It's difficult to read - it's in Russian

An experiment in reading

The Guardian published a list of the ten most difficult reads. Naturally, I opened the link (in a new tab), and naturally I was hoping to have maybe three or four on the I've read those list. None, not one. So, naturally I decided to read my way through the list, or at least part of the list (I'm not going to attempt the economic theories of Karl Marx).

My last literary excursion of a similar nature was when I was commuting and had hours on the train to read. I read Ulysses (I'm sure because I bought a new copy to replace the oft-started and abandoned one), dos Passos' USA (the three volumes in one), the translation of Don Quixote that won all the plaudits, the big three Beckett novels (Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnameable), Crime and Punishment, and all of In Search of Lost Time. That was a good few months. I raced through that list.

The Guardian bills this as the ten most difficult books to finish:

Umbrella by Will Self (I think this should have won this year's Booker Prize).

Alphabetical Africa by Walter Abish – I've been unable to source this (at least not without spending more than I'm prepared to)

Ethics by Baruch Spinoza – giving this one a miss, too philosophical all that ethics and morals malarky.

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro – is sitting on the Kindle ready to go.

The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil – in three volumes, the library has surprised me, all three are available for collection. I hope no-one else reserves them while I get through those.

Das Kapital by Karl Marx – I would find a book like this difficult to finish, because I would find it impossible to start in the first place. Politically and economically, the world's screwed. Apparently we can't afford to make sure the planet still exists in twenty or thirty years time. I'll stick with the novels, thanks. Post-modernist? Politically and religiously we're still cave-painting.

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry – on order from the library e-service.

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce – on the Kindle, part of the bargain of the century at Amazon, the complete works for under two quid (they do the same for other authors, too, great value).

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon – I've started this, picked up the e-book yesterday.

The Unfortunates by BS Johnson – reserved. I love the library.

Gravity's Rainbow is a delight so far, but needs careful attention. In any case, you have to love a book that has a character ask a bloke with a wc (accidentally) stuck on his foot, even while he's trying to get it off:

“doesn't that make getting around difficult?”.

If I nail Gravity's Rainbow then Pynchon presents The Crying of Lot 49, Mason and Dixon, Vineland, V and etc. for future reading.