I just finished <font color="#6570ae">House</font>* of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. As in actually finished. Started on the first page, read every word and peered at every picture. I even thumbed through the index!
As I read, it dawned on me that this book probably falls into a category I call "brag books." Those are books like Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid," Mervyn Peake's "Gormenghast" trilogy, E. R. Eddison's "The Worm Ouroborous," Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" and so on. Books that lots of people claim to have read because of the "lit cred," it gives them, but substantially fewer people have actually read and/or read with any true attempt to understand the material.
Les Miserables falls into the same category – you can find any number of people who say they've read it, yet few will be able to have a discussion about the French monastic system or explain why the author included an entire chapter on Parisian street kids.
Same thing for Ulysses, In Search of Lost Time (neither of which I have read), and other similar weighty books.
Brag books are for people who want to appear intellectual or well-read because they're tackled something difficult that few others are able to comprehend- but without all the trouble of actually reading them. They're almost always recent literary works that have built up some hype, which helps the braggart seem hip as well as intellectual.
I feel like this book either is, or will become, one of the books that lots of people say they're read but few have actually made it through.
Any thoughts? What other books do you feel should belong in this category?
*IYKYK
by hendergle