3 difficult books to read — find out which ones they are

If you're a passionate book reader, like me, I imagine you've already noticed that a big book is very different from a difficult book, do you agree?

In this sense, it is not uncommon sometimes to start reading a short book thinking it will be an easy read and end up not finishing it because it is complex, tiring. So many times, we insist on reading to avoid mixing feelings of impotence in the face of such a text, this I say for myself, because I have lost count of how many times I have started reading several works again just to try to understand them, which logically I wasn't happy with some of them. 

Check out 3 times this happened to me.

1 - 2666 (Roberto Bolaño)

Faithful to the two main themes that run through the entire work of the Chilean author - violence and literature -, the book is made up of five novels, interconnected by two central dramas: the search for a reclusive author and a series of murders on the Mexico-United States border. .

The first story tells the saga of four European critics in search of Benno von Archimboldi, a reclusive German writer whose pictures are unknown. In the second, there is the agony of a Mexican professor grappling with his existential problems.

The third novel tells the story of a sports journalist who ends up getting involved in crimes committed against women in the city of Santa Teresa, Mexico (fictionalization of Ciudad Juárez).

In the fourth and longest part of the book, the crimes of Santa Teresa are narrated with the coldness and detachment typical of the journalistic language of police pages. And finally, in the fifth story the reader is taken back to World War II, becoming a witness to the mysterious past of Benno von Archimboldi.

2 - - Ada or Ardor: the chronicle of a family (Vladimir Nabokov

“Ada ou ardor” recounts the precocious and incurable passion of the ninety-year-old narrator Van Veen, for his sister, Ada, in a fictional country that merges Russia with the United States, located on the planet Antiterra, where both English and French are spoken.

Between separations and reunions, as a third character enters the scene, the pathetic Lucette, Van and Ada try to assert their passion, which is the only weapon they have against the ravages and rings of Time.

3 - In search of lost time (Marcel Proust)

“In search of lost time” is one of the greatest creations of world literature. Divided into seven books, Marcel Proust's masterpiece was published between 1913 and 192, but its beauty and strength are revealed to be increasingly impressive over the years.

The seven volumes that make up the work are:

On Swann's Side, 1913;

In the Shadow of the Flowering Girls, 1919;

The Way of Guermantes, published in 2 volumes in 1920 and 1921;

Sodom and Gomorrah, published in 2 volumes in 1921 and 1922;

The Prisoner, published posthumously in 1923;

The Fugitive - Missing Albertine, 1927;

Time Rediscovered, 1927.

Article By,

Sidney Matias

Casa de Livro Blog