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datasuspect Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 09:23 AM
Original message
what's the most challenging book/author you've ever read?
for me, it's a toss up between cassirer and foucault.

although, i think foucault i think tries to be intentionally obtuse.

discipline and punish was rather accessible though.
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La Lioness Priyanka Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 09:25 AM
Response to Original message
1. james joyce
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datasuspect Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 09:26 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. i like the "love" poetry his family fights to keep hidden
he was a dirty old sod.
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triguy46 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 12:21 PM
Response to Reply #1
7. I'm like 0 for 10 on Ulysses.
Though the biography of his wife, "Nora", by Brenda Mattox is a very interesting read. I guess if I can't read an author, reading about an author will have to suffice.
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jobycom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 12:25 PM
Response to Reply #1
8. My problem with Joyce is the same as the OP's issue with Foucault.
I think he tries to be difficult just to prove he can be, not because he adds anything be being so. Henry Miller, IIRC, called him a "sadistic pedagogue."
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datasuspect Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 12:40 PM
Response to Reply #8
16. add derrida to that list
husserl is at turns accessible, but sometimes falls into the intentionally obtuse. it might have to do with translation.

i love it when they take a paragraph out for 3 three pages and create nouns like "being-as-immanence-through-acquisition-qua-knowledge" or some such.
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Shakespeare Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 02:06 PM
Response to Reply #16
34. And add Lacan to Foucault and Derrida.
AAAAHHHHH! Litty critty flashbacks!
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terrya Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 09:28 AM
Response to Original message
3. Thomas Pynchon.
His writing can be a bit dense at times. Not dense in the quality of his writing...he's a damn fine writer. Just...kind of sloughing through a literary quicksand.
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MrCoffee Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 12:21 PM
Response to Reply #3
6. Pynchon was my immediate response
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Fire Walk With Me Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 12:43 PM
Response to Reply #3
18. I'll third Pynchon
but wouldn't describe it as a morass... More like trying to follow all of the aspects of a fractal pattern, because each is as important as any other.
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MrCoffee Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 01:08 PM
Response to Reply #18
20. That is one great description of his writing
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redqueen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 01:18 PM
Response to Reply #3
23. yes, that's my answer too... but i LOVE the quicksandiness
:)

it just gets a bit much at times... so i now swtich back and forth with some light sci fi :7. like a stroll through the park as compared to a hike up a steep mountain in inclement weather. each pleasant and rewarding in their own way.

:hi:
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terrya Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 01:54 PM
Response to Reply #23
26. I tried reading his new one, "Against the Day"
But...literary quicksand again. :-)

The copy I had was a library book. Maybe I'll buy it when it comes out in softcover and try it again.

:hi:
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redqueen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 02:10 PM
Response to Reply #26
37. i'm slogging through mason & dixon
it's sooooooooo lovely! <3

next (by him) is gravity's rainbow!

(i've also got focault's pendulum sitting around... i only got a few chapters in then bailed... i wonder if it stays all 'indiana jones' throughout, cause it wasn't workin for me :P)

:hug:
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Aristus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 02:14 PM
Response to Reply #3
38. More Pynchon. I consider myself a fairly sophisticated reader, bu
"Gravity's Rainbow" flummoxed me. I got about halfway through it, and still didn't know what it was I was reading. If you were to ask me for a synopsis, I couldn't give you one. I'll try again someday. I've never tackled "Ulysses", either, but I hope to.
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Maestro Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 09:29 AM
Response to Original message
4. Anything by the Argentine author Borges.
It's great writing but it makes my head explode. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges
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triguy46 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 12:19 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. Really? I find some of his short stories very readable, as well as essays.
Just goes to show ya', ya' never can tell.
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Joe Fields Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 12:26 PM
Response to Original message
9. I have trouble with zippy the pinhead.
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jobycom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 12:27 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. He doesn't write
He just reads books, like "My Pet Goat."
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datasuspect Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 12:41 PM
Response to Reply #9
17. you could probably make a case for that
the satire/non-sequitur/absurdist challenged would probably get offended by zippy.
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anarch Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 12:29 PM
Response to Original message
11. G.I. Gurdjieff
Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson. I think it was translated from Russian, so that might have something to do with it.
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Fire Walk With Me Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 01:24 PM
Response to Reply #11
24. No, it's designed to strain the attenion, to focus it.
And why do you think that he says "read it three times"?

Very bad stuff going on there. Avoid like the plague.
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LynneSin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 12:32 PM
Response to Original message
12. This book was so intense I couldn't put it down!!!
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libodem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 12:32 PM
Response to Original message
13. Somerset Maughm
He is real wordy and much of, Of Human Bondage, was dull.
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malta blue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 12:34 PM
Response to Original message
14. Roughing It by Mark Twain....
I read it about 20 years ago, and had to carry a dictionary with me. I looked up a word every couple of pages.

That had never happened to me before and has not happened since.
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Richardo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 02:04 PM
Response to Reply #14
33. What the... really?
I love that book. I read it at least 20 years ago and I don't remember it being obtuse. :shrug: Maybe I just slid over the trouble spots.
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malta blue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 02:18 PM
Response to Reply #33
40. I never considered myself lacking on the vocabulary front but
that book made me feel like a moran.

Who knows, maybe I was being one at the time.:shrug:
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Yavin4 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 12:37 PM
Response to Original message
15. My Pet Goat
Laugh all you want, but it's truly compelling. I couldn't put it down.
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Hugin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 01:03 PM
Response to Original message
19. The Green Lantern Coloring Book...
Staying in the lines was murder... and they also had that annoying printed cross-hatching crap. :eyes:
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Left Is Write Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 02:00 PM
Response to Reply #19
29. Hey! Coloring books were how I honed my own cross-hatching skills.
:D
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Hugin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 02:02 PM
Response to Reply #29
32. These were pre-done cross hatching... Very annoying.
I'm still peeved.
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Tyler Durden Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 01:14 PM
Response to Original message
21. Depends on the challenge.
Emotionally challenging? "Cancer Ward" or "The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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MilesColtrane Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 01:15 PM
Response to Original message
22. "Gravity's Rainbow"
It's the champ until I decide to try "Ulysses".
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Adsos Letter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 01:46 PM
Response to Original message
25. Anything by Jaques Ellul...
"Propaganda"

and

"The Subversion of Christianity" come to mind.
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Left Is Write Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 01:56 PM
Response to Original message
27. Green Eggs and Ham.
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MrCoffee Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 01:58 PM
Response to Reply #27
28. I do not like it, Sam I am!
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baldguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 02:01 PM
Response to Original message
30. The Island of The Day Before
Normally I love Umberto Eco, but I started it three times before I could finish it.
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 02:01 PM
Response to Original message
31. Pound. Because he was a goddam show off, kept inserting
different languages and cultural systems. Damn you, Ezra!
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IcyPeas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 02:07 PM
Response to Original message
35. I never really "got" "Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
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bleedingheart Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 02:10 PM
Response to Original message
36. Tolstoy...
only because the characters have like 5 nicknames and he needs to tell you that Anna Petrovna's first cousin's last boyfriend was related in some way to the captain of the ninth regiment and by the time he gets back from that little trip...you get lost..

However once you get used to it...it is mighty good reading... ;-)

I read Anna Karenina and the build up to her suicide was very intense...
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Blue-Jay Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-12-07 02:15 PM
Response to Original message
39. "The Return of the Native" was a horribly boring POS.
Even reading Cliff's Notes sucked.
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