Books I Cannot Read
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- Опубликовано: 1 июл 2024
- “bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk.” - James Joyce
It is time for another deep dive, this time into the question of unreadability. What are the reasons behind books we cannot read? I think I did a pretty good job of exhausting that question. Please let me know if there are any books that YOU cannot read! As always, thank you for watching.
TIME STAMPS ⏰:
0:00 - Introduction/Choosing Not to Read
3:09 - Books in a Foreign Language
6:22 - Books in Outdated Language
8:46 - Books That Are Hard to Follow
12:38 - Books Too Advanced
15:54 - Purposefully Unreadable Books
20:04 - Undecipherable Books
22:32 - Banned Books
26:31 - The Book I Cannot Read
33:25 - Conclusion
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I find it stunning that English isn't your native language. You speak the language so fluently and articulately, even more so than myself who's a native speaker.
Thank you!
“This book is not entirely unreadable. There have been recorded cases of people who have managed.”
You're so right about people being intimidated with outdated language in literature, I found the story of Dante's Inferno so interesting but following it along seems so impossible to me.
Definitely, unreadability goes hand in hand with having trouble comprehending. I will say, as someone who was deeply intimidated by Shakespeare: I had to take an entire course on his plays in college, and once you get into it, you really do catch the groove!
“It has a brain 🧠 pulsating underneath its veneer of shock”.
I love that!
Looking forward to more great content 👍
You, Jessica, are hands down the best thumbnail with the fewest number of subs I have ever encountered. I quickly became your second sub. Evil clown cat with a scary smile! The best.
As for Joyce, my 12th grade English teacher dared anyone in her class to read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I took her up on it, and I did (technically) read it, but I'll be damned if I have any idea what it was about.
This was my entire graduate school experience. 😂
I read "Portrait..." at uni, and can't remember a thing about it. Meanwhile, I can describe tertiary characters in "A Confederacy of Dunces." Intimately describe them. Or how about when Iggy is being harassed by the NPCs as that book opens. I can describe some of them. From memory. But "Portrait..."? Nope. Nothing.
FIRST OF ALL: Why are you so smart? The level of detail you put into your video essays are so inspiring and I'm actually agreeing with the list you have on the reasons one cannot read a book...
SECOND: Can we talk about the amount of suspense when you revealed the book. THAT WAS SO AMAZING. I WAS OUT HERE GRIPPING MY SEAT...
THIRD: I learned a lot from this video. The Voynich Manuscript sounds interesting...
FIRST OF ALL: I don’t know how to take such nice and meaningful compliments so I can just say THANK YOU THANK YOU 😭
SECOND: I barely knew how to turn a computer on before I started my channel so it’s still a learning experience. I’m happy to hear the suspense of it all got through to you! In the future I hope I can incorporate more video editing into the structure of my essays.
THIRD: That makes me so happy to hear! It is my hope that people take away some knowledge from all of my videos so thank you for watching and I’m happy you got something out of it! Copies of the Voynich Manuscript are available for purchase, I believe!
I think Finnegans Wake is most comparative to the act of pretending to be interested in your phone so you appear less approachable.
I’m having trouble grasping this analogy, but I agree 100%
Yep...I read “Hogg” after you mentioned it on an earlier video. I could only read a few pages at a time; there was a lot to wrap my head around. I have never read a book like this before. I also would not consider myself easily shocked, but I had a visceral reaction to some of the content. I shudder to think that people like Hogg and friends really exist.
Happy to hear you’ve made it through that book mostly unscathed! As stated here, no, I could never read it, but a couple of people now have told me that they can, and they explain that same need to read it very slowly, and how it’s shocking beyond belief. Hogg is definitely a fearsome stain on literature! But also an important one, I feel, in terms of pushing back against censorship.
I think it relied far too much on shock value, rather than an actual plot. I felt it was more silly than anything. Haha. Wanna hear something completely ridiculous? I've never been hit as hard by something as I was by the death of Glenn in the Walking Dead graphic novels. To this day, I've never found something so cruel... At least, not that resonated with me. The Summer I Died came pretty close actually, because of all the character development before the shit hits the fan. I am by no means a newcomer to "Extreme" cinema or books, but the juvenile use of morbid subject matter for shock does nothing for me. 🤦🏻♂️ Maybe I've just grown too old and bitter. Lol
A while back I read The Inferno in Bottles by Kyusaku Yumeni from an online English translation (link in reply) and it blew my mind, easily becoming one of my top five favorite short stories ever. There is SO MUCH to unpack there, thematically and narratively, with a deceptively simple structure that's beyond brilliant.
I NEEDED more by this guy, who is considered a classic author in Japan. Man oh man was I sad to find out that nothing else by him has ever been translated to English. What a shame.
Yeah, that’s got to be a horrific feeling. There’s many novels by Ryu Murakami and Elfriede Jelinek that I wish I could read, but which have never been translated. However, knowing Spanish definitely helps! Sometimes things not available in English are actually available in Spanish.
@@PlaguedbyVisions Oh yeah! I'll bet that comes in a handy pretty often, especially with comics.
This video is absolutely brilliant. Although I do not have books to add- I usually thought I wasn't able to read a book simply out of boredom, I will now become aware to other reasons that make me place the book down! Thanks
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I’m happy this video was of your interest. :)
Hi, just discovered you and loving your videos. I have occasionally given up on a book and then found that it was an easy (or easier) listen on an Audible version. I bought a brilliantly narrated Ulysses, admit I haven't heard it all yet, but the first hour or so was surprisingly easy to listen to. Sometimes when a book isn't even unreadable but just a little slow and I'm losing interest, a great actor reading the story brings it to life.
I had this experience recently! I almost gave up on King’s Gunslinger, but the audiobook really helped me push through. I also think Ulysses works magnificently in audio form, since so much of it is inspired by Irish linguistics and oral traditions!
Great video. I love your reviews!
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed this one!
My 8th grade teacher failed me on a book report because she found it unsuitable for my age. The book was Sidney Sheldon’s “The Other Side of Midnight.”
My God, what a way to crush someone’s love of reading! 😡
Lel, dumb goose
I had a teacher tell me I shouldn't be reading Stephen King at my age. I agreed with them, and said that now I was 13 I had grown tired of his lack of writing prowess and promptly threw the book away. They looked happy. The next week I brought in the copy of 120 days in Sodom I'd picked up from the local library. I told the teacher that the subjects were rather puerile, but at least he could write well. The teacher stopped talking to me about books after that, but the librarian and I had some interesting chats which lead me on to Burroughs and Aurelius.
Wow. What a great video! I feel lucky to have found your channel. Your videos are so thoughtful, well researched, eloquent, and uncomfortable. I think about them for a long time after I watch them. Thank you! I look forward to more 🖤📖
Oh my goodness, thank you so much! 😭 This means so much to me. I’m so happy to hear you’ve been enjoying my videos. I’ll be uploading more soon!
Rio Madre, I agree with your every word! Juan, you could be a great lecturer one day 🙂
Enjoyed this video .🎉
Hi Juan.....I’m a little behind in your videos, but I wanted to let you know that I got HOGG on my Kindle yesterday. I’m looking forward to reading it this weekend. I hope that you’re doing well. Btw, I am getting a “Catcher in the Rye” vibe in the first few pages of the book. Look forward to discussing with you. Be well, Juan.
Ps...I couldn’t read Clockwork Orange either, back and forth from the glossary to the story. Grrrrr.....
Here's another category: books which exist but were never published. I'm thinking of "Last Dangerous Visions," edited by Harlan Ellison and which was supposed to appear in the 1970s. Supposedly it's going to finally be published - minus the many stories that have been withdrawn by their authors and published elsewhere - in 2024.
I thoroughly enjoyed A Clockwork Orange. I personally didn’t find it too difficult to decipher once you got the swing of Nadsat. I also recently read Crime and Punishment after years of being scared of the book and actually found it quite enjoyable although sometimes difficult to understand!
Now I have to say I didn’t expect this video to make me tear up, but when you mentioned the teacher grabbing the book from your hands, I was reminded of my 3rd grade teacher who wouldn’t allow me to read A Wrinkle in Time because she thought it was too hard for my age. It really upset me at the time and apparently that is still with me although I didn’t realize it. What I can say is my mom took me to the public library and let me check the book out there and I just read it outside of school! It’s still one of my favorite books to this day.
I'm sorry my video brought back such painful memories! I hope you are feeling better. Yes, sometimes teachers are so out of touch with how children think and how they process emotions and others' reactions. I think there's something specifically about a school setting and how more and more it's built to resemble a prison that gives some teachers these power trips and leads them to act in illogical, harmful ways. I think that's also why we see so much censorship in learning institutions.
@@PlaguedbyVisions oh no don’t be sorry! I didn’t mean you upset me! I meant she upset me back in 3rd grade. I think you have a point about the institutional aspect of schools. They can certainly feel prison-like at times. I’ve been out for over 10 years now but I still hear about it from my kids.
I wish I could upvote this 10 times or more, wonderful breakdown!! English major here that completely agrees! 😘
English majors unite! ❤️
Great essay, Juan.
Thank you so much for watching!
Welsh is one of my favorite authors. Sometimes you have to read his phonetic jargon out loud to understand it. It gets a lot easier once you get the hang of it, as a lot of these terms get repeated often.
when you got to the end talking about the book that you personally cannot read I have mixed feelings.
not about the book itself mind you, my mixed feelings are internal and based on how I recognized that book merely from its back cover considering that I have a copy lingering on my shelf with about 80 pages read. Someday I'll go back
When you were talking about the Codex it reminded me of Luigi Serofini's Codex Seraphinianus which seems to be a whimsical and humorous take on that concept. However, I find it infinitely "readable" even if it's not comprehensive, as the language is a work of art and the accompanying illustrations are easy to get lost in for hours.
I HAVE heard of this book! It definitely seems inspired by these instances of indecipherability in historic texts. Quite amazing how even something unreadable can still provoke, move, and entertain.
Thank you for watching and for your wonderful comment!
@@PlaguedbyVisions Oh, and I've been binging your videos because your head is full of fantastic thoughts and information. Keep it up!
I remember scrubbing online forums for fan translated Witcher books and not being able to find the first and last books. It was infuriating. Now they're all translated. Fairly well I might add. Thanks for all the work you put into these. I feel like I've learned something new by the end of one of your videos.
So happy to hear that (both about the translations and you learning from these videos)! I always worry that my videos are overly dense and long, but comments like this always make my day. :)
I contemplated purchasing Hogg last week, got very close to it, but will now refrain from that desire based on your recommendation. Life is too short. I have struggled so much with Ulysses - 70% - as I write this and have read Middlemarch by George Eliot and four (so far) Shakespeare plays during the neverending treck through Ulysses and its pubs and brothels and courtrooms. That's it for James Joyce! Shakespeare - Julius Caesar and Romeo & Juliet are light reading in comparison, although Hamlet and Macbeth are tougher.
My man, I would honestly have never guessed Spanish is your native tongue. I hear no accent in your voice and your command of vocabulary is amazing. And I'm totally with you on Shakespeare. lol
I think the accent comes and goes. I think it’s most prominent when I’m around other bilingual Mexicans. 😂
It's weird, because when I really got into reading, my first order of business was to seek out and read every bit of classic literature I could.
Dickinson, Doyle, Stevenson, Wells, Hugo, you name it.
So when I read more "modern" books they're almost vulgar to me in the way they're written. Like an edgy kid learning his first swear words.
That’s interesting! I personally have no problem jumping between epochs, but I can see how that’s possible. It also helps that vulgarity definitely has a special place in my heart.
Omg I was exactly the same way as a teen! My friends would suggest contemporary literature and I was such a snob about it! Im glad ive unlearned that way of thinking or I would have never gotten into my favorite genre, magical realism.
@@vinnyoz4709 yeah its easy to fall into the same trap with lots of art forms. like getting a taste for French food or something and then refusing to eat anything else. You just end up missing out on a lot because of having a closed mind.
I remember trying to read older Eastern texts like Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Tale of Genji, and it was a real struggle. I assumed it was a combination of cultural differences with the quality of the translations. Maybe to someone from that culture who spoke the language the original text would be a much easier read, but I also didn't consider that the sheer age of these stories could lead for them to read as archaic even in their original countries.
I’ve had similar experiences trying to read Nigerian theater. The core story is there, but often storytelling has different utilities and purposes in other cultures, and of course the vastness of references from a completely unfamiliar history and tradition doesn’t make things easier.
So I don’t know if it’s bc I’m only 2 generations removed from the old country and grew up listening to my Gaelic gran or if my brains just wired weird, but I had a REALLY cool experience listening to you read out finnigans wake, where even with you struggling with pronunciation and with just READING the text I both 100% understood the words and got a decent grasp of their meaning. The sort of old Irish stream of consciousness just rolled across my brain like a pat of warm butter, made me feel really nostalgic. Thank you Juan, I’m choosing to take this as a challenge now.
“brain’s” should have an apostrophe bc it’s a contraction sorry XD I felt the need to correct it specifically bc it was the exact grammatical error Juan JUST said “annoyed him to know end” when talking about this book
I think you’ve been chosen by fate to read this book…
@@PlaguedbyVisions the literature gods have smiles upon me lol
absolutely love ur channel man, can we please maybe one day get a "most disturbing books part 2"? because of you I purchased devil of nanking and the room
Thank you so much for watching! Lo and behold, you are in luck: I am currently working on Disturbing Books, Pt. 2!
@@PlaguedbyVisions weirdest books 📚 you’ve ever read would be cool too 😎
@@Jessica-xn4bk I think often weird and disturbing get mixed together in my brain, but I can give this a shot as well!
@@PlaguedbyVisions yeah, I know what you mean - they often intertwine.
Last year I just barely managed to read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, but if I hadn’t listened to someone read it aloud for some of the portions, I don’t think I could have finished (the dialogue is from a totally different time and place). It still might be the best place to start with Joyce, considering it’s comparatively short length. I think I’ve had my fair dose of Joyce for at least a couple years.
Academia sadly threw me into the Joyce vortex at full force, and I think I came out a bit traumatized. I do have to say, his short fiction in Dubliners is actually quite enjoyable, but more so than being in line with classic Joyce they read more as tales of national identity. I don’t want to say they lack depth, more like, they lack a certain character. It really wasn’t until Ulysses that he lost his mind. I’ve never given Portrait a shot. Maybe that’s what 2021 will be about.
@@PlaguedbyVisions I picked up "Finnegan's Wake" one time at a bookstore. Pure inscrutable stream of consciousness. Like avant-garde jazz.
@@PlaguedbyVisions Dubliners was written intentionally to be readable by anyone, the langage is not intended to be challenging. Now, what the stories are actually about or trying to say, or the deeper themes or the strange connections between the stories and how they reflect each other? - crystaline complexity that one can debate indefinitely, but the barrier of entry is not there with the language. It's a test of how wise you are and whether or not YOU get the crack, as it where. Ulyssees *is* there to test you in that level, you need to get your big boy smarty-pants on to actively work with the text. Finnegan's Wake is the final boss of all literature, it challenges you to be right up on Joyce's level.
The best place to start reading Joyce is 'Dubliners', his book of short stories. if you like it, move on to something more engaging, although I struggled immensely with Ulysses and will never venture forth into Finnegans Wake.
Another factor that might cause unreadability is changes in alphabet or typefaces (I'm thinking of Turkey's switch from the arabic to the latin alphabet in 1929 or the abandonment of blackletter fonts in Germany post WWII or coexisting latin and cyrillic alphabets in some countries in the Balkans). Granted, it would just affect the individual edition of a book but it can cause an inter-generational divide because books might not easily be passed down within a family for example.
I have a wierd case of a book being unreadable for me.
It was a gift from someone close to me, for the reason that the main character (and pov) was at a similar stage in life as me. It started at a point in the characters life, where he feels unconnected to life around him. Yet, being the main character, he talked and acted in ways only a scripted person could act. Reading it felt terrible, because I was forced to compare myself to a character that was essentially the "cooler version" of me, who complained about feeling disconnected to things I haven't even able to experience. So instead of identifying with him, I rapidly started to dislike him and feel unhappy about myself. I couldn't immerse myself in the world of the book, because I started reading with the mindset of comparing the main character to me and was therefore always painfully aware of me as a reader.
Had to put that book aside after 2 chapters.
This is fantastic reasoning! I have also had experienced with books that I just had to stop because they resonated way too much at a frequency I just wasn’t vibing with. I think we all come across works that just offer an angle that either irks us or plunge into territory we’re just not willing to face.
I know it's reading too much into it hahaha (*cof cof* symbolism) but the reflection of your face in Hogg when you talk about it, how it distorts into the cover, may say a lot of your emotional state for it, a pulsating nightmare trapped in a book-like cage. I'm inventing this ^^ but damn... what a striking coincidence O.o By the way!! One of my absolute favourite authors ever is Thomas Pynchon for some of the reasons you name: I think he's sometimes indecipherable, hard to follow, too advanced and purposefully unreadable at times because of his references, difficult prose and so on... but damn!!! he's a lot of fun! His way of juggle words and master every technical and poetic details into a striking idea that pulls the narrative, is way too entertaining to let him go. It happens from his longest works to the short stories of "SLOW LEARNER", I mean... he's too amazing! I already read "Hogg" (...it's everything its legend says it is) and I've never heard such a precise description of the prose attacking you in there: depravity itself narrating! That's why I love your channel, mate, you speak the feelings many of us can't just seem to shout out. KEEP UP THE AMAZING WORK!!!!
I love when viewers analyze my videos in this way honestly! The devotion and creativity-I am not worthy! But thank you so much! Yes, an apt visual metaphor that I never even noticed myself!
I do think Pynchon and Joyce are aesthetes at their heart, same for Woolf and Faulkner. To me, their writing is incredibly unique and important because they show that language is not just for telling a story; language can conjure raw and jarring emotions, become grotesquery, cacophony, and chaos itself. It is amazing to witness it.
Thank you so much for this amazing comment! I really enjoyed reading it. And thank you so much for your continued support! I truly, truly appreciate it.
I teach Literature and encourage my students to read Shakespeare in graphic novel form. Also, I pair classics with modern books. It helps students understand & enjoy what they previously "hated."
That’s brilliant! I do think the stories are so classic and ubiquitous they could work in any format. What really helped me in college were audiobooks and recorded staged performances-they were never meant to be read, after all, but spectated!
@@PlaguedbyVisions yes! Stage performances are the best.
Funny your anecdote on Stephen King in school, I had a similar experience, although not as direct. I had a homeroom teacher that seemed to have a dislike of me, and one day she went through my things at my desk while I was at lunch, one of them being a Stephen King book of short stories. I ended up getting called to the principals office with my parents and told I shouldn't be reading it or have it in class. To be fair, this was maybe 3rd or 4th grade, and the very first story had some sexual elements to it, so I was probably too young for the content, but it was still a weird experience for me. I didn't really understand at the time why a book could get me in trouble.
Oh man, it’s truly the worst thing in the world: Being told something is wrong, but being left without any explanations as to why that is. I know that feeling well. Thankfully, I assume by the fact that you’ve reached my channel, it means we both prevailed and continued to read less savory things. Hurray for us!
Jose Maria Arguedas for me is the most powerful novelist of the last hundred years..yet I have only been able to read three of his books because he writes in Quechua sometimes described as the most significant stylistic developement in modern literature of our time and notoriously difficult to translate as much of Quechua is infused with the sounds of nature..but even in english there are passages of such power they overwhelm the senses...tragically the greatest of all urban novelists Juan Carlos Onetti has very few books translated...Finnegans Wake I would argue can hardly be called a novel moreso an experiment...My dad is a classical scholar so he loves it, Ullyses is a breeze by comparison..Derrida is readable for me in comparison to Gilles Deleuze who is such an obscurationist that I desperately want to understand but am totally flummoxed though I try every month or so just in case....nice to see Hogg mentioned as I have had many converstaions about it..no doubt you are one of thousands who have been unable to read or rate it, its best to think of it as a challenge to surface or symptomatic reading it will be interesting to see how it is viewed in the future. I view it as an exorcism in a similar way that Hubert Selby's work was labelled typewriter writing, written in long streams, reliant on energy, with a resistance to re write or change...his energy had dwindled by Demon and particularly Requiem for a Dream where we feel the energy waining and we start to sense a hatred for the characters..for me this is what Delany was attempting in Hogg, I have read it and was completely surprised as I only knew his science fiction work so wasnt prepared for it,,,it didnt shock me simply because it didnt fragment me in the way that Dennis Coopers early work did,,I didnt learn anything..so yes...unreadable even when you have read it
Thank for yet another very insightful comment! I share your sadness over the vast amounts of written works that remain untranslated and even unpublished in some cases, the many oral stories lost to time, etc. The thought of it is a little overwhelming at times.
Derrida is mostly a headache to me, but his beautiful lecture on human/animal dichotomies, The Animal That Therefore I Am, I found to be so enjoyable and emotionally invigorating, so maybe it was too harsh an assessment to call him totally unreadable in this video.
Since making this video, I’ve had two viewers tell me that they read and finished Hogg with no issues so maybe my reaction to and trauma around it was of a strictly personal kind, but as you said, I know I’m not alone. Maybe a lot of it has to do with anticipation, knowing that if I were to finish it, not much good would come of it. As I mentioned in the video, however, I can still appreciate art and literature of that kind.
Love this video- haven't seen others, but ya girl's got a question. Have you tried 120 Days of Sodom yet? I'm about 70% through and found it much easier to read than Hogg (only about 20% through, but I will finish it) even though it's a few hundred pages longer. It's gross, but feels more like a dark comedy, and actually getting through it is pretty easy (and so fun!). Or you might think it's a boring slog! I'd like to know what you think of it, in any case. I keep going around seeing who has actually read it, since it seems fairly popular, but most people I talk to have never gotten around to it. I, in turn, will get around to attempting Joyce... Some day... Maybe... Hopefully... I'm an innocent and delicate biology student, so I feel like I need to get into weightlifting to be strong enough, but...
Hello! Yes, I have read 120 Days of Sodom. You can find my thoughts on it in my “Top 10 Most Disgusting Books” video.
Honestly, Joyce is not nearly as complicated as people make it seem. You simply have to get used to the voice and syntax, and it becomes an experience full of weirdness and hilarity.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
@@PlaguedbyVisions "Disgusting Books" aaaahahaha, I probably should've guessed that! I'll go off to watch that now- seems like my wheelhouse, however sad that may be. Honestly, I'm glad to hear that about Joyce. Feels a little less intimidating now. Thanks for the response, keep up the awesome vids!!
Finnegans Wake is either a practical joke or a demon summoning spell casting manual... or both.
So now knowing that you speak Spanish, could you recommend a few books to me? I speak spanish too but most of the literature I consume is that of English speaking authors and I’ve lately feel the need to read books in my mother tongue too.
If I may suggest a book to you in return, I highly recommend Temporada de Huracanes by Fernanda Melchor, it’s grueling, dark, harsh, just wonderfully written.
I have a video planned for that! It’ll be coming in the future, don’t you worry. I’m still wondering if I should speak in Spanish during the video, as I understand many people understand Spanish by reading it, but not necessarily hearing it. If you could advise me, I would appreciate it! I have not heard of Melchor or this one book, but having read a brief synopsis, I definitely need to read this! Thank you!
@@PlaguedbyVisions I think it’s a good idea! You could do that video in Spanish and have English subtitles for your English speaking viewers especially if some of the books are translated to other languages. Or you could do it the other way around too.
I’m so excited for that video!
For me it's House of Leaves. It's just... so much. And it sucks cuz I am so very interested in it and conceptually it sounds so good but to actually read it... no way. And I know there's a fully detailed explanation of it but to spend hours on reading and comprehending it myself to then spend several more hours to have it explained so I can actually understand it feels almost. Pointless in a way. Idk, maybe it's just my add cowering in fear of having to focus and think for so long but I do hope that some day I can get over myself and finally read it.
I believe in you! I will say, to me it was a very rewarding read, but I did read it for a college class, so that guidance probably helped tons. I think the best way to do it is to just let yourself get taken by it.
Damn, i went to Amazon and Hogg is too expensive!! Your thoughts are immaculate! There's 2 authors i've come across just the names, are you familiar with them? - Dennis Cooper and Pierre Guyotat? And one other question - why is George Orwell's 1984 in some lists of most disturbing novels? Is it just because it would be scary as a reality, and it's closeness to how things may be in the world?
Dennis Cooper is great! I’ve reviewed a couple of his books on my channel. Guyotat was also mentioned in one of my videos, but I’ve not yet read anything by him. For Dennis Cooper, I recommend Frisk and The Sluts.
1984 is perceived as disturbing perhaps due to its ideology, and it also involves a destruction of human will that is quite grueling.
@@PlaguedbyVisions Thanks man, appreciate that! I'll look for those. I've read Tampa, it was for me a stretch, but the ending was good. My current book is Kenneth Patchen's The Journal of Albion Moonlight, a nice change, if not read yet, give it a shot, it's been said is like a precursor to Naked Lunch. But imo more inspiring, like a dark visionary work.
Hi Juan..The book that I could not read was “House of Leaves”. It got such great reviews...but I just couldn’t follow it. I agree about “Clockwork Orange”. I like your hypotheses and interpretations of literature. The book, “The Color Purple”, was very difficult for me to read/understand because it was written in the voice of an uneducated and poor young woman living in the South in the early 20th century. I started reading it aloud, and after awhile I could hear it in my head. I was in AP English in my senior year, and we were assigned, among other books, “Native Son”, “The Lord of the Flies”, “Great Expectations” and others. I enjoy reading Chuck Palahniuk, Stephen King. I’m going to check out “Hogg”. Great video.Thank you
Thank you for your comment! House of Leaves has a really good, tragic horror story at its core and I feel like its formatting seems to get in the way for a lot of people. I do like Mark Z. Danielewski’s writing, but I get you. Your AP English class sounds a thousand times better than what my experience was, lol. I think I just studied at a very conservative school with very limited sources, but I did read great works like 1984 and The Great Gatsby. Thank you for your continued support! It’s always a pleasure reading your comments. Have a wonderful evening!
@@PlaguedbyVisions Yes, we had a great AP English teacher. I may give ‘ House of Leaves” another try...I was able to download a sample of “Hogg” from Kindle, so I can let you know what I think. Do you enjoy films, Juan ? I’d love to hear your ideas about some of my favorite movies, too. 💙💚💛🧡❤️
@@graciesmom62 There’s a collection of about 600 movies on the other side of my room lol. I can certainly give film reviews/video essays a try as well!
That would be fun, Juan. What kind of movies do you enjoy? My tastes run all over the place, but I would say documentaries, old black and white movies from the 1920s through the 40s, horror, some action, lots of dramas, some foreign films and art house. I also enjoy b-movies like Godzilla. Not into westerns all that much, because of the blatant racism toward Indigenous people.
@@graciesmom62 I almost exclusively watch horror films, but I have enjoyed other kinds as well (foreign films and documentaries primarily). Comedies are definitely not my thing.
I tried both trainspotting and a Clockwork orange , I could made through ACWO but trainspotting was just unreadable.
IDK , but I’d loved if you included Blood meridian , I gave it more than a single attempt but I just thought it wasn’t written in English ,put aside the untranslated Spanish though, and the narrative style was just too intricate IDK
It might be just me after all.
I did have a lot of difficulties reading Irvine Welsh and Cormac McCarthy. Eventually, though, as with Faulkner, I just let it all wash over me, and I accepted the horrors and bleakness for what they were.
I only found your channel yesterday, and I know this video is a year old, but I still wanted to comment.
One of the categories of unreadable books you have not mentioned, and one that I find very interesting, is books that have been lost to time, books whose every copy has been destroyed. Some books we only know the existence of because they have been referenced in other books, and the only parts of those books that we can read are quotes.
It will take me some time to get through all your videos, but in case you haven't made a video about that yet, I was wondering what some of your favourite horror novels are!
Thank you so much for your comment! Ah, indeed, that’s a fascinating topic that I’d love to learn more of! I’m only aware of film titles that are lost to time, and it certainly is tragic.
Surprisingly, I have NOT made a video about my favorite horror novels. What’s wrong with me?! 😂
I might add the book “La Bas” by Huysmans to this list, although just barely. I believe you may have commented on this book before. It’s so difficult I think mainly because of its language structure and the use of obscure and maybe even obsolete words. This could be due in part to the translation from its original French. I wanted to keep going, and may pick it back up but man it’s a tough one...
I’m still making my way through this book... very slowly. It is a book written to be relished, in my opinion, every phrase turned over. I don’t shy away from books like these, but to me there’s no rush. Might finish it next year!
@@PlaguedbyVisions that’s a great way to think of it! Relish it, don’t rush it. That gives me a new perspective for when I do dive back into it. Thanks!
Yes! Reading is not a race, ESPECIALLY for titles like that. It took me about three years to finish Gravity’s Rainbow. It was part of my life for a good while. It’s beautiful to develop intimate relationships with books.
The review of Finnegans Wake is legendary 💋👌
😂 I do wonder if there’s anyone on RUclips who has successfully managed to read such a thing and review it?
@@PlaguedbyVisions “Read” or “understood”? Does an audiobook count?
Good question! I do think “reading” is often synonymous with a certain level of comprehension. I think James Joyce actually works wonderfully in audio from, since a lot of it is so influenced by oral tradition.
@@PlaguedbyVisions please, don't give up on Finnegans Wake, I've been reading it for like 7 years now,or something, and I still haven't exhausted the first chapter of all of its meaning! Literally no other book has taught me more about compassion, the Inner individual human experience, how we operate as a group species, the cyclicalness* of society when the average person is more or less unconscious of most of the operations of their mind, sexuality, and how we fashion our personality through every day occurences, and the holiness of the human body and mind and it's processes. It is 100%, without a doubt (for me at least) the most entertaining, Insightful, compassionate, hilarious, honest, and MOST BEAUTIFUL 'novel' IVE EVER ENCOUNTERED. There's to s and tons of exegetical material, but the most Indispensable is Joyce's Book of The Dark by John Bishop, there are dream sequences, and deep sleep sequences that clear away themes for the next dream, theres a fluidity of personality, everyone is you! Their accomplishments and their sins and guilt. Sorry for the earwag, but Finnegans Wake is lots of fun,it's alive. Also,love the channel, thanks for the amazing content:"
Alot of philosophy is intentionally made hard to read, on the other hand "The Emperors new clothes" is a wonderful tale thats easy to read and should be mandatory reading.
😂😂😂 I SEE 👀 what you did there.
I've no intention to try to read "Hogg" either. I read "Tides of Lust" and that was bad enough. There are also stories such as one of Edward Lee's which I won't read because I know what it's about and it seems to serve no purpose other than making the reader sick.
I might be a freak... But I enjoyed reading Hogg. I read it a few years back in Swedish.
Haha, I don’t think you’re a freak! Different sensibilities, different tastes. There’s a high-octane debauchery and almost ridiculousness to it, from what I’ve heard, that I can totally see working for some. Since making this video, a couple of viewers have told me they read it without trouble, so it may just be me. Maybe I need to buckle up and read this unreadable book once and for all!
There are a lot of books I can't read because I can't afford them! One I've been trying to track down is The Fall of Atlantis by George V. Golackhvastoff and illustrated by Andrei Avinoff. The illustrations are gorgeous and pretty easy to find online, but I haven't been able to find the actual book for sale anywhere. I suspect there might be a copy in the archives of one of our local libraries since Avinoff has a Pittsburgh connection, but even then I'd have to get one of my Russian friends to read it to me.
Delany is my favorite author but I haven't attempted to read Hogg and I don't know if I ever will. I even got all the way through Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders which is twice as long and absolutely filthy in the most literal sense (several of the main characters are garbage men) but once you stop being grossed out it's pretty utopian.
That’s another intriguing approach! There’s certainly so much literature that’s stuck behind a massive paywall. So many interesting scholarly papers and essays are unobtainable because they cost a gajillion dollars.
I have read Hogg since making this video, so I guess it wasn’t unreadable at all. 😂 It was definitely the most draining book I have ever read.
James Joyce really took a beating in this video. 😅
A clockwork orange is a glorious book. Irvine Welsh is wicked good as well.
Irvine Welsh is god-level!
Well call to read banned books answered Juan! Where can I get a copy of 'The Satanic Verses'?
Edit: does Mary Shelly's 'Frankenstein' count as hard to follow? Another Booktuber mentioned she goes on long philosophical tangents away from the actual plot.
The Satanic Verses can now be purchased at your local Barnes and Noble! And I think Mary Shelley definitely falls into the “outdated English” category. A lot of older works are written in a style that many people no longer find palatable. It really takes a great effort getting into that mindset!
@@PlaguedbyVisions I just checked the Wikipedia list for books banned in each country. With 'The Satanic Verses' my country (Indonesia) also banned a thriller/sci fi book I never heard of called 'Interest' by Kevin Gaughen. COVID-19 permitting, I'll have someone I know purchase it outside my country and I can sneak it in.
surprised i haven’t seen a single comment mention Infinite Jest!
Never even attempted to read this. The disconnect as a qu33r brown man impedes me from forming any kind of interest. 😂
Finnegans Wake isn't a novel. It's a giant, hypererudite riddle. You have to look at it that way -- as something to be figured out, like a crossword puzzle, not as a story.
Who’s to say the two have to be separate?
as an avid samuel r delany reader myself, I will say that Hogg is the most readable if you've experienced other of his works in the same genre talking about those topics beforehand: his novels, like Mad Man, Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders, or even Dhalgren, use a magical realism to talk about violence, identity development, self/consciousness, and other largely taboo sexual subjects within queer studies. i feel, while overtly violent, Hogg does not approach its subject matter with any sort of emotional realism that would make it horrifying in and of itself. the violence is grotesque, but has been readable (and enjoyable to read if not enjoyable in subject matter) to me because it seems to present situations of sexual violence as seen through the gaze of the gay/queer experience -- where most of the sex acts we do are seen as violent or grotesque or depraved by the majority of the public. this was my entry-way into the novel, although i understand the somewhat esoteric/obscure nature of this for the majority of readers.
Yeah, have fun reading The Canterbury Tales.
I have! I read them for college. I have to say, once you catch the rhythm, the going gets easy!
Recently I have found it useful to feed unintelligible books into my chatGPT app thing and ask it to rephrase it into laymans terms. Dunno if this counts as reading though
I think that counts as a terrorist act. 😂
Your feelings about 'Hogg' is a good example for why the novel is also viewed as a horror. Samuel R Delany's 'The Mad Man' from what I've heard is disturbing but not as much as 'Hogg' maybe you could give that a try.
I haven’t heard of this work of his. As I mentioned, I’ve so far only read his science fiction works, which I think are wonderful, but I do find his experiments in “pornotopic” fiction to be fascinating, yet unreadable for me. I’ve also heard Tides of Lust is similar but not as extreme. I’ll try to see if I can read The Mad Man.
20 years ago a friend loaned me a copy of the Turner diaries on a dare. I got about halfway through chapter 3 and had to put it down. All the hate made me really depressed.
I do want to read that for a video eventually, but it sounds like a really unbearable kind of read.
I think you need to finish this book. For all our sakes. Your review on the one book you couldn't read... could easily become one of your most watched reviews.
Since starting Booktube, I have kept thinking about revisiting Hogg and Tampa. Those would be incredibly taxing projects, that may nonetheless be inevitable.
@@PlaguedbyVisionsI take it back. I actually just watched a SPOILER review on "Hogg"...(which mentions you by name)...DONT READ IT. There's so many other ways to use your energy. It sounds beyond rancid.
@@jcasti6923 😂
@@PlaguedbyVisions with that said...Its so hard to keep up with all these books...I'd love for you to get into the extensive SPOILER 'book recap' game. I know you'd be so good at it. Just for the handful of titles you're extremely passionate about. Like a real book club, round table, discussion.
Finnegans Wake's characters and plot are the Bigfoot and Loch Ness Monster of the literary world.
😂
I know takes on this book are "played out." But Infinite Jest is unListenable as an audiobook. I travel a lot and dont like ebooks. So ive never carried the physical version long enough to read it.
A Clockwork Orange is challenging to read...on a few levels.
THERE’S LEVELS TO IT! 😂 I’d love to reread it one day.
NO COMMENTS
I choose not to read many things but i CAN'T read most novels involving lobotomys and brain trauma. This is unfortunate as I really want to read books like In the Miso Soup and The Wasp Factory but my subconscious literally does not let me no matter how hard I try to pick it up and read the first pages. It's honestly incredible what the brain can do. Maybe with enough therapy I'll be able to get through these books but right now my mind doesn't even let me read the words on the page.
I’m sorry that you have such an abject reaction to this specific subject matter, and I completely empathize. It is perfectly fine-plenty of great non-lobotomy literature out there!
@@PlaguedbyVisions oh absolutely! It's just heart breaking that I can't read books I know I'd otherwise love!
Books i read but wish i had not - suffer the children by dean koontz . the fog by james herbert . any v.c.andrews book. All these ate very adult graphic abuse themed.
Picking up The Fog by James Herbert!
I found Naked Lunch literally unreable. A whole lotta what the hell. I've been meaning to try it again, but I don't know if I can.
Honestly… At this point, it might not really be worth it. 😂 Your reaction to it is its function, in some ways.
Yes, ok, I know Tampa is a disturbing book for many people. But....um...it depends on who is reading it. And I mean it with a "lol" implied.
Well, as a victim of abuse myself, I guess I fell into the “this is gnarly” category.
Hang in there mojo!
I'm surprised that there was no mention of Henry James.
Omg I love Henry James! 😢
Thirteen years to crack ¨Finnegans Wake¨, glorious dedication.
Someone had to do it! I’m glad it wasn’t me! But yes, such stories remind me of the sheer passion that literature provokes. It’s quite astounding!
I couldn't finish "The Road". It was very well written, maybe too well. The hellscape of the last days of human life was both too vivid and too probable. But then again, I'm a bit of a wimp.
Not a wimp! That is a powerful book! And your elucidation on how gripping and spellbinding prose can also reach unreadable heights is spot on!
The most unreadable novel I’ve come across was Only Revolutions by. Mark Z. Danielewski. I’m pretty sure the man is just trolling us.
It is probably possible to read but it’s a TASK.
I've never noped out of a book because it was too much. Probably because, despite the fact I've watched three of your videos this morning and subscribed, I don't really read disturbing fiction. Not because I don't like it - I just never found it within my reach. I mean, I like Stephen King, but who doesn't, really?
I do have a book I will never read again and would actively recommend no one read if I were to be asked. That's Pinocchio by C Collodi. I am not a huge fan of the Disney movie nor do I have any real issue with the movie. I enjoy it as Disney and that's about it. I picked up Pinocchio the novel to see how it would differ from the movie. Within the first chapter, with the puppet being carved to life and being thoroughly awful from the start, I knew I was going to hate this book. Pinocchio is a despicable character throughout - he deliberately hurts Geppetto at every opportunity, he not just doesn't learn but actively refuses to learn from his mistakes, he revels in being horrid. It's been a long time since I read it - I was in high school and high school is 35+ years in the past - so I don't remember story beats as they differed from the movie, but I remember the icky feeling I felt as I read it. It is an ugly book about ugly characters doing ugly things and learning nothing or learning it too late. I started to read it to know a classic; I finished it to spite myself. The copy I read is sitting on my desk right now. I don't believe in banning books. We should have the ability to choose anything we might like to read. But I would never recommend anyone read this book. It's mean and spiteful and cruel. I loathe it more than even The Da Vinci Code and I hate The Da Vinci Code! But The Da Vinci Code was just bad writing elevated to unwarranted best seller. Pinocchio is awful in its heart..
I had to read the original Pinocchio for a college class on children’s literature (which my next video is actually focusing on!). I agree that Pinocchio was such a mercurial, stubborn, and unrepentant chaotic being, but that was actually one of the things I appreciated about it. So often depictions of children are these romantic portraits of innocent, pure beings with pristine behavior. Pinocchio actually offered an insightful portrayal of a “child” who is flawed, and fails to learn quickly or grasp a lot of moral concepts. I would venture to say it was a much more nuanced look at children’s behavior and temperament than we often get. It is definitely not a very “didactic” book for children, lol. I’ll agree with that. But as an adult it was very useful for evaluating different perspectives of childhood.
You’re absolutely right about Pinocchio! It creeps me out. It’s so nasty
I honestly want to know what Stephen King book the middle school teacher deemed too inappropriate to be seen in their class.
It was Skeleton Crew. However, I think it was mostly just the name “Stephen King” that set off alarms.
What did you study in college?
I majored in English with a minor in Film & Media Studies.
Ulysses actually makes more sense and is easier to understand if you listen to somebody reading it rather than actually physically reading it yourself.
Then who’s gonna help the person reading it understand? 🥺
@Plagued by Visions I meant like if you for example watch the movie version of Ulysses not only does it help you process the text better but you realize how Joyce truly was a master of stream of consciousness because it sounds exactly like listening to somebody's private thoughts. The scene of Molly Bloom laying on a bed while her voice-over narrates is the best example of that.
Regarding subpar education, in general, you hit that square on the head.
Sadly. 😔
wow.. now I have to read Hogg
I’ve heard from a couple of other people since I made this video who read it entirely, so it is definitely not unreadable to everyone. Give it a shot!
@@PlaguedbyVisions Yep. It's trash. I could not get through the first page. Glad I did not purchase it.
Nah mate, pre Norman Invasion old English is a foreign language, you can be as fluent as you like in modern English and Beowulf is going to be unreadable without learning the language, its structures quirks and a lot of unique words and how to conjugate etc, and how to pronounce (vowels are all more like the Scandi languages and a little different to modern RP english). Middle English i.e. Chaucers english is like Nadsat, or Scots, or Jamaican or any regional dialect, its basically a single remove from English and doable with a bit of effort. The english of Shakespeare or the KJB you can do with a little effort but notably less than one of the adjacent or sub-dialect modes of speaking.
Oh no lmao, all I meant by my comment on Beowulf was that the dude in my class actually tried to read it in Old English, and it made me wonder if Shakespeare looked as foreign to him as Beowulf did, since he was actually trying really hard as if he could lol.
Hogg was too much for me. It's okay. I couldn't finish it either and I love the disgusting and macabre stuff.
I’ve now read it, and all of my suspicions were correct. 😂
"The Turner Diaries" by William Pierce is another book that is de facto banned and that many may find unreadable because it is so gratuitously nasty and hateful.
I have read "Hogg". After a certain point, the reader just asks, "What's the point?"
I have since read it as well, and was shocked to find that there maybe IS a point to it all!
@@PlaguedbyVisions I think somewhere in Samuel Delaney's early adolescence some one-shoed/ barefooted homeless guy walked by and jump-started hum in to puberty.
The Name of the Rose
Unreadable?
@@PlaguedbyVisions I almost died trying to finish it. But maybe you will enjoy it, who knows?
Written Icelandic is surprisingly easy for an English speaker to learn fairly well. (Just stay away from the spoken language. Sheesh!)
This makes me wonder, are there any "unreadable" comics so to speak
Hm, not necessarily a comic, but the picture book The Arrival by Shaun Tan came to mind!
@@PlaguedbyVisions interesting I'll definitely check it out, I know there's also this one comic that's apparently completely surreal and doesn't really put together properly but I am forgetting the name of it right now, there's also the webcomic poorly planned comics that I just remembered existed which is put together and presented in such a strange surreal and mind-bending way that is truly a Herculean task to read it all and understand it although it has a truly truly horrifically tragic ending
@@helious5056 Oh, check out the Codex Seraphinianus, too!
@@PlaguedbyVisions codex seraphinianus you say, sounds quite interesting... Oh it's that one with the couple that turn into a crocodile, I didn't know that was a full thing I just thought it was a one shot, definitely going to check that out seems like a whole lot of fun
I don't even like sharing a universe with "Hogg."
😂😂😂 Valid!!!
Going back to this video because i'm 47% in on Hogg and I'm contemplating whether to DNF this or not... But it's for a video though 😭🤢🤮😩
Sis, don’t say I didn’t warn you 😳
I DNF’d this so hard I made a whole video about it. I guess more if a CNF (cannot finish)?
@@PlaguedbyVisions REALLY VILE SHTTTTT 😭😭😭😭😭 I CANT BELIEVE I STARTED THIS ONE.
@@codeinesnaps I'm sorry! But I hope this video makes a little more sense to you now lol
@@PlaguedbyVisions this is all ur fault for introducing these books on your channel 😂
I'm not sure I can relate to the notion of unreadability based on content. I can't think of anything short of authorial incompetence or an exceptionally boring plot that would get me to consciously put down a book.
I'm reading Hogg right now and have finished the first half. So far, none of it has bothered me at all. If there's anything to complain about, Delaney is guilty of being too repetitive. There's only so many times you can describe someone licking shit off of a dick before it loses any meaning. Most of the deviant sex acts repeat ad nauseam (no pun intended), never really changing in any meaningful way. I feel like it needs editing for brevity more than content.
I can imagine that I'd perhaps want to avoid some of the "extreme horror" writers who seem to get by on just writing the grossest things they can think of; it's not disturbing or unnerving, it just shows a lack of creativity. I'm not sure they're unreadable, but I don't know if I'd waste time on the cringe-y, juvenile writing of people trying to conjure up new descriptors for imaginary Cannibal Corpse album covers.
I was a victim of child abuse, so Hogg made me confront a lot of that ugliness, which at a more vulnerable point in my life I couldn’t handle. This is something I couldn’t bring myself to say at the time I made this review. It is definitely a singular experience for me. Just clarifying in blunt terms since there’s a lot of roundaboutness in this old video, haha!
I don't agree with you about Shakespeare at all.
Wait, what did I say? Haha. It’s been a while. I have to rewatch the video now. 😂
Did I see bleach statues in the back ground
Hell yeah! One of my favorite animes.
@@PlaguedbyVisions same
The Fountain and Atlas Shrugged are at the top of my most unreadable books. They are just pure dreck to me.
Haha, I read Ayn Rand in my teens, so it is very much readable, but I think your brain has to be softer and more immature.
@@PlaguedbyVisions lol i thought the stories were just awful
Blah, child sex acts is in Hogg? Ugh. I didn’t know that. Well, I pushed through Cows & a long time ago I saw the movie, “The Human Centipede “ trilogy series.. I figured that was the most depraved shit ever, lol & if I could handle that film, (barely, mind you...) I could take on reading depraved, controversial books, but I’ll have to see on this one since it involves what you mentioned..
Oh yes, that’s in there, among many other things. There’s a lot of unbearable aspects to it, and it’s all laid bare, in an uncomfortable and unflinching way. Most of all, I don’t know how interesting it will be to you. I wish you luck!
I never got through the first 200 pages of Lord of the rings. Too boring. 😂 Same as the bible. Someone will roast me for this comparison. 😂
I just read The Hobbit and loved it. We’ll see how LOTR fares for me!
3:44 was that a belly grumble?! My dude, you're too eloquent and cerebral to bust out a 35 minute (a lot longer unedited, I'm sure!) video without sustenance! xD If the belly says: "Brain need energy to stay at optimum power," then you gotta listen, brother...
Of course, I'm being facetious about everything except your wonderful eloquence and accessible intellect, not to mention the infectious love of literature and reading you exude. Sorry.
LMAO! This video’s so old, so it’s hard to recall what that sound was, but it most likely was a stomach grumble. Thanks, now I’m embarrassed! 😂
@@PlaguedbyVisions Don't be! Sorry for pointing it out, it was just funny! Everyone's belly rumbles, dude, and it probably wasn't that, anyway!