The world's most difficult books
This is a guest posts by Jogo
Have any of you read the ten toughest books, as selected by The Millions?
Or even five of them?
1. Nightwood, by Djuna Barnes. I heard about this book in the 60s. If you were hip you were supposed to have read this book. I might have read 20 pages of it. But I can't remember what it's about.
2. Tale of a Tub, by Jonathan Swift. Never heard of it. Or, hmm, maybe that title is kinda slightly familiar.
3. Whatever, by GF Hegel. I have not read a word of it. I heard of it, though. Isn't this book tied in with Marx, somehow? I think "philosophy" doesn't matter, except to a minuscule soi-disant élite, that is my honest opinion. I wouldn't waste my time reading "philosophy." Before you sneer, tell me the truth: have any of YOU read a book of philosophy all the way through?
4. To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf. I have never read anything by Virginia Woolf, though I hear she's a very good writer, and people I respect have read her. I'm open to reading one of her books.
5. Clarissa, etc., by Samuel Richardson. Never heard of this book, or this writer.
6. Finnegan's Wake, by James Joyce. Hasn't everyone heard of this famous book? I know I have. But has anyone -- you, or anyone you know -- read it? I doubt it.
7. Being and Time, by Martin Heidegger. I never heard of this book, but I have heard of Heidegger (Nazi lover of Hannah Arendt -- whom I haven't read, either). I have no idea what Heidegger wrote about, what his influence is supposed to be. Nor do I care. Have any of you read, say, 100 pages of this book?
8. The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spencer. I heard of this book. I love the title, and the way it's spelled. But I have no idea what it's about. I think I'll check out what the Wikipedia entry has to say.
9. The Making of Americans, by Gertrude Stein. Never read it (actually I never heard of it). Although of course I heard of GS. She is a moderately interesting person to me, but I doubt she has anything of importance to tell me. Wouldn't bother reading anything she wrote.
10. Women and Men, by Joseph McElroy. I never heard of this book or this writer? Have you?
11. Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon. Now we're talkin'. Back in the 60s I read V and The Crying of Lot 49, both of which I enjoyed. But I don't think I need to read any more books by Thomas Pynchon. Have you read any of his subsequent books, or do you feel that you must read any before you die?
Finally ... 12. Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace. Nope. Never read one word by this guy. Am I missing something?
Have any of you read the ten toughest books, as selected by The Millions?
Or even five of them?
1. Nightwood, by Djuna Barnes. I heard about this book in the 60s. If you were hip you were supposed to have read this book. I might have read 20 pages of it. But I can't remember what it's about.
2. Tale of a Tub, by Jonathan Swift. Never heard of it. Or, hmm, maybe that title is kinda slightly familiar.
3. Whatever, by GF Hegel. I have not read a word of it. I heard of it, though. Isn't this book tied in with Marx, somehow? I think "philosophy" doesn't matter, except to a minuscule soi-disant élite, that is my honest opinion. I wouldn't waste my time reading "philosophy." Before you sneer, tell me the truth: have any of YOU read a book of philosophy all the way through?
4. To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf. I have never read anything by Virginia Woolf, though I hear she's a very good writer, and people I respect have read her. I'm open to reading one of her books.
5. Clarissa, etc., by Samuel Richardson. Never heard of this book, or this writer.
6. Finnegan's Wake, by James Joyce. Hasn't everyone heard of this famous book? I know I have. But has anyone -- you, or anyone you know -- read it? I doubt it.
7. Being and Time, by Martin Heidegger. I never heard of this book, but I have heard of Heidegger (Nazi lover of Hannah Arendt -- whom I haven't read, either). I have no idea what Heidegger wrote about, what his influence is supposed to be. Nor do I care. Have any of you read, say, 100 pages of this book?
8. The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spencer. I heard of this book. I love the title, and the way it's spelled. But I have no idea what it's about. I think I'll check out what the Wikipedia entry has to say.
9. The Making of Americans, by Gertrude Stein. Never read it (actually I never heard of it). Although of course I heard of GS. She is a moderately interesting person to me, but I doubt she has anything of importance to tell me. Wouldn't bother reading anything she wrote.
10. Women and Men, by Joseph McElroy. I never heard of this book or this writer? Have you?
11. Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon. Now we're talkin'. Back in the 60s I read V and The Crying of Lot 49, both of which I enjoyed. But I don't think I need to read any more books by Thomas Pynchon. Have you read any of his subsequent books, or do you feel that you must read any before you die?
Finally ... 12. Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace. Nope. Never read one word by this guy. Am I missing something?
Comments
I've not read Tale of a Tub, but was surprised to see this as the things I have read by him were quite accessible.
Hegel I only have second hand, via CLR James' Notes on the Dialectic, based on the reading group he was involved in in Detroit. (James' version is relatively readable, but only in comparison to Hegel - one James fan, John Page, says "James wrote many insightful and readily accessible works aimed at a broad audience. This wonderful book is however not one of those!" http://www.clrjameslegacyproject.org.uk/2012/01/clr-james-notes-on-dialectics-review-by.html ).
Woolf, nope. Richardson, nope. Joyce, nothing. Heidegger, only second hand. Spencer, nope. Stein, nothing.
McElroy I had never heard of, shamefully. Wikipedia says "McElroy's writing is often grouped with that of William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon because of the encyclopedic quality of his novels, particularly the 1191 pages of Women and Men (1987). Echoes of McElroy's work can be found in that of Don DeLillo and David Foster Wallace." Which is enough for me.
David Foster Wallace terrifies me because of the size.
My only dissension is Gravity's Rainbow, which defeated me on first attempt but on second attempt I really got engaged and loved it hugely - one of my favourite books ever.
I think, in recent times, Marx, Hayek, Nozick, Rawls and others have mattered to millions of people - even if the bulk of them weren't conscious of it.
And I rather feel that Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant and so on have had an effect on countless others. Even if most have them had never heard their names.
Few people have read philosophers, but those few have tended to include the politicians, clerics, academics, writers and activists who go on to contribute to the shaping of societies and their attitudes.
Oh, and, yes, I have read them. (Though I don't think I'm one of those guys.)
--
I also think it is wrong (of the guys at The Millions) to put philosophy books in what is essentially a list of novels. You read novels and philosophy books for different reasons, and it is silly to place them side by side in this way. Philosophy, while it should aspire to some kind of accessibility, is essentially a academic discipline, and it is not wrong for it to use technical terms known only to those with some training.
Here's the top 10:
1. Socrates - He Taught us to question.
2. Abraham - Father of Western Monotheism.
3. Confucius - Created the structure upon which China is modeled.
4. Jesus Christ - The Center Point of Christianity.
5. Mohammed - Father of Islam.
6. Buddha (Siddhartha Gatama) - He taught us about moderation.
7. Aristotle - A wonderful classifier of knowledge.
8. Plato - Author of the Republic.
9. Georg Hegel - Champion of the Dialectic.
10. Martin Luther - He galvanized the Reformation.
I might do my favourite philosophy books post next week...
(Or, for that matter, the Principia Discordia).
2. I think I read it at university - I vaguely remember it being a satire on different strands within Protestantism.
3. Nope
4. That's really not so very difficult. She's not a huge favourite of mine - but it's very good.
5. Great book - reread it a few years ago.
http://www.adjb.net/sab/index.php?m=04&y=08&entry=entry080411-072424
6. Yes - I was doing a chapter about Joyce for a book about the influence of Ovid, so thought I should. It was oddly enjoyable, at least intermittently.
7. No.
8. Yes! It's not a particularly difficult read - in fact it's a pretty good read.
9. No.
10. Haven't read - haven't heard!
11. Exactly what Jogo said, replacing 60s with 80s.
12. No
les
In all honesty, it's probably not worth the effort. There are plenty of decent secondary texts out there, which tend to cut to the chase and cut out the “Hegelese” jargon. It’s not that I’m opposed to technical jargon in principle, just that I think “Hegelese” tends to obscure more than it reveals.
That said, I do have a strange emotional bond with Hegel, born out of endurance, despite him being wrong about pretty much everything.
Also, books you know aren't high quality but love anyway. I adore Last Days of Christ the Vampire but I fully admit it's trashily written pulp. And I have a strange love for those 80's 'teen' books all about the adventures of rebellious young people in Thatcher's Britain. One of them often has a mohawk.
As an aside, I find "I have read nothing by this author and can't be bothered doing so, therefore I doubt they have anything of importance to tell me" argument somewhat strange.
Hell, I never listen to jazz. But because I never listen to jazz, I simply don't have the knowledge to judge its worth either way.
Philosophy: Have read Hegel and most of the others listed by Ben Six and Bob. The empiricists/British philosophers are more lucid—or at least easier to grasp—than most of the Continental philosophers. Hobbes, Bentham, Mill, and Locke have all had a great deal of influence. Should not forget the Scottish Enlightenment philosophers either.
Was anyone else forced to read Thomas Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”?
Alex:
the Owl of Minerva flies at dusk.
Have there been telly adaptations of any of the others?
les
I like lots of 'good bad' books - or perhaps I should say popular/genre books as I don't really think they are bad. I reread Georgette Heyer a lot and I recently particularly enjoyed Stephen King's 11.22.63.
Maybe Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier is the book which most opened up new possibilities for me - a long time ago!
I'm not sure whether the "dusk" has come and gone or else it's something I have to await in my twilight years!!
Bob,
My (very subjective) categories would be:
Philosophers that have substantially and productively altered your way of looking at the world (in my case, Theodor Adorno, David Hume, Brian Barry, Amartya Sen (ok...not quite a philosopher...but sort of). Or more simply, the ones that you tend to agree with - for all sorts of reasons.
Philosophers that you acknowledge as really important (In terms of influence and putting in the groundwork) but can’t really get on board with (in my case Kant, Hegel, Mill, Bentham, Aristotle, possibly Marx).
Philosophers that write really good prose but don’t quite do it for you in terms of ideas (in my case Nietzsche or Schiller).
I'd very much separate stuff I enjoy despite knowing the writing isn't great from genre books.
I'm utterly unabashed in my love for comics, in particular.
Right, I'm going to post my favourite philosophy books later (either today or in the morning, depending on time) and including in it the ones which inspired me and "substantially and productively altered [my] way of looking at the world".
There would be other non-fiction books which inspired me, and I listed them here: http://brockley.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/from-bobs-archive-academic-bestsellers.html
I will probably not include "Philosophers that you acknowledge as really important (In terms of influence and putting in the groundwork) but can’t really get on board with", mainly as it would include most philosophers. But I will also include a list of my un-favourite philosophers.
Then, a day or two later, I'll post my two favourite novels list, the ones that "substantially and productively altered [my] way of looking at the world" in my teens and early twenties, and the ones I've loved as an adult.
2. Books You Love Even Though You Know They Are Bad = definitely a more specific/different category than genre fiction. I am a fan of genre fiction in general and crime in particular, but there is good and bad genre fiction, and bad genre fiction that's good to read. Stephen King is a great novelist by any standard, as are (in my genre) Elmore Leonard, George Pelicanos and Walter Mosley.
On the other hand, there are books that are technically bad in every way, but still enjoyable, like Derek Raymond's pyschokiller novels, the New English Library subculture novels of the 70s (e.g. Richard Allen's skinhead and biker books) or Staurt Home's pastiches of them. See http://www.thoseweleftbehind.co.uk/2009/04/ready-to-publish-richard-allen-new.html#!/2009/04/ready-to-publish-richard-allen-new.html
I love Sven Hassel's nihilistic anti-fascist war novels. I'm not sure if they fit into the Bad category or not.
3. The owl of minerva
Much as Hegel is generally un-readable, the owl passage is surely a good exhibit for any claim that he is worth reading. What a passage: "One more word about giving instruction as to what the world ought to be. Philosophy in any case always comes on the scene too late to give it... When philosophy paints its gloomy picture then a form of life has grown old. It cannot be rejuvenated by the gloomy picture, but only understood. Only when the dusk starts to fall does the owl of Minerva spread its wings and fly." Or, in other translations: "When philosophy paints its grey in grey, a shape of life has grown old, and it cannot be rejuvenated, but only recognized, by the grey in grey of philosophy; the owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the onset of dusk."
Tis a pity no similar non-fiction list?
I'd have anything by Homi Bhabha on the list. I'm interested in the topics he writes about, and I'm sure he has interesting things to say, but I've been defeated at every attempt by the pretentious, jargon-laden language.
AJ Ayer might be on the list, who Language, Truth, and Logic I had to read for A level many years ago. It's actually written with great clarity and lucidity, but is tough because ultimately it is about nothing at all and complete nonsense, so you never grasp what it is on about. That book marks a severe dark turn in British academic philosophy in my view, a further turn to introspective, even onanistic, concerns that do not relate to any real world issues or public matters at all, and speak mainly to a technical audience, although Ayer himself did attempt to engage a public audience.
(I just glanced at his Wikipedia page, to make sure I got the title of his book right, and found this charming anecdote: At a party [in 1987] held by fashion designer Fernando Sanchez, Ayer, then 77, confronted Mike Tyson who was forcing himself upon the (then) little-known model Naomi Campbell. When Ayer demanded that Tyson stop, the boxer said: "Do you know who the fuck I am? I'm the heavyweight champion of the world," to which Ayer replied: "And I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic. We are both pre-eminent in our field. I suggest that we talk about this like rational men". Ayer and Tyson then began to talk, while Naomi Campbell slipped out.)
Heidegger Being and Time and anything by Hegel should be on the list, along with Sarte's Being and Nothingness.
Judith Butler would no doubt be on lots of folks' list, as she is (in)famous for her pseuds' corner classics, like this one: ""The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power." - for which she won a Bad Writing context http://www.denisdutton.com/bad_writing.htm
However, this is not actually completely characteristic of her style and I've generally found her not too un-readable and even occasionally rewarding.
Fredric Jameson probably gets points for difficulty but is, in my view, worth some effort and can be rewarding; I enjoyed his Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism book, which is often cited by graduates who had to read it as students as un-readable. I don't think students these days have to read it anymore; his moment has passed.
Also extremely difficult (at least in English translation; I've heard he's nice in the original) is Foucault, but I think he is absolutely worth the effort.
les
les
If there was an award for "up its arse, convoluted bullshit ", I'd nominate a paper I wrote about 10 years ago called "Odysseus' encounter with the Sirens: Reflections on Adorno and the Violation of Nature". I didn't even understand what it was about.
"obviously, a book is not a pill. you can’t simply consume it and then expect it to have a certain effect, or achieve a state of instant enlightenment, or anything like that. but there are certain books that have come my way at various points in my life which got me asking certain questions about things. and i think my life would have been poorer had i not read them. and so perhaps it is this combination of exposure to certain kinds of discourse or use of language coupled with real life experience that’s key here. of course, there are also certain books that offer a unique experience in and of themselves."
oh, and bob, you're right. foucault is important and should be read but very critically and even somewhat skeptically. after all, back in the 70s and early 80s, he did help legitimate the rise of neo-liberalism.
les
Foucault was a bad influence on the world, but I think he was a good influence on me.
"Odysseus' encounter with the Sirens: Reflections on Adorno and the Violation of Nature" is a great title. I'm not surprised you'd no idea what it was about. When I was a student I wrote an essay called "Adorno and the New Age Fascists" attempting to turn the analysis in The Jargon of Authenticity against Zerzan and Green Anarchy. I dug it out recently, thinking it might be good, and my god I was embarrassed.
a) The Open Society and its Enemies, Karl Popper
This taught me that it was OK to dislike Plato and Marx and why. It also taught me that in politics and science – and indeed in every activity where problem-solving is of the essence – we should construct our best theories and institutions in such a way as to make their content as easy to understand, and thus to criticise, as possible.
b) The Mote in God’s Eye, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
The most engaging “first-contact” science fiction book I know. I must have read it half a dozen times, and expect I’ll read it a few more times.
c) Anything by Immanuel Kant, whose entire opus is marred by a style that is the antithesis of that advocated by Popper – see (a) above.
Andrew Coates on (a) puts a book most people would put in (c):
I am going to be even more pretentious.
À la recherche du temps perdu.
I spent probably about five months reading the multiple volumes. They really changed the way I think, to begin with about sexuality and music. Oh, and why I hate anti-Semites.
I encountered Foucault in Amok Books in LA, a wonderful place to which I was introduced by Jogo, the author of this post. (Is it still there?) I saw Foucault, who was published by Semiotext(e) as a cool, outlaw, Genet-esque anarcho-punk writer, and it was only later that I realised he had been canonised in the liberal academy.
anyway, i'm working on my list, but it doesn't quite fit the categories you've laid down. an odd melange, all right, ranging from jack spicer to david harvey. it also has some annotations. although i'm keeping it to 12, it might be a little long, too.
Adorno’s “The Stars Down to Earth” is a surprisingly good read – a sort of Marxist critique of authoritarian tendencies in Astrology and various other New Age trends – but tended to be met with utter bafflement by my students when I tried to teach it.
"Odysseus' encounter with the Sirens: Reflections on Adorno and the Violation of Nature" was something of a flop – partly because I presented it in front of an audience of fairly well known analytic philosophers, partly because I’d been drinking aquavit with some people from Spitsbergen until 5 in the morning but mainly because it was “up its arse, convoluted bullshit.”
Wilson Harris' Jonestown and Juan Goytisolo's novels - I so wanted to like these, as they are about things I am fascinated by, but I found them unreadable.
Paul Auster - who I find incredibly overrated
Samuel Beckett - who I know it is deeply uncool to reveal not liking that much
Sorry f these have been mentioned but here are two novels that I just gave up on for being to difficult and downright turgid:
The Sot Wed Factor by John Barth
The Yawning Heights by Alexander Zinoviev