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/lit/ - Literature

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6600445 No.6600445 [Reply] [Original]

This is the hardest thing I've ever read. What was the most difficult read for you?

>> No.6600471

it was difficult for me to read your post without laughing

>> No.6600479

>>6600445

Leviathan by Hobbes, maybe because I haven't much Philosophy before but I found it challening.

>> No.6600487
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6600487

>Immanuel Cunt

>> No.6600490

>>6600445
Think that was hard, bitch? Try soldiering through all three critiques. And then, try fuckng Hegel.

>> No.6600492

>>6600479
Leviathan is just plain convoluted. Excerpts are definitely the way to go with that book

>> No.6600494

>>6600487
again posting the same shit?

>> No.6600496

Plato's dialogues, because I actually aim to understand them. So, I re-read every page before moving on and I have the audiobook while reading. And then I go read every analysis I can find online to do with whatever dialogue I had the misfortune of wanting to read. He's good, though.

>> No.6600498

>>6600490
This is the first book for my Advanced Modern Philosophy Ind study, next is Critique of Pure Reason and Hegel will be second to last in the course, we're reading Phenomenology on Spirit and Lectures of History

>> No.6600506

>>6600496
every analysis you can find is a lot, but a lot. You should go for some already canonical interpretation.

>> No.6600514

>>6600498
good luck.

>> No.6600518

Mason & Dixon. The writing style was too patrician for me to handle sometimes.

>> No.6600522

>>6600518
You get used to the style like three pages in, come on anon.

>> No.6600539

>>6600445
Are you retarded, OP?

>> No.6600578

Kant comes pretty close when I first started. I was in my late teens and it was the first thing I had ever read which really couldn't be skimmed. You either understood every word and every sentence and progressed, or you got buttmad. I got buttmad a lot.

Legit hardest is Derrida though. Foucault was a cunt at first but then you get to the meat and you at least feel like you can cling to something substantial. Derrida I seriously think I threw the book at some point.

>> No.6600583

>>6600518
Heavy pleb

>> No.6600587
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6600587

>>6600578
The only book I've ever thrown out of frustration was Spinoza. I got this gem queued up too.

>> No.6600589
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6600589

It just slowed down my reading pace and was all choppy because of all the fucking English-mon slang they used in the book.

>> No.6600598

Ulysses would kick my ass were it not for the Joyce Project (I read the Odyssey when I was young and don't very well remember it, and I've never read any of the Bard - for these offences against the Gods of Literature, I repent), but with that help I'm LOVING it. Certainly it's the best fiction I've ever read. But yeah, Kant can get pretty hairy, though I found it easy to adjust to his style. It's sort of cute in its stuffiness. Certain portions of the Physics and Metaphysics can get rather obscure, though. Also I'm right now reading David Lewis's On the Plurality of Worlds, and he does some logical gymnastics, but he's not too bad as he is, of course, an Analytic.

>> No.6600599

>>6600587
Nice video games, dork

>> No.6600608

>>6600589
Was just going to post this.
Believe it also had a lot of Russian slang mixed in. It was a very rewarding read once I got the hang of it.

>> No.6600614
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6600614

>>6600445
>tfw I bought that book thinking it would be ez
>tfw shitty spanish translation
>tfw

>> No.6600616

>>6600608
haha, yup! learning russian is funny af if you've read clockwork orange

>> No.6600620

>>6600445
I'm struggling to read Rawls

>> No.6600624

>>6600608
Actually, only read a few pages in the parking lot after I bought it, the slang was all being tossed back in forth between cells in my head each time I read a sentence.

But I feel that I could get the hang of it after I start reading for a bit.

I'm just reading a different book right now

>> No.6600625
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6600625

>>6600496
>Plato's dialogues, because I actually aim to understand them.
>because I actually aim to understand them.
>aim to understand them.

>> No.6600641

>>6600492
It's also redundant. Paragraphs and chapters drag out after they've already made their points.

>> No.6600648

>>6600496
Don't feel bad about being slow, but also don't feel like your first go-through is going to reveal everything to you, even with secondary sources. Sometimes it's not a bad idea to read the whole thing, and then re-read it for a better understanding or how each part is contributing to a larger whole.

>> No.6600660

>>6600641
Yup Locke does the same damn thing in Essay Concerning Human Understanding

>> No.6600665

>>6600445
Like >>6600578 said, Kant is pretty hard and can't be skimmed, but his sentences really do make sense once you get by his obtuse vocabulary.

Derrida is wicked hard. Heidegger can be difficult if you resist.

>> No.6600744
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6600744

To this day I can't find the white paperclip

>> No.6600769

>>6600445
I'm reading Witty's Philosophical Investigations as an introduction to analytic philosophy, even though I probably should have read Frege or Russel or even Tractatus first but w/e. It reads easily enough but I'm never quit sure if I'm getting the point well enough. The style kind of reminds me of what Heraclitus' book might look like if it were complete. Well maybe less aphoristic than that.

>> No.6600775

The first half of The Sound and the Fury

>> No.6600835

>>6600769
That's always the trouble of Ind study, you never really quite know if you're dead on or way off the mark.

>> No.6600848

>>6600835
It's pretty easy to get a hold on popular things by referring to encyclopedias and from there triangulating the most important secondary work.

>> No.6601385

>>6600648
>slow
oh bitch

>> No.6601389

For some reason I can readily understand Shakespeare and Chaucer, yet struggled heavily with Faulkner's The Unvanquished.

>> No.6601394

>>6600744
keked

>> No.6601411

>>6600479
>part 2
>Hobbes talks about how he hopes all monarchs will read his book
>goes on by saying they will find it an easy and entertaining read
ohhh you poor poor man

>> No.6601442

>>6600445
With such a self descriptive title I imagine you must have a deeply ingrained metaphysical cognition; ineradicable. Since you couldn't have any difficulty understanding what the words say.

>> No.6601450

Marius the Epicurean

>> No.6601455

>>6600496
The dialogs make perfect sense, what's wrong with you?

>> No.6601456

>>6600445
Read Finnegans Wake you wanker.

>> No.6601463

>>6600587
Spinozas the kosherest of all. Threw Spinoza, plz.

>> No.6601469

>>6601456
I'm going to read finnegans wake. Then I'll vomit all over the place. It'll kick ass.

>> No.6601472

There was a time I spent at least 8 hours straight reading the same 6 paragraphs from the Phenomenology of the Spirit.

>> No.6601490

>>6601472
Did you "get stuck in a lime twig"?

>> No.6601491

Hegel, hands down.

>> No.6601498

>>6600744
underrated post

>> No.6601505

>>6600587

Don't bother with Archaeology unless your a scholar interested in working up your discourse-analysis tool kit. Stick with Order of Things. It's much better.

>> No.6601510

>>6600445
On the basis of style, Hegel's Science of Logic.

On the basis of content, almost anything by Plato, but especially Sophist and Statesman.

>> No.6601536

>>6601490
??

>> No.6601558

>>6600445

Frege's work in general. Though that was over a year ago so I probably would do much better now. Scotus is very difficult but very worthwhile, and much easier once you have a good grasp of his general Philosophy and Medieval terminology.

>> No.6601561

>>6601536
It's a quote from the introduction of the phenomenology of spirit.

>> No.6601566

>>6601561
That I spent 6 hours reading.

>> No.6601577

>>6600578
>>6600587
>being so mad at a book that you threw it
In the nicest way possible, that seems like a pitiful experience if there ever was one. How did you feel after doing so?

>> No.6601662

Neuromancer but that's more cause I just hated it. Though I'll say that it is hard to read to an extent because the attempt of stylization falls flat and comes out as a garbled mess.

>> No.6601673

>>6601662
What? Obviously you have never taken amphetamines.

>> No.6601680
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6601680

>>6600445
This thread has just gone full RAW.

>> No.6601688

Fuuck I'm triggered.

>> No.6601701

Has anyone read De divisione naturae (Periphyseon)? I was thinking about reading it. I got the unabridged translation off genlib too.

>> No.6601707

>>6600578
Foucault's later stuff is systematic in a sense and he really did develop a core of thought that is simple in its means, but boundless in its expression. It's just different explications of power-knowledge, governance, formations of subjectivity, technologies of power, model spaces for invention and repetition, and the deployment and topology of governance.

Some of Derrida's early essays are extraordinary. Thinking of Structure, Sign, and Play in particular. Then there's shit like Rogues or the Politics of Friendship that I want to adore but just read like transcripts of rambling study groups.

>> No.6601722
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6601722

>>6601707
Did somebody say...

>> No.6601786

>>6600445
Spinoza's Ethics was difficult for me because of how necessary it was to understand every point so as to proceed to the next. Needless to say, the satisfaction felt upon completion has yet to be matched with another book.

>> No.6601795

>>6601786
The logic though..
That's what you read philosophy for.

>> No.6601803
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6601803

>>6600445
"A tenderfoot in space".

The sentimental/emotional crap "oh,oh,oh the holy magical relationship between a boy and his dog" made me fucking sick. God, I hate dogs!

>> No.6601898

>>6601803
Old yeller hates you too.
And so does the where the red fern grows.

>> No.6601901

>>6601803
And lassie.

>> No.6602497

>>6601803
You'll hate your children too.

>> No.6602521
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6602521

>tfw somebody deleuzeposts daily and it's not your special little thing anymore

But this. Given, I read it when I was eighteen on suggestion of a friend of mine, but it was incredibly difficult, but more in a "there are you things you just don't understand now come back later idiot" way.

>> No.6602550

>>6602521
Difference+Repetition
A must.
1000 plateaus
mmmmmmhmmm
Anti-oedipus
Why so continental?

>> No.6602572

>>6602550
Why not? It's mostly fun and if you got their ideas you can understand stuff people did with them afterwards, and they're even funnier.

>> No.6602581

>>6600620
>>6600620
are you reading a theory of justice?

Lawyer here, IMO it was pretty clear when I read it considering other authors

>> No.6602589

>>6600498
>Advanced
kekkle

>> No.6602631

>>6600589
is this even worth reading? I have it lying round but I haven't been bothered to properly start it

>> No.6602658

>>6600445
how does one decide if a difficult book is actually worth reading and not obscurantist bullshit?

>> No.6602698

Kant is difficult to read on his own without context but there are lots of very well written guides that hold your hand and as long as you take it slow and have a good translation he usually makes sense. That is, you're never really like 'WTF?'.

As one or two other people have mentioned in this thread the contemporary continentals are on another level because they often don't make much sense and they are quite happy to be completely opaque. Lots of Marxist shit I've just given up on because there's nothing of interest in it for me and there's no good analytic philosopher who has made the effort to translate that garbage into something digestible. They have with some like Sartre but not in general.

A few years ago when I did my degree I read some stuff by John McDowell on Kant and I literally threw my book across the room. I think he has a bit of a reputation for being difficult.

>> No.6602824

Some horrifically dense and esoteric buddhist sutra that might have been the Diamond Sutra

>>6602658
reports from people you believed to be learned / able to give valid critiques.

>> No.6602885

>>6600445
Feel you. I'm reading critique of jugdement.

Everytime a priori shows up I want to kick something.

>> No.6602894

>>6600589
This wasn't that challenging for me, and I'm not a particularly adept reader. It's probably because I'm English and a lot of the neologisms even come intuitively.

>> No.6602935

>>6602631
If you have any love for the movie, go for it.

>> No.6603331

Any of you niggers read Homer's Odyssey? How quickly could you read it if you had to? One sitting? How many hours?.

>> No.6603344

>>6600587
>360

Atta boy

>> No.6603347

>>6600479
De Cive says the very same thing of Leviathan and it is easier. Try it.

>> No.6603348

>>6600769
>I'm reading Witty's Philosophical Investigations as an introduction to analytic philosophy
>It reads easily enough but I'm never quit sure if I'm getting the point well enough.

can literally guarantee you that you are missing a huge amount of shit from this book; PI is fucking rough and this is coming from someone on track to get their philosophy PhD.

>> No.6603352

>>6603331
I mean I'm sure anyone could read anything in one sitting if they 'had to.' With Epics though I always liked to read a book or two a day, so it took me about two weeks.

>> No.6603395

>>6603352
Good luck reading Ulysses in one sitting, mate.

>> No.6603401

>>6603395
All I'm saying is 'had to' is a bizarre hypothetical.

>> No.6603415

>>6603401
Shut up mate.

>> No.6603443

One of my professors said a lot of Hegwl scholars don't understand Hegel

>> No.6603518

>>6603443
Probably because Hegwl and Hegel are two different authors.