I struggled with A Clockwork Orange and ended up picking up another book and coming back to Clockwork later. I ended up seeing the movie and I thought that after seeing it the slang would be easier and it wouldn’t be so much work of constantly flipping to the back of the book but I was wrong.

Do not forget “The Recognitions” by Gaddis, virtually impossible to finish.

Samuel Beckett’s trilogy “Nohow On: Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, Worstward Ho”

I read somewhere that “Finnegan’s Wake” makes sense only when read aloud, and by someone with a Dublin-raised Irish accent. But even with that help, one would need to know all of Irish history, myth, and geography to even have a clue.

Even that though with Finnegan’s Wake it isn’t meant to be made sense of it isn’t really a novel. It starts in the middle as is often mentioned.

No Infinite Jest? Seriously? I’d rate that above several of these….

It helps to be drunk when you read Finnegan’s wake. Only then will you realize that it isn’t really about anything in particular.

Anything written by Jorge Luis Borges

I’m with citronella on this one, I have been trying to read ‘Ficciones’ for months, and still have to go back and try to read ‘El Aleph’ again too… I get the sense that it will be worth persisting though!

NO Pynchon? For example Gravity’s Rainbow.

Has anyone labored with The Unconsoled by Ishiguro? I went through one too many doors that lead to one too many different places, and I still can’t get into an elevator.

@Jim – I didn’t find Infinite Jest particularly incomprehensible. It’s long, sure, but the prose is a delight and the plot is easy enough to follow (even if the Marathe-Steeply dialogues tend to drag a bit).
@Timod – http://flavorwire.com/209104/10-of-literatures-most-notoriously-incomprehensible-classics/7

I am baffled to see “A Clockwork Orange” on this list, and I’m not that bright. I read it very easily and quickly, but that may have something to do with the fact that I had already seen the movie a few times. A lot of the droogish talk was used in the movie, and it was fairly self-explanatory. (e.g., “the old in-out.”) Also, it has a glossary in the back.

I’m with you on “The Sound and Fury” — impossible the first time, fairly clear on subsequent readings. Let me add this though: Benjy’s narrative isn’t where the heavy mental lifting comes. It’s Quentin’s stream-of-consciousness narrative. I’ve read the book a few times and that part of can still be very tricky on re-reads. After that, though, it’s pretty straightforward. It’s one of those books that opens in a total blur that gets blurrier before your vision finally adjusts.

I love “Gravity’s Rainbow,” but yeah, everything you said. Hard book.

Here’s a fun little game regarding “Underworld.” The next time someone says it’s their favorite novel, ask him why. Chances are he will talk about the utter brilliance of the first 50 pages, the “Pafko at the Wall” section. Ask him what happens after that, and watch him scramble to forge together an answer. Let’s see, it had something to do with a painter, and uh, the desert, and uh, nuclear waste, and there was something at the end about the Internet, etc. I’m not sure Don DeLillo is really a big book writer; he himself seemed to get lost along the way.

Totally with you on “Atlas Shrugged.”

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano was seriously tricky, I advent attempted his 2666 yet.

I did not find ‘A Clockwork Orange’ that difficult. There was a learning curve, of course, but at about one-quarter into the book I’d mastered the Russ-lish slang. It was well worth the effort.

Clockwork Orange and Trainspotting are both odd inclusions. You just have to get past the dialect, which isn’t hard.

Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged could be edited down to half its bulk, without sacrificing any key plot points. But her ideas are sound proclaimers of the individualism and respect for wealth creation via hard work and ingenuity that made America great. A pity you find such notions so discardable.

I have read every one of these at least once and several many times over. I really have no problem comprehending them and always find someting new each time I read one of them. Perhaps one needs a non-linear mind to grasp them or perhaps just being a bit strange in thinking helps. Either way, they are great and have led me to many other novels that are even deeper and more thought-provoking. How boring it would be if every novel and every film was so easily grasp. Perhaps one needs to look at the reading list of Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin to find easy to understand books, or at least those that haven’t already been completely colored in.

The Illuminatus trilogy, definitely. Any given page might be an exciting adventure or (more likely) a series of intriguing sex acts, but the narrative string is so thrown by time travel and characters who think they’re other characters (or do they?) and lots (lots, lots) of drugs that it’s nearly impossible to follow any given plot thread on purpose. Even though it’s in 3rd omniscient (usually), you might say it has an unreliable narrator. Compared with the other SFF novel on the list, Clockwork Orange, way more incomprehensible–Clockwork Orange turns into a fast-moving dystopia novel if you’ve seen the movie twice or struggle through the first ten pages before catching up with the slang.
Also, seconding The Savage Detectives for impressively difficult reading, made more impressive by the fact that somebody actually translated that, but not sure it’d make the top 10.

I’m reading Trainspotting right now! It is rather hard to follow the constantly changing narrators but it’s HILARIOUS and worth the idiot look I get trying to sound out the slang. I only got halfway through A Clockwork Orange but it was worth it to get a firmer understanding of the movie.

I wonder if being a native speaker ruined the whole clockwork… It actually seemed
Straight forward…

I’m amazed nothing by Gertrude Stein made the list. And I can see why Citronella suggested Borges, though he’s one of my favorite authors. I disagree strongly with their dis of Eco’s “Foucault’s Pendulum”, which I loved. And “Clockwork Orange” becomes comprehensible fairly quickly if you stick with it, and it’s a great read. ‘Tristram Shandy’ has long been on my shortlist, sounds intriguing! “Atlas Shrugged” is not only a tough read, it’s morally reprehensible, and a must to avoid.

The Wings of the Dove really needs to be on this list, in place of Clockwork Orange. WAY more difficult to read James’ paragraph long sentences waxing poetic about a piece of velvet or whatever he was talking about. I never finished it.

I count William Gaddis, Beckett, Pynchon, Borges, Joyce, and Sterne among my favorite writers of all time. Does this make me difficult? Certainly not breezy, their books are rich and rewarding. If anyone enjoys challenging, amazing prose, they should check out Thomas Bernhard, Gilbert Sorrentino, John Hawkes, Juan Goytisolo, Flann O’Brien, Ralph Cusack, Celine … If you like your prose simple and easy, stick with Hemingway, Raymond Carver, etc. Now, Ayn Rand was a nincompoop of the highest order.

The dialect in Trainspotting is not Glasgow “slang” or even Scots. It’s Edinburgh.

Pedant, me?

Joyce said he spent a lifetime writing Finnegan’s Wake and one should spend a lifetime reading it. Don’t think so! I have some errands to run. (Though I do love Joyce.)

Atlas Shrugged will be the first real ‘movie based on a book’ where you aren’t required to read the book first to understand it better

I can’t believe they termed “The Name of the Rose” a “rollicking good time.” At one point, I literally threw the book across the room in frustration. Unbearably long-winded bit of literature. I don’t even remember how it ended.

Those who find Atlas Shrugged “incomprensible” have never taken an economics course. It now makes perfect sense on why some of you mental midgets bashing Shrugged seem naively unaware of the dangers of an all powerful state that controls all aspects of the economy (and your life), and thus decided to become anti-capitalist liberals (in the modern sense, as opposed to classical liberals, who were capitalists). Perhaps the Rand bashers on this board need to go read this book called “1984″. Since it didn’t make this “incomprehensible” list, I assume you should all be able to follow it. “Atlas Shrugged” is very readable and the most important work on here, but it is the so-called “intellectuals” on this board (and the maker of this list) that would rather spend hours trying comprehend REAL trash like “Naked Lunch”, featuring non-stop sodomy and talking anuses. Wow!

Clockwork and Trainspotting are great if you have some familiarity with Russian or Glaswegian (imagine a European trying to make sense of Huck Finn (all 3 are much richer if you have an annotated version). Agree re: Underworld (have more 4 attempts but never got more than 60% through it. LOVED Foucault’s Pendulum, found it a dizzyingly learned attempt to explore the common threads of spirituality, mysticism and conspiracy theories (i.e., the hope that someone better than us is in charge), but it is dense in the extreme.

I loved ‘A CLOCKWORK ORANGE” AND READ IT QUICKKY. THE MOVIE WAS NOT YET OUT AT THE TIME, YHOUGH I PAID TO DSEE IT FOUR TIMES; RATHER LIKE “A HARD DAY’S NIght’”
t was an event. And 20 minutes after it ended, it would start again. I guess I loved the language of ” clockwork.” Sometimes I miss that Sovietspeak. “Hard Day’s Night” was loaded with cold r references, in its way, though mainly in the architecture, I guess> Visavi “CLOCKWORK”, I FELL IN LOVE WTH Anthony Burgess’til I realized we probsbly wouldn’t agree on much, anf with Malclm, until I grew up a little. Good list.

The Third Policeman, still can’t get through it. Like others have said I read Clockwork Orange as a kid and had no problem with it, maybe Flann OBrien would be better for a younger mind.

Tristram Shandy is an amazing book – literally centuries ahead of its time. Anyone enamored of post-modern lit should definitely give it a try. Just go with it!

I’m surprised Remembrance of Things Past isn’t on the list. It’s not for the faint of heart, but it’s the best work I’ve ever read in terms of making the internal universe as fabulous and interesting as the outer one.

Underworld, too, is excellent – like a 20th century Victorian novel.

However, my hat is off to those who have read Finnegan’s Wake. I’ve never had the guts.

how about Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban? well worth it

A Clockwork Orange is not incomprehensible at all, it takes a while to get into it and understand the lingo maybe, but it definitley is not incomprehensible. It is a great book about the controversial dilemma between being good because told of by the society, or being bad because of our own decision.

Ever notice that while Randites always rush in to defend the ideas of “Atlas Shrugged,” no one ever defends that big clumsy book as literature? Rand was first and foremost an ideologue, which is why the only people who like the book are people who agree with it, people who likely don’t read that many novels to begin with, and who probably think the only good art is an art that demonstrates a social or political point. Rand hated Communism and always proclaimed the virtues of individualism, but where aesthetics are concerned there always seemed something very Stalinist about her. She worshipped money, power and selfishness. Her idea of an artist wasn’t a man or a woman with an individual voice, but one with a popular voice. A lecturer would have moved her more than a poet. She was not an artist. “Atlas Shrugged” is less a novel than a screed.

reread sound and the fury a couple years ago, some books need to be read-felt (funny, I was just posting about this book somewhere else, but I can’t remember where!). The Unconsoled? easier to read once you realize it’s a dream, and everything is structured according to dream logic. I confess I have started Ulysses 3 or 4 times and never got past the first 100 pages, and never even tried Finnegan’s Wake. Love DeLillo, but he makes me so freakin’ anxious. Underworld took me 2 summers, I kept putting it down.

@Laura – ARGH. You are of course absolutely correct, and I’ve amended the article accordingly. No doubt if Francis Begbie was here, he would break a pint glass across the bridge of my nose in disgust.
@Abe – I fear that Burroughs’ talking arse spoke far more good sense than Ayn Rand.

Underworld doesn’t really belong here. Character POVs are interspersed, but the actual prose style is in no way difficult. It’s one of Delillo’s easier reads.

Granted, Ratner’s Star probably doesn’t count as a ‘classic.’

Gaddis’ ‘JR’ won the NBA, so that qualifies, right? 800 pages of almost entirely unattributed dialogue without chapter breaks, that’s my replacement pick.

@Abe

That should be blurbed for the jacket, ‘Non-Stop Sodomy!’

‘Atlas’ lost me early on when a raindrop on a train window turns into a question mark. It’s really more for embittered apocalypse advocates than life-appreciating prose enthusiasts, I guess.

How about The Castle by Franz Kafka and The Book Of Moron by whoever plants gold tablets.

Why the Atlas Shrugged hate?

Pygmy by Palahniuk is pretty bad. The gay anal rape at the beginning resulted in me putting it down and not picking it back up.

“Ridley Walker” by Russell Hoban should be on here, “A Clockwork Orange” is pretty easy to get the hang of.

Most fans of Atlas Shrugged eventually grow out of that self-centered bubble phase, thank the gods. So if anyone’s questioning why we’re questioning your love of it, please wait five years and ask again.

@Tim. I also read The Unconsoled and found it to be one of the biggest wastes of my time. All those dream-like tangents. I found Sterne’s ‘A Sentimental Journey’ more straight forward that Ishiguro’s work.
Another convoluted Pynchon work (and waste of my time) was ‘Mason & Dixon’. I am also surprised to find that ‘Dhalgren’ by Samuel R. Delany not on this list from what I heard it has been described as the Finnegan’s Wake of Science Fiction.

I nominate The Tunnel by William Gass for difficulty. It won American Book Award in 1995 but has been read by a dozen people since and I’m not one of them, though I’ve tried. I love Omenstetter’s Luck, his collection In the Heart of the Heart of the Country, his criticism (Fiction and the Figures of Life and others), but this book stopped me in its outer thickets and I just never broke through. I wrote an honors thesis on Pynchon and have read Ulysses three times with great pleasure, so I may not be entirely to blame.

Some find Nabokov’s Ada formidable, rambling of plot, laden with word play and nothing but objectionable characters such as the vain Van Veen, but I sometimes just pick it up for the high pleasures and low comedy of Vivian Darkbloom’s relative’s language.

I agree with some of the list. I find Joyce and Faulkner unreadable, but I enjoyed Clockwork Orange and found nothing confusing about it. Atlas Shrugged is a great book (to long though). If you didn’t like it, it’s probably because you didn’t like the message. Still love you though Flavorpill.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Pretty good company for Ayn Rand. The attempt at a bash backfired…again

@Author C – sorry, I’ll make it clearer, then. http://hardlyart.tumblr.com/post/10453115313?ref=nf

What about Blood Meridian? Crazy hard to read….one of the best reviews I ever read of that book stated, ‘This book doesn’t care if you read it…’

Is The Silmarillion not considered a classic? I had to start this book several times over before I was able to read it all the way through…

Okay, so I’ll admit that I haven’t even attempted most of those titles, and except for James Joyce, I will stick to the more gentle classics. But to throw “Atlas Shrugged” against the wall does a horrible injustice to a remarkable book. I read it when I was in high school and I got it. Maybe it’s my genius IQ poking through, but it was good. Just because you didn’t get it doesn’t mean it’s a bad book. That’s what I did to Henry James, but there’s some reason he’s considered one of America’s finest.

I recently read a new book, Life Kills, by an Australian author called Miles Vertigan who has been compared to both Burgess & Joyce…it’s pretty amazing experimental fiction that’s almost entirely dialogue or inner monologue, with very little punctuation. With novels like these I find that at the very start I might feel a bit thrown, but but once I crack the rhythm of the book it all starts to flow and I no longer think about how difficult it all is. And that initial discomfort often transforms into something quite incredible, because it jars you out of your complacency. Yay for difficult fiction.

Wow, this was interesting. Sadly, I have’nt read any of these, but I’m glad to say I’m a huge fan of the ‘Trainspotting’ movie, though I’m sure the book’s better, I watch the film religiously, minimum twice a year since I was a 16. I have a lot of reading to catch up on…

why is the bible missing, tried it a coupe of times, never got past the first fivepages,, liked the movie very much though