http://flavorwire.com/423424/50-incredibly-tough-books-for-extreme-readers

I know some of you think you're smart. While most of you struggle with Archie and jughead comics and think Christopher Nolan's Batman movies are deep. I consider myself half retarded but that does't bode well for where you plankton fall on the same scale. I've read a smattering of these.

There's different lists like this of course I thought this one was the most interesting and varied. It's hilarious Pet Semetary is on here. I don't know why Finnegan's Wake isn't number one.

I've read:

Gravity's Rainbow
Blood Meridian
Infinite Jest
Naked Lunch
Tampa

"Against The Day" has been described as the autistic version of Gravity's Rainbow and it's longer..Rather frightening as I thought Gravity's Rainbow was the autistic Gravity's Rainbow.

I've read and really enjoyed Naked lunch. Also, Moby Dick, Pet Sematary, a lot of Delanys stuff but not Dhalgren [I have it but haven't tackled it yet. May be next.] The Silmarillion was very difficult [seemed to go nowhere] Canterbury tales was at the time indecipherable for me and Sophies Choice. Don't know why The Iliad and The Odyssey was left out but those as well. Ever read any Norse mythology? About the same level. I used to read it in the libray in high school during study hall.

Well.. how is the most difficult author of all time not on there?

Also I wasn't clicking 50 times but I didn't see Samuel Beckett or William Faulkner. They might've at least bumped Blood Meridian which everyone considers a joy to read. I read it in like, a half hour, I'm not sure why it would even be considered difficult as such, except for the part where the Judge starts dating. Judgehead doesn't date he prefers the layered sandwich, that's the whole point of Judgehead. It didn't even make any sense.

Faulkner's The Sound And The Furry is number 7. Books like Blood Meridian are on the list for the excruciating subject matter not just prose. Hegel is not on there because this is a list of fiction. Otherwise we would probably have also had someone like Jacques Derrida on the list.

Confessions of an Opiate Addict
Chuck Clusterfuck or whatever his name is
Dune
Some David Foster Wallace

I found Mailer's 'Ancient Evenings' very hard to follow. And there was too much males fucking other males up the butt.

Some great books and odd picks on there.

Derrida?

I just remembered the name.. I didn't finish Alain Robbe-Grillet's 'The Voyeur' for lack of patience.



the thief's journal is worth it.

Blood Meridian hit me hard.

I just finished Brief Interviews With Hideous Men. About to start Consider The Lobster

Good call, anything olde English. Also Gilgamesh or Lord Byron. Henry James, maybe.

Ulysses by James Joyce

Child's play when compared to Finnegan's Wake.

Ha. First essay in consider the lobster is about hanging out with Max hardcore and other degenerates a the 1998 AVNs

His commencement address, "This is Water," is quite beautiful.

Yeah yeah every goober on the world knows about "this is water"

Off the top of my head, without putting much thought into this, I have to say that James Joyce and William Faulkner have to be at the top of my love/hate relationship for difficult well-known authors. Give me a few minutes and I'll come up with a few second string players.

John Banville?

Great list. I've read four of the titles on that list, but have probably read fiction by about a dozen of the authors on that list.

I love "Gravity's Rainbow", and would like to try reading it a second time after I've read every other novel that Pynchon wrote. I read "V" about a year ago, and "Vineland" is next on my list.

Both Martin Amis and Will Self should have been on that list.

James Kelman was another noteworthy omission.

Have you read "against the day"? I've heard it's the autistic version of gravitys rainbow..... I though gravitys rainbow was the autistic version of gravitys rainbow

I haven't, but I plan to read it after I've finished Vineland. I've read Gravity's Rainbow, The Crying of Lot 49, V, and Inherent Vice.

Gravity's Rainbow probably would have been easier if I'd read V first. V and The Crying of Lot 49 are just Pynchon doing some stretches and warm-ups before writing Gravity's Rainbow.

Nova Express and Wild Boys would be considered a hard read but I found them hypnotic and engaging. All the wolfboy sex murderous lesbians with penis noses helped.

Sound and the Fury was probably one of the harder reads but worth it. Can't say it is better than As I Lay Dying or Abasolm, Abasolm! though which are experimental but more approachable reads.

Beckett's How It Is also worked for me despite its extreme minimalism due to the staccato rhythmn of the writing. Ditto White Jazz by Ellroy.

Good call, he's not always that difficult but as usual they waited decades until he wrote a more realistic novel to give him the Booker (just like they did to J.G. Ballard).

Banville and Ballard are both great calls.

Wild Palms by Faulkner is excellent.

Haven't read Wild Palms yet. So many books so little time.

True, so very true.

I guess Banville's not so much difficult as he is mirthless. I enjoy Ian McEwan, but he's also rather straightforward.

I loved Banville's novels about Copernicus and Kepler. They weren't difficult the way Pynchon can be, but they were challenging, in the way that Philip Roth is. Definitely not The Old Man and the Sea or To Kill a Mockingbird.

I read Kepler but not the other yet. I do like how short and concise his books are despite the density of the writing.

Wait for it.
[There's not enough bowel movements left]

Found that show painfully unfunny because of Sheen's zombie like performance and the dated laugh track but that was actually pretty good once it got going.