Crime and Punishment question

The Thousander Club wrote: "There have only been a few books that have been a true challenge for me to complete . . .

See the full blog post here: http://thethousanderclub.blogspot.com...

Advise and Consent-I read it in high school for extra credit in political science class. In light of all the dissent in congress at this time, I should probably try to re-read it today..."

on "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky is a book that can change your life even more than the Bible

"Moby Dick" too much digression and boring details. I had to gg through lots of pages elaborating on types of whales. I did not finish tha book and I am glad I did not.

1)sentimental education Flaubert. I was absorbed by the story but the way it was written I had to slow down and reread more often, also I know nothing about French History...nothing
and so I had to stop to look a great deal of references up
an outstanding book and worth every effort
2)The Old man and the sea/ it bored me I find Hemminway
impossible to read he bores me like no other writer. I have tried a couple of his books

Two of the books I'm currently reading I've nearly given up on: David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" and "Tristram Shandy." Both are considered by many to be great novels, but I'm finding them laborious.

Regarding Dostoevsky, I adore Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov, but am finding it difficult to get into The Possessed.

I didn't find Crime and Punishment difficult, just very LONG! I was as relieved as Raskolnikov to reach the end. Moby-Dick too. Great first couple hundred pages. Really draaaaaaags in the middle. But definitely worth the read.
Tried Ulysses, couldn't finish it.
Last book I've read that was challenging to me was The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy

I'm still trying to finish Milton's "Paradise Lost".

Absalom, Absalom

The first time I read C&P it was the most challenging. Mostly because I was in HS and it was a requirement for my favorite English teacher to read it. But after I finished it the first time the second was much easier and I enjoyed the book more. I will always be grateful to Barbara Herzberg for making us read C&P. Thanks

The History of Rasselas, & Crime & Punishment

Crime and Punishment is one of just a few books I weren't able to finish. And I don't think I'm going to start it over any time soon...

The Death of Virgil, hands down. A single sentence will run on for a page or more, and you will welcome a paragraph break like an oasis in the desert. In my household, the title has become shorthand for long and arduous suffering.

Lesser sufferings: Ulysses and Finnegans Wake (due for a re-read of that, actually), and Proust (almost finished with book 2!).

What's fascinating about this list is that it includes books I have really enjoyed a great deal (Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury," for example) and did not find challenging (to me challenging is just plain hard to understand or get through); and books that I have found indeed challenging (Joyce's "Ulysses") -- which just goes to show the extraordinary diversity among Goodreads' readers!

"There have only been a few books that have been a true challenge for me to complete . . . "

The same for me. I've read quite a few books and there have been a few that I struggled with finishing. For some reason, my interest wasn't engaged and it was a hard slog to get through them (if I ever did):

A Clockwork Orange - picked it up and put it down at least 6 times over the years before I finally got into it.

Wuthering Heights - Still sitting on my bookshelf unread. I've gotten through the 1st cxhapter at least twice before i finally gave up

Beloved - had to force myself to get through it.

The Crying of Lot 49 - Ditto

Briefing for a descent into hell by Doris Lessing. The oscillation between madness and sanity, consciousness and unconsciousness and the use of language is both artfully done in challenging to the reader.

The Sound and the Fury. William Faulkner. It took me a few tries until decoded the secret to the book. Faulkner, that sly fox. I then read As I Lay Dying--much easier.

Giovanni Grazzini's book "Solzhenitsyn" about fried my 2 remaining brain cells, trying to understand all of his abstruse arguments which had been translated from tortuous paragraph-long sentences in Italian into even more tortuous English. I had to read some passages 5 or 10 times before I understood them, even with my Captain Midnight Magic Decoder Ring.

But, yeah, it was worth it, to get the inside scoop on what a Communist government does to dissident
writers...

OTOH... Some people on here are complaining about having to work hard to read stuff that's just plain boring (like Faulkner). Why bother? If it's difficult because it's boring, you obviously don't like,it, so just pitch it! Why beat your head against the wall trying to plow through the ravings of a blithering old drunk? "Life is too short for QRP..."

Edit: Actually, the more I think about it, I would have to submit Pais' biography of Einstein ("Subtle is the Lord") as another candidate for "Most Challenging" - it had a lot of the mathematics of Einstein's research in it and I had to work hard to plough through that (and *still* have a bunch to go review... Someday soon (yeah right).)

Les Miserables was definitely the most difficult and longest book I've ever read. The narrative and experience was worth it in the end, but I doubt I will go back and read it again.

Crime and punishment, war and peace.

The Divine Comedy, because it uses archaic language. It is also written in verses. Liked reading it though.

Pride and Prejudice bored me. I really had to push through that one.

The Magic Mountain, no doubt. I'm enjoying it, but it feels like wading through a quagmire because of:

1) The length of the book
2) The length of the chapters
3) The lack of "action". It's not plot-driven.

It's a great book, but it certainly does take a considerable amount of perseverance.

Absalom, Absalom!, As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury all by Faulkner I found to be very challenging, but also very rewarding. Light in August by Faulkner was much easier for me. Another difficult one was Moby Dick by Melville. It was one of the first classics I ever tackled and it took a long time to get through. Dostoevsky novels are great, but also took a long time for me to get through. I loved The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment.

The Thousander Club wrote: "There have only been a few books that have been a true challenge for me to complete . . .

See the full blog post here: http://thethousanderclub.blogspot.com...

The ..."

Homer & The Illiad come to mind. It took me a couple of yrs in high school to finish the books. With War and Peace, I had to keep putting it down to take a longggg break, just so I could continue reading it!

Any of Will Durant's "The Story of Civilization" tomes. I've finished off a few, but I'm still stuck in "The Age of Faith." The problem with Durant is the diffused account of EVERYTHING rather than recounting the events of history.

For sheer difficulty, Hans Kung's "Does God Exist?" is at the top of my list.

Easy - Jacques Derrida "Of Grammatology" in Senior year. Deconstructing constructions and the ideology behind it all. Dense read.

Ulysses by James Joyce (one of the few books that I did not finish)
A book that is difficult to but worth reading is Crime and Punishment

Hard Times, I've started the book twice now and I just cant seem to get into it. More than likely it has to do with the dull way of life and acting proper that i just cant seem to get excited about.

Odyssey & Iliad, i had the unfortunately difficult translation of chapman which made reading 10 pages a huge feat of endurance and self control

Crime and Punishment

Orwell's 1984. It did not bore me for a second but it was extremely challenging, philosophically. The first time I opened it I literally couldn't stop myself from reading it until it was finished. One of the greatest, most terrifying books ever.

Finnegans Wake. No need to say anything else.

I would have to agree with a couple of you on "As I Lay Dying", by William Faulkner. I finished it through, but most of the time I was scratching my head, thinking 'huh?'. I understand that there were different members of the family saying their side of what happened and things, but to me there was no flow to it. Maybe I just don't understand William Faulkner's style of writing. I read Willa Cather's "O, Pioneers!" and had no problem reading hers.

Any Shakespeare play the first time through. Once the story is familiar the language begins to come alive, but initially I feel as though the language barrier is too great. Ditto any Middle English I have had to read.

I fell asleep every day trying to read Crime and Punishment in high school. It sticks in my memory as something that just felt impossible to get through.

What about books that are fine for awhile but then become really challenging? I was reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, and somewhere in the final third of the book, I'd only make it through a few pages in a sitting. I don't think I ever actually did finish it.

I also found Anna Karenina really challenging, especially long sections on the proper way to run a farm. Snoozefest. Yes, I know, there's lots of charming stuff, too, but the whole "animal husbandry" and "how to keep your peasants from revolting" stuff was insufferable.

Ulysses has by far been the most challenging, mostly because I've picked it up thrice and put it back all three times without completing the book. I feel bad about it and hope that one day, I will be able to complete it.
Amongst the books I've read, both The Glass Bead Game and The Heart of Darkness were challenging - I hope 'challenging' here is not misconstrued as 'boring', because I loved both books - they were intellectually and emotionally stimulating :)

Jane Eyre--I couldn't even get to page 120--and The Swiss Family Robinson...I've read it multiple times and I still can't quite picture the tree house because of all the details.

Laurence Sterne's 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy'. http://tinyurl.com/ke4xe6w

This is the most demanding anti-novel I've read...even more demanding, in some ways, than Joyce's 'Finnegans Wake' http://tinyurl.com/nur8nsf

Infinite Jest was probably the most challenging book for me. Not merely the style the style it was written in, but mainly just the length and detail of just about every page. It was definitely a great one though.

I recently attempted Gravity's Rainbow after becoming familiar with the Post Modern Fiction genre, but it was even more abstract than anything else I had ever read. I got to about page 60 and eventually decided to put it down and dive back into it a little later on.

The End of Alice. This book does a remarkable job of escorting the reader through the mind of a sociopathic pedophile. To well of a job. I almost regret reading it. In the same way one might allow curiosity to get the best of them and watch a video of a murder or suicide. You almost immediately regret the decision. Undo! Undo!

MOBY DICK! (But I loved it).

The Brothers Karamazov, which I started several times and finally completed. Strange since I love and read everything else by Dostoevsky. The other is Ulysses, which I felt that I should read, but finally accepted that I do not like the story and it just looks nice in my collection. I have set War and Peace as my 2015 Winter reading goal. I can do this!

Last if the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper.

NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND! It feels like dying anew per page read.

War and Peace, undoubtedly. I keep picking it up and putting it off.

"Under the Volcano" Malcolm Lowry...a journey into the soul and life of a drunken consulate in Mexico. Challenging to begin/exhilarating to complete. I was young but it left me with a great, deep sense of hope. Why? No explanation. What a trip that novel was.

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. Initially, the motivation was the accolades given to the book, later on it metamorphosed into an accomplishment to finish the book, which I did exhaustively. It looks like author has used dictionary nonchalantly to find synonyms to every meaningful word. I don't know why, but book failed have to a charm on me.

"War and Peace" I just finished it and it was awesome. The most challenging interestingly was the epilogue. The most challenging mentally and spiritually was for me without a doubt The Holy Bible.

The Thousander Club wrote: "There have only been a few books that have been a true challenge for me to complete . . .

Soren Kierkegaard's Either/Or: A Fragment of Life has to be the most challenging read for me. Like many people have said, challenging doesn't mean boring, and I think it is one of the greatest works of philosophy and it was so spiritually satisfying in the end. Kierkegaard's writing style made it easier to read as his style is so lively, poetic and entertaining.

I would also include Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Again, one of my favourite books and it read like a 500 page book rather than a 100 or so page novella.

Crying of Lot 49 -- had no idea what was happening except for bugles or trumpets

Goldfinch--stupidest book I've read in my entire lifetime, hard to bear

Proust Volume 1 -- exquisite loveliness nectar & sorrow. I loved this book but 10 pages at a time was my maximum speed. Like attending the funeral of a loved one - joy and pain and beauty and memory and sorrow and nostalgia.

Pale King--reading now. I love it but very taxing. (drum roll please)

Blood Meridian--also a favorite, but could only read 4 or 5 pages at a time, like reading the New Testament or something or Old Testament more accurately.

Dante--forced to read for school, had no idea what was going on. Same for Iliad of course and Goethe's Faust. Totally reliant on the professor for any insight whatsoever.

Unauthorized autobiography of Gary Coleman by Todd Bridges and Kelsey Grammar -- had some cool pictures but the text was dense