Post: #126

(09-06-2013 05:45 PM)MaleDefined Wrote:  I really struggled with Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita". Despite it being considered one of the seminal works of modern fiction, I found the frequent references to other authors, subtle parallels to biblical stories, and analogous riddles to be overwhelming. Either the people who think so highly of the book are a hell of a lot smarter than I'll ever be, or say the book is brilliant because everyone else says it is.

It is a lot more entertaining in Russian. I read it in two nights when I was 12.

Post: #127

For me it was the Quran. It is not chronological, one always has to refer to the Hadiths, verify which suras are from Mecca and which ones are from Medina, because Medinan suras are of higher value than Meccan ones, and constantly search for what some things mentioned mean. In the end I deferred to Robert Spencer and read his "Blogging the Quran" and verified the passages as needed.

Post: #128

Thus Spoke Zarathustra was the hardest for me. I plan on going back and reading sometime down the road when I understand philosophy more.

Someone mentioned it earlier in the thread, but the hardest book I've laid eyes upon is 'Godel, Escher, Bach'. Again, I haven't read this just glanced through it, but to anyone who has read: How? Good lord the book looks horrifying. My dad joked that the only reason it won the Pulitzer Prize was because no one wanted to admit they had no idea what it was about and just said "Wow, what an amazing book, let's give it the Pulitzer Prize."

To those who have read it, for people who don't have a 140+ IQ would it be worth taking a stab at?

Post: #129

Post: #130

100 years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez ( in spanish). I speak fluent spanish and I had to have dictionary on hand while reading it. Worth it though, very picturesque and politically interesting.

Post: #131

Quantum Mechanics (Volume I and II) by Cohen-Tannoudji (translated from French)


Classical Electrodynamics by Jackson


These are the bibles for Physics majors.

Post: #132

Intriguing and intelligent book, but like with other books the author's vast preference of philosophy over substance shines through in the form of incredibly convoluted descriptions, sentences that ramble on for several pages and so on.

It's not as bad as In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust, but since I never finished that one I can't count it here in good faith.

Post: #133

(06-03-2014 07:15 PM)Seth_Rose Wrote:  Thus Spoke Zarathustra was the hardest for me. I plan on going back and reading sometime down the road when I understand philosophy more.

Someone mentioned it earlier in the thread, but the hardest book I've laid eyes upon is 'Godel, Escher, Bach'. Again, I haven't read this just glanced through it, but to anyone who has read: How? Good lord the book looks horrifying. My dad joked that the only reason it won the Pulitzer Prize was because no one wanted to admit they had no idea what it was about and just said "Wow, what an amazing book, let's give it the Pulitzer Prize."

To those who have read it, for people who don't have a 140+ IQ would it be worth taking a stab at?

'Godel, Escher, Bach' is an excellent book. What you have to remember though - is that the book becomes a little bit like a textbook half way through when you have to get a pencil and paper and start working on the logic systems that Hofstadter teaches.

The book is at the intersection between maths, philosophy and computer science.

I never made it past the paper and pencil exercises because I am lazy - but I keep meaning to go back and tackle them.

Also - I don't think there is any harm in skipping the dialogues between the Tortoise and the Hare which make up every other chapter in the book. They are an artistic flourish - which helps make the book unique - but they are not essential to an understanding of the book. And as dialogues they are pretty annoying and far too 'cutesy' for my tastes...

Post: #134

As for Nietzsche - I am not a fan of his work.

So - I find his books pretty hard going since I feel he is a giant homo.

Post: #135

A lot of you mention Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

It's a thoroughly deep book, and, even at surface level, Nietzsche drops a ton of solid advice on woman and hates on SWJs. Not to mention self-improvement.

Here are some fun quotes that come to mind:

Quote:Of man there is little here: therefore do their women masculinize themselves. For only he who is man enough, will--save the woman in woman.

- Doesn't this describe feminism aptly?

Quote:But one time he spoilt his company for all time: his marriage he calls it. ... Careful, have I found all buyers, and all of them have astute eyes. But even the most astute of them buys his wife in a sack. Many short follies--that is called love by you. And your marriage puts an end to many short follies, with one long stupidity.

- Careful who you marry.

Quote:Courageous, unconcerned, scornful, coercive--so wisdom wishes us; she is a woman, and ever loves only a warrior.

- As opposed to cowardly, worrisome, pedestalizing, and supplicating.

It can also be quite humorous at times:

Quote:...but whoever fishes where there are no fish, I do not even call him superficial!

His other books have enjoyable segments as well.

Quote: 28. Consolation for Beginners:
See the child, with pigs she’s lying,
helpless, face as white as chalk!
Crying only, only crying –
will she ever learn to walk?
Don’t give up! Stop your sighing,
soon she’s dancing ‘round the clock!
Once her own two legs are trying,
she’ll stand on her head and mock.

- From The Gay Science

Edit: Forgot to answer the question. For non-technical work, probably The Alchemy of Finance by George Soros. I tried to read it years ago in high school, but I was too dumb.

Post: #136

(12-09-2014 09:45 PM)Tactician Wrote:  A lot of you mention Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Edit: Forgot to answer the question. For non-technical work, probably The Alchemy of Finance by George Soros. I tried to read it years ago in high school, but I was too dumb.

Personally, I don't see how anyone could read through Zarathustra like a traditional book. That's one of the things you pick up every few days, read a chapter or two at a time, muse on it, and return to when the inspiration hits.

I agree about Alchemy of Finance. I still don't understand it even though I understand reflexivity. I think a lot of it though is Soros who at the time wasn't very good at distilling things down for commoners

Post: #137

"Foucault pendulum" by Umberto Eco

The book is interesting but the number of references to other literally works and history is overwhelming even for a book by Umberto Eco. Great book for widening ones horisons trough as all his works.

For those who are interested in Umberto Eco I recommend to start with an easier book of his like "Bodolino".

Post: #138

To those who complain that "Thus spoke Zaratustra" or anything by Nietzsche is hard - you must read it with your heart and not with your mind.

To those who nominated with "Master and Margaret" - if you have no roots in Soviet Union then you will probably struggle and not understand it fully..

Post: #139

Fire In The Minds of Men - The Origins of the Revolutionary Faith by James H Billington.

"If you read only one book on revolution during your entire life, you must read Billington's "Fire in the Minds of Men". This book is absolutely unequaled in its 'scope', depth, and detail, in its magnificent literary power, and in its biting, trenchant analysis of what the subtitle calls the "Origins of the Revolutionary Faith". One of the major theses of his book is that the revolutionary faith originated not in the critical rationalism of the French Enlightenment (which, admittedly, was a religion as well), but rather in the blatantly occult romanticism of secret societies, which stirred a heretical brew of Christian symbolism and pagan mysticism." Bruce Chilton.

This book is dense and full of quotations in french, latin etc. Very heavy reading and an opus to be studied piece by piece over a period of time. A goldmine of obscure details of both national and social revolutionaries.

Post: #140

Not going to lie, this one I gave up on around page 100 or so. In my defence, even Dan Simmons calls Henry James the literary equivalent of K-2.

Post: #141

This one.

It's called Lanark, and it's about... something. The city of Glasgow, love, pain, humour, and a version of hell that looks a lot like Glasgow, twinned with Silent Hill.

Had only a vague idea what was going on. Reading it was like being in a vivid dream, where things don't make sense they way they do in the waking world, but follow a strange logic of their own. With footnotes.

It's a very literary book. That is not necessarily a good thing. But I was staggered by it. While I don't know if I liked it, it affected me. It was haunting.

I think the reason it struck such a strong chord with me is that my own dreams are like the author's. Since I was a little boy, I've had not-quite-nightmares of being trapped in a world without daylight. Where the Sun just broke one day, like a popped lightbulb. A world of decaying spaces, slowly going to moss and ruin, under the weird orange half-light of street lamps.



Best way I can describe it is it was like how I felt after seeing Vanilla Sky or Brazil.


Honourable mentions go to:

Post: #142

When I started reading Aquinas, without the prerequisite background, it was so fucking confusing.

Post: #143

Are we including academic books also? If so anything philosophy related could be easy enough to read but difficult to completely grasp. Case in point for me was Concept of Law by HLA Hart.

Hart intended that book to be a basic primer on his view of jurisprudence (legal philosophy) but it was quickly elevated to "play Freebird!" status by his admirers. Had to take my time with that one.

Post: #144

Soros thinks of himself as a philosopher along the lines of Karl Popper and perhaps made Alchemy of Finance more complicated than it needed to be. Good book though.

Post: #145

I attempted Ulysses but it's fucking gibberish. I'll read a page or three for a laugh here and there. So i guess I didn't actually read it. I'll have to think about the hardest book I acutally finished.

Post: #146

^I actually meant "Finnegan's Wake." Also by James Joyce.

Post: #147

Dat shit go hard bruh

Post: #148

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: there's so many incoherent economic and sociologic assumptions and tangents that even Batman and Sherlock Holmes would be driven insane.

Also Beowulf in original Saxon.

Now, the G Manifesto on the other hand...

Post: #149

Hardest book I ever read was "Inside the Third Reich" by Albert Speer. It was hard to read because the book contained a lot of German words, names of people, events, cities and buildings were all in German. Also, the book was supposed to be a Memoir but it read more like a biased supplicating account of Hitler's creative mind. I got through two thirds of it before putting it down, I intend to finish it soon though.

Another book that I found really hard to read was Bertrand Russell's "History of Western Philosophy" someone gave me this book a long time ago, I couldn't get through two pages without falling asleep, word!!

Post: #150

Critique of Pure Reason.....Immanuel Kant, talk about dry and repetitive.