The most difficult book you've ever read?

**Occiput in Starlight** · 04-01-2023, 11:27 PM

Originally Posted by gixajo

I read it in Spanish, but I read that that strange book has been translated into all the languages of the world.

That makes me feel very silly, since apparently it must be a very popular book all over the world and I am not able to make any sense of it.

I wouldn't overestimate its popularity. Most people I've observed seem to barely read a passage or two at a time and only once every blue moon at that.

For comparison, I read A Game of Thrones in one sitting.

**Todesritter** · 04-01-2023, 11:31 PM

Steiner's Cosmic Memory in recent memory, moreso because of the format than the content. I think I might have found every book I never finished easier to read if it had been on paper. I'm intentionally excepting art and film theory books, because I've more often gone through specific chapters rather than the whole thing.

Fiction-wise, Kafka's Trial and The Sorrows of Young Werther, which was more florid and harder to read than the Iliad and Kalevala. I like Goethe, but nonetheless... I found the Unfinished Tales and the Iliad as well as Kafka's short stories a pleasant read as long as they were printed on good paper, though.

Steppenwolf was an emotionally demanding read, in that it confronted me with a lot of uncomfortable habits and thought-cycles I had also assumed in my life. Ultimately, that's what made it so rewarding, though.