What Is The Most Confusing Book You’ve Read? (10/12/25)

[Marc]

Not sure what you just read? Unable to sum the read up in any semi-coherent way? Just left scratching your head? What are some of the most confusing books you’ve read?

(This week’s question was inspired by the following Book Riot article: https://bookriot.com/what-books-do-re... )

[Henk]

Untold Night and Day by Bae Suah and anything by Can Xue; both are very non-linear and obviously channel so much from Asian culture that it is quite hard for the Western reader to identify with them, while still being fascinating reads

[Nadine in California]

Anything by Antoine Volodine - I've only read one of his books "Radiant Terminus" but I think it's safe to say it's representative of his work. The GR description of him seems spot-on to me.

"Antoine Volodine is the primary pseudonym of a French author. Some of his books have been published in sf collections, but his style, which he has called "post-exoticism", does not fit neatly into any common genre. He publishes under several additional pseudonyms, including Lutz Bassmann and Manuela Draeger."

[Stacia]

Can Xue is who immediately popped into my head, specifically Five Spice Street.

[Emmeline]

I’m going to sound like such an idiot, but for me it was The Master and Margarita. I could not make head nor tail of any of it, not helped by my nonexistent religious education.

Can Xue too, but I think she’s a right old fraud, whereas I could tell Bulgakov was saying something.

[Whitney]

Emmeline wrote: "I’m going to sound like such an idiot, but for me it was The Master and Margarita. I could not make head nor tail of any of it, not helped by my nonexistent religious education...."

You definitely don't sound like an idiot. It's one of my favorite books, but don't ask me for any kind of definitive interpretation. It incorporates Faustian legend, the politics of the crucifixion, and details of Stalinist policies and bureaucracy. We did a very deep dive on this in the (sadly now defunct) group "Brain Pain" in which we looked at all these elements, had secondary references, annotated copies of the book, and a very erudite moderator. The word "baffling" still came up quite a bit.

[Hester]

Can Xue . Didn't have to think about it.

[Franky]

Emmeline wrote: "I’m going to sound like such an idiot, but for me it was The Master and Margarita. I could not make head nor tail of any of it, not helped by my nonexistent religious education.

Can Xue too, but I..."

Thanks for brings this one up. So true! I really didn't like The Master or the Margarita and thought it all over the place and confusing and disjointed. I didn't understand the appeal. In fairness, it could have been a translation issue, but who knows.

[Emmeline]

Thanks Whitney and Franky, I feel a little vindicated. I also wondered if it might be a translation issue.

I was extra flummoxed when after reading I asked a friend what she loved about it so much and she said "it's so funny." I had not found anything funny so that was an alarm bell!

[Kyle]

By the end of Gravity's Rainbow, I had no idea what was going on.

Granted, that was also the case at the beginning.

[Lark]

i love Can Xue and find her books remarkably simple and lucid. Reading her books is like listening to the inside of my brain.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke was incomprehensible to me. I tried many times and could make no sense of it.

[Bill]

I'm confused by all these expressions of confusion. There must be a market for Cliff Notes for contemporary lit!

I was pretty confused by the first 40 pages of Helen Oyeyemi's A New New Me, read them a second time, and decided I didn't care enough to further de-confuse and continue.