Book recommendations for someone who likes ‘impenetrable’ books

[Onyvaquimalypense]

I’m trying to find a book for my dad as he is about to have an operation and might like something to read while he is in hospital. He’s difficult enough to buy for at the best of times but particularly when it comes to books! I’ve had some success so far with Robert MacFarlane, Ian M Banks and some other ‘hard’ science fiction and William Dalrymple but now I’m stuck. If anyone has any suggestions of authors in this vein, or any fiction that’s technical and a bit impenetrable really, I’d be very grateful!

The Glass Bead Game, Herman Hesse fits that description. Or the Hyperion books by Dan Simmons.

Thank you, the Glass Bead Game looks very promising!

Theodore Zeldin, especially the Intimate History of Humanity.

Also Clive James Cultural Amnesia, which is a series of essays.

House of Leaves?

Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled sprang immediately to mind!

Oh - I'd also have said The Glass Bead Game. (And my father loved it as much as I did.)

But I'd envy anyone who could manage strenuous reading after a general anaesthetic or any major surgery ...

Not impenetrable, but dazzling:

The Last Samurai - Helen DeWitt. (Try to find a copy without the awful, completely misleading chicklit cover. Trust me on this, it's magnificent. Here's a 2016 The Paris Review article on it.)

Oh, again. Just seen a reader review on Amazon that calls The Last Samurai "impenetrable and amateurish".

Perfect!

@PoulePouletteEternellement is it really impenetrable? I like the look of it but not sure I can handle impenetrable right now!

OP, I also think the glass bead game is a good call in case consensus is good for you! But was absolutely defeated by The Unconsoled.

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

I wouldn't have said so, Spitoutthebauble - but like anything else it rather depends on one's mood at the time! I devoured it in awestruck amazement (well, the first two thirds at least, bit less thrilling after that) but perhaps on another day ...

I continually find Beckett's 'Watt' defeats me - but I daresay the OP's dad has read that.

OP has he read Patrick White's 'Voss'? I worship this novel, but I gather other people would send it straight to your parent ...

I'm not sure how Henry James stands in the world's opinion right now. I would find having a copy of 'The Golden Bowl' packed into my hospitable bag supremely strengthening.

Some Italo Calvino or Umberto Eco? Beckett’s Trilogy? Though The Unnamable might kill him if he’s post-surgery...

If he likes sci-fi ish things, China Mieville’s The City and the City?

Helen Dewitt is great. (Though I wouldn’t have said at all impenetrable?)

Oh, @PoulePouletteEternellement, sometimes I think I’m the only person in the world who loves The Golden Bowl.

Or indeed all HJ, except Washington Square, which I always find deeply depressing.

Fire Upon The Deep and A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge.
I actually don't think they are impenetrable, I enjoyed them very much, but they do have that quality, lots of theory about singularities and social systems and the like. And they are very long.

(My phone has a shaky grasp of the concept of 'hospital'. )

Sometimes, in an idle moment at the kitchen sink perhaps, I long for the feeling of that first deep dive into 'The Golden Bowl' - and maybe even more for the months and years after finishing when I was still living it.

Very grateful for this thread. I read a fair amount of relatively taxing academic literature - but the past two Summers have seen me completely immersed in first Elinor Brent-Dyer and then Margery Allingham ... So I'm busily throwing new stuff into my basket.

@PoulePouletteEternellement

(My phone has a shaky grasp of the concept of 'hospital'. )

Sometimes, in an idle moment at the kitchen sink perhaps, I long for the feeling of that first deep dive into 'The Golden Bowl' - and maybe even more for the months and years after finishing when I was still living it.

Am now imagining how HJ would depict someone ruminating over the washing up while discovering a secret affair by dint of a crack in their favourite Emma Bridgewater mug.

LOVE Henry James.

Three body problem by Cixin Liu. DP liked it for its detailed physics etc. Tends to divide people as there's much more focus on world-building and science than characters. Definitely hard sci-fi and impenetrable as far as I'm concerned!

Cloud Atlas
Midnight's Children
Shantaram
Wild Swans
And ultimately Joyces' Ulysses

Ooh, what a good challenge.

Seconding Three Body Problem and Hyperion Cantos. But if he really wants something to get stuck into Anathem by Neal Stephenson will keep him busy; it’s 900 pages and very dense.

Or there’s always A Game of Thrones - try him out with that which is Volume 1, and he can carry on with the rest of the series. Available from all good charity shop at knock down prices.

Or Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy of course.

Or Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell which is perhaps my favourite book ever.

On the “classic” side there’s always Moby Dick, which might be his cup of tea.

Tom Mccarthy - Remainder/C/Satin Island. All dense, philosophical novels. He riffs off Beckett and Ballard a bit...

Brilliant suggestions - I must add, swiftly and with no further thought, ANYTHING by the wonderful American novelist Richard Powers - personal favourites are Orfeo and The Echo Maker (but that has a lot of hospital stuff so maybe not the best).
I'm sure I could come up with a lot more, but this would be top of my list.

Finnegan’s Wake should sort him out

A other vote for Perdido Street Station, or indeed anything by China Mieville.

Neal Stephenson is pretty impenetrable. Cryptonomicon might fit the bill.

Finnegans Wake isn't impenetrable ... It's horribly knowing - time after time Joyce's knowledge of my inner thoughts and the state of my past, present and future took my breath away. Much more than in Ulysses IMVHO. But, anyway - the OP's father will have read them.

Do people find Hilary Mantel's trilogy impenetrable? I've only experienced bits of it serialised on the radio and found it curiously dull and, weirdly, 'made up'.