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Original poster

What's the Heaviest Book You've Loved and Finished?

86 replies

NotQuiteCockney · 28/11/2006 07:52

For me, it's Infinite Jest. I loved loved loved it, all 8 gazillion pages of teeny tiny footnotes about tennis.

I'm debating starting up with Gravity's Rainbow, or maybe Mason & Dixon again. I loved what bits of Gravity's Rainbow I got through, but I didn't get through much.

OP posts:
PandaG · 28/11/2006 12:42

'If this is a man'. quite a short piece, but very moving - I must admit I only read it as it was a book group choice, but it did impact me, the horror described in such a matter of fact way.

Ellbell · 28/11/2006 12:38

So much for me coming over all academic with the italics, then

Also space bar not working well atm. (I blame all the biscuit crumbs down there!)

Ellbell · 28/11/2006 12:37

6War and Peace^, definitely.

St Augustine's City of God is huge (nearly 1100)page in the Penguin translation, but surprisingly readable.

Sophiev73 · 28/11/2006 12:22

'Heaviest' the works of St Augustine or Kant, HEAVIEST the Poisonwood Bible as my hand ached but LOVED it. Am very impressed with all you Proustians...

hatwoman · 28/11/2006 12:17

no-one else gone for heavy in the sense of being about horrific things you know to be true then? if heavy is serious, important, then don't these have a massive lead? Eichmann in Jerusalem is another one (that, yet again, I can't really count cos I haven't read it all) but it's terrifying.

Original poster
NotQuiteCockney · 28/11/2006 11:07

Heavy means heavy!

No idea, really.

Big, complicated, but engrossing, I guess.

Personally, I don't like old literature, so am not impressed by Dickens etc.

Oh, I quite liked everything by Neil Stephenson, and the latest trilogy (a historical novel with Isaac Newton etc in it) certainly counted as heavy in some sense, but was really just a rollicking adventure.

OP posts:
KathyMCMLXXII · 28/11/2006 11:03

What counts as heavy?
Does it count if something was written 150/250 years ago as light entertainment (Dickens/Fielding)?
Or if something is modern and highly theoretical but so well written that you whizz through it?
Or does heavy just mean boring in which case doesn't that mean you don't love it? [confused emoticon]

JackieNo · 28/11/2006 10:58

Oh yes - I read a Suitable Boy too, and enjoyed it. Managed to finish War and Peace, but definitely didn't enjoy it. Love Anna Karenina and Vanity Fair. Also Lord of the Rings (I first read it age about 13 too, Bink.

foxtrot · 28/11/2006 10:55

i was going to say A Suitable Boy, too. Mind you i intend to re-read it and can't quite bring myself too.

Piffle · 28/11/2006 10:48

Vikram Seth Soph?
Respect - I found that grindingly unreadable
I really wanted to be able to say I'd read it but coudn't...

dinosaur · 28/11/2006 10:45

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This has been withdrawn by MNHQ at the poster's request.

Heathcliffscathy · 28/11/2006 10:44

a suitable boy.

but was in india, which leant things a certain impetus.

Piffle · 28/11/2006 10:43

I loved War and Peace and Vanity Fair
I have also just ploighed through a comprehensive history of Israel to enable me to have hopefully a more balanced view on the middle east.
Quite the opposite has coccured but that's neither here nor there
I is and was a mahoosive book
I am also reading Mandelas Long Walk to Freedom and a university history text of Kosovo - just for fun.
I am recovering from surgery, hence my rabid reading of strange things.

fennel · 28/11/2006 10:40

I read Count of Monte Cristo in French, 3 volumes. but it's not heavy in tone so perhaps didn't count.

all I can think of is ones I have given up with. 100 years of solitude in Spanish. Turgid. Remembrance of things past. Boring. etc.

Used to read loads of Camus, Sartre, Dostoyevsky etc. now my brain can only focus on chicklit crap.

Original poster
NotQuiteCockney · 28/11/2006 10:37

The latest translation of Anna Karenina is good.

Dinosaur - you finished Gravity's Rainbow?!? You do know it's famously unfinishable, don't you?

OP posts:
dinosaur · 28/11/2006 10:31

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foxinsocks · 28/11/2006 10:24

I see Thomas Pynchon's new novel is out now - it's 1085 pages long.

The longest books I've read were either Latin or Greek classics (in Greek/Latin) that we studied at school.

hatwoman · 28/11/2006 10:23

just saw the bit about "finished". can't really count If This is a Man then, can I.

IdrisTheDragon · 28/11/2006 10:22

A Suitable Boy was pretty long.

hatwoman · 28/11/2006 10:20

Anna Karenina is probably the longest but it couldn't really be described as heavy.I loved it. I found 100 Years of Solitude a bit like wading through custard, but again I'm not sure it's heavy. Possibly Pat Barker Regeneration - pretty heavy reading and pretty emotionally and morally heavy. Also Primo Levi If this is a Man - it's sitting on my bedside table with a book mark half way through. I find it such a struggle to face, square on, such horrors in such beautifully written prose.

expatinscotland · 28/11/2006 10:15

I read Les Miz in French. Also The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which I also read in English. The French was better.

DimpledThighs · 28/11/2006 10:12

crime and punishment - life changing but took quite a lot of focus and was pre-babies. Also read lotsof Camus as a student - oh those days when you sit around drinking coffee and reading a whole book in a day - ahh!

doyouwantfrieswiththat · 28/11/2006 09:46

Les Miserables - cracking book

erm, think it was 2 volumes of paperback. really interested in the characters & the details in the battle scenes make shocking reading if they're historically accurate.

Bink · 28/11/2006 09:45

Lord of the Rings, in an omnibus paperback, aged 13. I remember sitting on my bike reading (multitasking, you see) being so proud of the triple-digit page numbers.

Dior · 28/11/2006 09:38

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