<p>So, what is THE most challenging book that u ever read? it could be the longest or the most difficultly written.</p>
<p>War and Peace...I first read it when I was a kid and a lot of the plot just flew right over my head. I reread it a few years ago and it made a lot more sense, but damn I was so lost the first time around.</p>
<p>wow. i've heard that it's supposed to be the greatest novel. it's supposed to have a humungous cast of characters and good personality development. dude, that book must have taken u ages. 1000+ pages!</p>
<p>piers plowman...</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Plowman%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Plowman</a></p>
<p>in the original...</p>
<p>here's an example...</p>
<p>This is the prologue...</p>
<p>P.1: In a somer seson, whan softe was the sonne,
P.2: I shoop me into shroudes as I a sheep were,
P.3: In habite as an heremite unholy of werkes,
P.4: Wente wide in this world wondres to here.
P.5: Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne hilles
P.6: Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.
P.7: I was wery forwandred and wente me to reste
P.8: Under a brood bank by a bourne syde;
P.9: And as I lay and lenede and loked on the watres,
P.10: I slombred into a slepyng, it sweyed so murye.
P.11: Thanne gan I meten a merveillous swevene --
P.12: That I was in a wildernesse, wiste I nevere where.
P.13: A[c] as I biheeld into the eest an heigh to the sonne,
P.14: I seigh a tour on a toft trieliche ymaked,
P.15: A deep dale bynethe, a dongeon therinne,
P.16: With depe diches and derke and dredfulle of sighte.
P.17: A fair feeld ful of folk fond I ther bitwene --
P.18: Of alle manere of men, the meene and the riche,
P.19: Werchynge and wandrynge as the world asketh.
P.20: Somme putten hem to the plough, pleiden ful selde,
P.21: In settynge and sowynge swonken ful harde,
P.22: And wonnen that thise wastours with glotonye destruyeth</p>
<p>Piers Plowman doesn't look so bad to me, but maybe that's because I've spent the semester reading Chaucer. In its original Middle English. In scribal handwriting.</p>
<p>Deciphering language, orthography AND all the usual textual analysis is a pain that marks Chaucer really high up there on my list of annoying things to read (even though I love what he says once I get down to it). I imagine the texts in Old English and Middle Welsh will prove similarly irritating next semester.</p>
<p>The most challenging book I've read so far is Finnegans Wake. Stream of consciousness is a fantastically difficult mode of writing, but sometimes it just feels like it would be better to throw the damn book into the river.</p>
<p>Bah I write better stories than any classic author. See my posted fiction...</p>
<p>Bob the builder.</p>
<p>House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. It's a mind****.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I imagine the texts in Old English and Middle Welsh will prove similarly irritating next semester.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Oh, they will. (^_^)</p>
<p>It is all wonderful to learn, though, undecided. It is just that old Piers hurt my eyes is all. </p>
<p>From the jist of your post, undecided, you could wind up becoming a fine William Blake scholar if you wanted to.</p>
<p>charizard, gives us a link to one of ur fictions, so we can judge if it really is better than dickens or homer.</p>
<p>sheed, for a moment i thought u said body builder, so i thought it was a book by arnold shwarzernegger.</p>
<p>well, it looks like nobody has yet been brave enough to embark on something so magnimous a task as to read the beloved Edward Gibbon's THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. now, take a moment to recover from feinting (cuz i know that it is a shock that anyone would attempt this immortal edifice)</p>
<p>now, i haven't read half of the book, but i know for a fact that it is going to be the greatest prose that will EVER be written in ANY language.</p>
<p>over 3,000 pages total. thousands and thousands of ancient authors used. written in FOUR languages (the narrative in english, the footnotes include french, greek, latin), painstaking detail.....it's GREATNESS, POWER is quite literally unimaginable......no words can describe this immortal work, the greatest European achievement in literature (seconded by Republic)</p>
<p>another immortal work: the epic duel between Sauron and Charizard.</p>
<p>back to being serious. yes, Gibbon's Decline and Fall is almost impenetrable once are about to learn about the byzantines..</p>
<p>i dread when i will reach VOLUME the FOURTH, cuz that's when the boring roman history concerning justinian and the East will just tear out my eyes.</p>
<p>^Unfortunaley the latest epic duel was lost to history when the turks stormed the ancient capital colloseum/arena in Rome. But the epic spirit still touched lives and therefore had weight in history...Oh here was the last reply:</p>
<p>Well you may have won this battle, but you still haven't won the war!<br>
Because you were too hasty Sauron! You missed my defensive manuver! If you paid attention you'd see that I stopped the commet (referred to as the armagedon) by splintering it into fragments in space by directing a team of idiots...er...blue-collar oil-rig workers from a Disney film to blow up the asteroid/celestrial object with a nuke! The next serial installment of the duel is still ahead!
You may have destroyed all the land cards, killed the eevies, executed Dracula when he made a change of heart...and somehow used a magic card to turn Earth into a weird empty void, but I stopped that commet from interrupting our battle!<br>
While Sauron gloats and studies contemporary texts beside his lizzard in the void, the Prince realizes that in this void he can still fly with his Charizard. With this in mind the Prince lifts up his Adamuno-something-something-rod and vows vengence for the people by destroying the Leviathon, even if the battle for Earth is already lost!<br>
And meanwhile while resting, the prince combs his hair and make sure it's straight but will flutter softly and dramatically in the wind. "I have to look good during the battle" he thinks. "For without smoothness and good looks victory is meaningless."</p>
<p>mmmm... Atlas Shrugged.</p>
<p>The chapter where John Galt goes on the radio... I just about fell asleep.</p>
<p>grapes of wrath. i just hated it. it wasn't hard to read, it was just so irritating. I don't know why, I just hated all the characters and wanted them to die. :)</p>
<p>I have that feeling when I deal with ultra """cute""" characters in Anime. They stop being cute and become whiny little kids, and I feel like Homer...the desire to say, "Why you little...!" comes unto me.</p>
<p>"wow. i've heard that it's supposed to be the greatest novel. it's supposed to have a humungous cast of characters and good personality development. dude, that book must have taken u ages. 1000+ pages!"</p>
<p>I think if the book was condensed a bit, the story line is great. The length alone makes the whole read pretty tedious though. I recommend it if you have a few days to kill.</p>
<p>grapes of wrath (not hard to get through, just boring as hell)</p>