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

[NotQuiteCockney]

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.

I have read, and enjoyed, the Proust, Remembrance of Things Past (the 3-volume Penguin version). Not for a while though. Needs a bit of time, I think, which is something I don't have in large enough chunks these days.

I keep meaning to read Proust, but I don't think I could read it in English, and I'd probably stuggle in French (given that Houllebecq is a struggle for me in French )

Definitely couldn't do it in French - but it was fine in English. I employed my tried and tested technique of skipping over bits if they were not so interesting, and got a lot out of it that way.

nqc I think the more recent translation is meant to be closer to the french than the previous one, I think getting through all that in french woudl definitely be beyond me these days (too much teaching GCSE, all Ican do now is buy a train ticket and describe my family)

I have a general policy: No Reading French Books in English.

Unfortunately, the only French books I've managed in French are:

• Bounjour Tristesse
• La Grosse Femme d'a Cote est Enceinte (I think?)
• some other Michel Tremblay
• Platforme

I keep starting other Houllebecq books, but not quite managing them. I suspect I don't quite understand Houllebecq, and suspect I would hate him in English, as a sexist bastard.

Oh dear - I was trying to remember the heaviest book (in kilos) and then I opened this thread. I really don't belong here.

Aw come on bran, heavy and heavy often go together! Are you about to reveal a passion for Sophie Kinsella bound in solid lead?
War and Peace every time, although Tolstoy's humane wisdom makes the pages whiz by
I am the proud owner of a good degree in French without ever having read a word of Proust in the original . I shared a flat with two women weeping buckets every week over their Proust model - I did Rabelais, who was a piece of smutty cake in comparison.

NQC, I think you would like the French AND the most recent English version of Perec's La Vie Mode d'Emploi though
(and it is weeny Bran)

Marina likewise! Have read Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir etc in french but that was a long time ago...

A Suitable Boy for the actual heaviest, my wrist ached.

For the heaviiiiiest, probably War and Peace. I was very proud of getting through a book on kingship in Medieval Germany, but since I was a history student, it was my job.

Ah, yes, Suitable Boy is pretty light, though, really.

Infinite Jest is heavy in both senses of the word, though ...

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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.

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.

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!

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

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.

A Suitable Boy was pretty long.

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

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.

The latest translation of Anna Karenina is good.

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

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.

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.

a suitable boy.

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