Sorry for the rambling and now onto the question: What's the most difficult literary work you've ever read? What made it so difficult?
When I saw this question Toni Morrison's Beloved instantly came to mind. There is so much to take in, so many themes and devices and it can be difficult to follow what's going on, not because the book is poorly written but because it is so rich there are so many different ways to see each scene, particularly the character Beloved. And the subject matter itself is heartbreaking. The experiences the characters have gone through are hard to read and hard to believe that while the characters themselves are fictional the abuse they went through was true for so many. I've mentioned in a previous post how other novels by Morrison deal with such heavy topics but Beloved is at the top of that list. It's hard not to emotionally start to shut down while reading it. But having said this, it is worth it.
