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What is the most convoluted, opaque, impenetrable book you ever read?
Blind Eye Jones

Posted on 03/09/2007 11:22:35 PM PST by Blind Eye Jones

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To: wildbill

"Then a light dawned when I got to the part where the nurse took the drip from his urether and put it into the drip into his arm. This was satire and very funny stuff."

I adored Catch-22!

every time I read "the dead man in Yossarian's tent" it sent me into giggles.


561 posted on 03/26/2007 9:18:19 PM PDT by Scotswife
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To: Scotswife

I used to use business cards for a PR/Promotions company I ran that had the following motto on them:

"And everybody made money" Milo Minderbender.

It knocked people out that had read the book.


562 posted on 03/26/2007 9:23:34 PM PDT by wildbill
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To: TET1968

"My favorite Nietzsche quote:

"One must have chaos in one's life
in order to give birth to a dancing star""


i LIKE that!
That needs to be cross stitched and mounted on my wall!
(raising 6 kids here)


563 posted on 03/26/2007 9:23:51 PM PDT by Scotswife
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To: DryFly

My choice as well. Most over rated book ever.


564 posted on 03/26/2007 9:25:33 PM PDT by I'm ALL Right! (THOMPSON/GINGRICH '08)
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To: Xenalyte

""No way in hell am I ever picking up that thing again!""

The Lovely Bones.


565 posted on 03/26/2007 9:25:45 PM PDT by Scotswife
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To: Calvin Locke

"Come to think of it, "House of the Seven Gables" by Nathaniel Hawthorne was a bear."

started it several times over the past 2 decades.
Did I ever get beyond chapter 2? I can't even remember, but I don't think so.


566 posted on 03/26/2007 9:27:03 PM PDT by Scotswife
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To: statered
Tobacco you must be smokin'.

Ayup! (Used to anyway--cigars got me the nickname in college, eons ago.)

567 posted on 03/26/2007 9:27:44 PM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly.)
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To: fso301

"It's not the easiest. Should some future notion ever strike you give it another look, try doing so from the standpoint of someone 2000 years ago struggling to describe a vision of things to occur thousands of years in the future when words don't even exist in ones vocabulary to describe what he saw."

one priest told us once the early christians used certain "code" words when writing to each other to obscure the meaning of the writings to outsiders. The idea being if a roman soldier managed to snatch a christian message, he wouldn't understand it and might refrain from turning them in or chopping off their heads.
Something like that (they weren't hiding in the catacombs for nothing!)

for ex: apparantly "Babylon" was the code word for Rome.
The beast described was most likely Nero.

I don't think he ever did say what the mark was supposed to be.


568 posted on 03/26/2007 9:32:37 PM PDT by Scotswife
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To: wildbill

omg!!!
It's been so long since I've read it!
Milo Minderbinder the cook - how awesome!

you hit a homerun with that one!


569 posted on 03/26/2007 9:41:46 PM PDT by Scotswife
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To: Blind Eye Jones
I am utterly amazed that in 500+ posts, no one has mentioned Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, which was the first book that came to mind. Maybe it's just that no one here actually took the time to try to read it1

1like I did, unfortunately. Was not successful. Learned more about tennis than I ever wanted to know.

On a similar note, I suppose, I could mention Underworld by Don DeLillo. There is a ~50 page introduction that is fantastic, and then the real story (?) starts and once it did I found each page at least twice as hard to finish as the previous.

Meanwhile, all the mentions of Foucault's Pendulum here make me sad. Brilliant, fascinating, and hilarious book. At times touching, even. I've read it at least three times. Conclude what you will :)

570 posted on 03/26/2007 9:53:33 PM PDT by Dr. Frank fan
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To: goldstategop

"I'd have to give the vote to Hypnerotomachia Poliphili by the Renaissance Italian architect author Francesco Colonna. Its written in a rather convoluted Italian replate with Greek and Latin derivatives. It prefigures surrealism and is opaque and obscure. You have to know a great deal about ancient literature and languages, math and architectural elements to fully appreciate the work. And the writer's ornate expressions can get tiring at times for modern readers."

Have you read: "The Rule of Four [Hardcover] by Caldwell, Ian; Thomason, Dustin." This book (which has some similarities to the Da Vanci Code in style) was based on the "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili". It's kind of a whodunit thriller based in the world of academia, mostly located on a college campus (Princeton). A couple of grad students wrote it, and were doing so about the same time that Dan Brown was writing his Da Vinci code, although the grads started writing their book before Brown did his. You should check it out. A kind of thinking man's Da Vinci Code. A fun book, and an interesting premise. I've already mapped out a sequel to the Rule of Four book in my mind.


571 posted on 03/26/2007 10:12:59 PM PDT by flaglady47 (thinking out loud)
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To: Scotswife

Do it !

Let Nietzsche's words give you hope ! :)


572 posted on 03/27/2007 6:21:30 AM PDT by TET1968 (SI MINOR PLUS EST ERGO NIHIL SUNT OMNIA)
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To: Blind Eye Jones

Seattle area phonebook.

Real yawner.


573 posted on 04/04/2007 4:58:26 PM PDT by agent_delta
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