There are only a handful of novels that I've really enjoyed over the years. As such, I tend to just re-read those. I must have read my favorite novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest a dozen times.
However, when it comes to some of the classics, I wish I had Googled years ago, "most difficult novels to read". I could have spared myself countless hours of struggling to get through something that I would eventually just give up on.
The books I've started but never finished include:
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
At 1,225 pages, Tolstoy's classic novel makes a dandy heavy-duty doorstop. Even a bank vault door is no match for this mighty tome. However, if your thing is reading an English translation in which everything was apparently lost, then give this a try. I can personally tell you that "Whatsisnameov" "Whositsky" and "Somethingorotherova" all play a major part in the plot.
This book is well-known for its soporific qualities. It can send a reader to Snoresville in less than ten minutes. I understand that plans are underway to have it sold as a sleep aid at your local pharmacy, under the brand name Snore In Peace. It will take its place alongside the various holistic remedies for those who do not wish to take an antihistamine.
Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak
You may also find this book at the drug store as a Snore In Peace competitor, under the brand name Doctor Zzzzzhivago. I slogged through the first third of this classic on three separate occasions. I'm going to count that as having read the whole thing since it adds up to the same amount of pages, and had I read it in its entirety, I would have remembered none of it anyway. If you're a fan of the film version, you'll wonder how they made such a great movie from this book. I suspect that screenwriter Robert Bolt couldn't remember any of the book either, and made up a completely different story for the film. His screenplay, by the way, is a very good read.
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
If you read this one, you may wonder what in the dickens the author is trying to say. Naturally, I had great expectations for this novel. At least it was written in somewhat understandable English. I wonder how a Russian would feel about a translated version. It could very well be available as a sleep aid at Russian pharmacies. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for that, but pronouncing the names of some of the characters (Pirrip, Gargery, Pumblechook, Havisham, Wemmick, Orlick, Skiffins), with volume and force, could help loosen your chest congestion. So you may someday find this book in the cold and sinus section of your neighborhood drug store under the brand name Great Expectorations.
Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
The copy I have (still have it for some reason) is in modern English. Even so, it takes a while to get through even half of it. Think of it as the Can't-Be-Hurried Tales. In its original Middle English, it might just as well be the Cantonese Tales.
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Early on, I found this novel to be somewhat entertaining and even funny. But the real mirth begins about a quarter of the way into the volume with the descriptions of whale anatomy and the many uses of whale products, and so on, and on, and on. I had seen the film long before reading the book. I wonder how the movie would have been received had it shown Richard Basehart as Ishmael, turning to the camera halfway through it and saying, "Now, for your viewing pleasure, we shall discuss whale anatomy for the next two and a half hours."
Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
To tilt at windmills may be an exercise in futility, but it is nothing compared to the efforts of the average reader who tries to labor through this voluminous tale. To spare yourself the time it takes to read this one (1,077 pages), I will provide as an alternative, a photo of Picasso's sketch of Quixote and Sancho Panza, along with a link to the original Broadway recording of The Impossible Dream from Man of La Mancha. Just stare at the picture while listening to the song. You're welcome.
I have somehow finished two works by Fyodor Dostoevsky; The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment.
All in all, I didn't find these books to be all that bad. I just used what is an apparently well-know strategy. In both cases, I used the War and Peace approach. I didn't bother remembering the Russian names and just glided over them without regard to who they necessarily were or how their names were pronounced. As a result, I'm not sure who did what, but I'm pretty certain there were brothers named Karamazov in the first novel, but the name of the criminal rascal in the other escapes me.
Lest you get the idea that I am some sort of uncultured boorish lout, I should point out that I really do read a lot and that I enjoy great writing; like in the aforementioned Cuckoo's Nest. Often I will read a sentence or passage and think, "Geez, I wish I had written that." The opening lines to Clive Barker's Weaveworld, or, (believe it or not) the first few paragraphs from Hopalong Cassidy by Clarence E. Mulford, are a couple of examples.
On the other hand, we have this from To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf:
She had known happiness, exquisite happiness, intense happiness, and it silvered the rough waves a little more brightly, as daylight faded, and the blue went out of the sea and it rolled in waves of pure lemon which curved and swelled and broke upon the beach and the ecstasy burst in her eyes and waves of pure delight raced over the floor of her mind and she felt, It is enough! It is enough!
Well Virginia, may I respond, "It is too much! It is too much!" Sheeesh! Talk about overkill! I can imagine her describing a bag of garbage; It was a mélange of bittersweet orange rinds and earthy potato peels, attempting to blend harmoniously with once-desired red meat and yellowish-white egg shells. The aroma gently wafted in undulations toward unwilling yet receptive nostrils, like shimmering heat waves from ebony asphalt on an airless midsummer's afternoon.
Similarly, we have this winner of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for bad writing in 2021:
A lecherous sunrise flaunted itself over a flatulent sea, ripping the obsidian bodice of night asunder with its rapacious fingers of gold, thus exposing her dusky bosom to the dawn’s ogling stare.
I honestly prefer that to the cited howlings from Virginia Woolf.
Here is another good one from the Bulwer-Lytton contest:
The horizon coughed up the morning sun much as if Atlas had lowered the world from his mighty shoulders and given it the Heimlich maneuver.
The contest is named after Edward Bulwer-Lytton, an English writer and politician who famously (or infamously) wrote the opening line “It was a dark and stormy night.” for his 1830 novel Paul Clifford .
Bulwer-Lytton is also noted for coining the phrase "the pen is mightier than the sword."
Poor Mr. Bulwer-Lytton. He probably wasn't such a bad writer, but his name is now associated with a bad writing contest. I'm almost certain his writing was better than the majority of today's authors.
Finally I will leave you with this; the winner of the
The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and pleasant, the second half still balmy and quite pleasant for those who hadn't heard the scream at all, but not calm or balmy or even very nice for those who did hear the scream, discounting the little period of time during the actual scream itself when your ears might have been hearing it but your brain wasn't reacting yet to let you know.
That's what I call good bad writing; suitable for a boorish lout like me.
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