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American Immigrant Experience: The jungle?
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<p>Isn't The Jungle more of a political philosophy book? Kind of a weird category. Speaking of The Jungle, The Grapes of Wrath is like The Jungle, only twice the size and more tedious. </p>
<p>(yep double post)</p>
<p>^The Jungle isn't very philosophical.</p>
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Difficult classics . . . Immanuel Kant's stuff is supposed to be notoriously difficult (then again a lot of philosophy is) . . . so is reading Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in its original English. I'd also add Moby Dick or Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (I have no idea what it's about).
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<p>For difficult philosophical works, Kant is way up there, but Principia Mathematica by Russell and Whitehead is probably harder for most people. Canterbury Tales in Middle English aren't really too hard if one has read other works in Middle English, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.</p>
<p>Well, yeah by that I just meant that Sinclair promoted socialism heavily in his book. Socialism is a political philosophy. Atlas Shrugged is listed under political philosophy in this thread and The Jungle pretty much argues the opposite of Atlas. </p>
<p>I'd like to see a category for Short, Difficult Books too! A lot of books are hard just because they're long. If a book is short AND difficult, the content's probably hefty stuff.</p>
<p>I read Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico Philosophicus a little while back; it was fairly short, and its difficulty was probably on par with most of the other stuff I've gone through.</p>
<p>The Prince and The Communist Manifesto, while not being particularly difficult, are also a fairly short works (and could fulfill your arbitrary political philosophy quota!). Other books that would fit here would be various federalist papers (get an anthology) and Paine's many pamphlets, etc, which are all quite readable. Now that I think about it, few phil. works are published in giant works; they're usually concise and self contained.</p>
<p>Kant's 3 critiques are also short while maintaining a fair level of difficulty. Ecce Homo (Nietzsche) is also short/difficult if you haven't read the works he self-refers to.</p>
<p>Edit: If you're just getting into philosophy I suggest that you'd start at the beginning and from there trudge forward. Pick up a copy of the Republic, Nicomachean Ethics, and Plato's various other Socratic dialogues and work from there. You could also just subvert the entire "primary work" angle and read interpretations and whatnot that might paint it all in an easier to understand light. Try out Stanford</a> Encyclopedia of Philosophy for some easy to access knowledge, or even wiki it all (what I did when first starting out :) )</p>
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Stream-of-consciousness: The Sound and the Fury (if you want the most difficult)
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<p>Hahahah! My friend's experience with this book makes me laugh every time I hear the title. She said it was the most frustrating, difficult book she has ever read. One sentence can fill up a page. Stream-of-consciousness is pretty hard to get used to.</p>
<p>And
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Contemporary Era(post 60s): Catch-22?
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YES. great book.</p>