read. it tells a story that is the middle of a empire wide misery but does not have the decency to show the beginning or the end to let the reader anchor the cause or see the end. simply depressing to the limits
Does that answers your question?
I’ve read The Left Side of Darkness and I don’t remember it being especially difficult though I think I will have to admit that it’s probably better in the original language. And not just probably, most definitely, having Hebrew as a native language biases us towards genderization.
In that case, I think I might enjoy World War Z. :P
And yes, the whole purpose of 1984 is to plunge you into a possible dystopic future. The fact that there is no obvious beginning, no clear history, only serves to enhance the whole atmosphere. And the atmosphere, which this book conveys perfectly is hopelessness. What I got from it is that when the walls of privacy are shattered, when you give up your free will and self control, everything else flies out the window. So we’d better avoid that now.