I've just finished The Da Vinci Code and while I feel it's unfairly maligned, I'm looking for something properly challenging next. I've considered Moby Dick, Gravity's Rainbow and Ulysses, I might not be ready for Finnegan's Wake or Infinite Jest yet. Do these or any other "difficult" books reward the commitment?
by theghostofnapoleon
11 Comments
Infinite Jest was hands down the most rewarding book I’ve read.
Tom Robbins can be consider dense, although probably not compared to some of the ones you’ve mentioned, but are still very enjoyable.
I have to admit I think it’s fairly maligned
The Count of Monte Cristo is worth it.
Flann O’Brien’s, *At Swim-Two-Birds*
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. It’s about Henry VIII most trusted advisor, Thomas Cromwell.
At least it was challenging to me whose first language isn’t English and didn’t really know anything about Tudors.
The Recognitions by William Gaddis
Count of Monte Cristo. Incredible story, but being written in the 1800s shows and it’s long af.
It’s hard to imagine a novel that isn’t “difficult” compared to Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code, by acclaimed novelist Dan Brown. But I think Iain Pears’s An Instance of the Fingerpost would be an interesting and significant step up, before going into Moby Dick or Ulysses, or Foucault’s Pendulum or whatever you’re thinking about at the far end of the spectrum.
Infinite Jest is probably the most accessible of those since it’s closer to our modern problems (it kind of predicted trump in a way you don’t see often) but it’s pretty long so it’s a commitment. It does have that kind of Seinfeldish dark anxiety though
Its not difficult but crime and punishment