[Acute Angle]

(09-06-2013 08:08 PM)Roosh Wrote:  

I believe a strategy for some writers is to make their work so dense that even people who don't understand it will claim to love it so that they can show intellectual superiority to others.

Absolutely true. Try anything by The Frankfurt School - Adorno, Habermas, Marcuse et al. I used to flatter myself that I understood it, but it was mostly just mind-wanking on my part.

I happened across a nice piece about intellectual snobbery by A A Milne yesterday:

"A good many years ago I had a painful experience. I was discovered by my house-master reading in bed at the unauthorized hour of midnight. Smith minor in the next bed (we shared a candle) was also reading. We were both discovered. But the most annoying part of the business, as it seemed to me then, was that Smith minor was discovered reading Alton Locke, and that I was discovered reading Marooned Among Cannibals. If only our house-master had come in the night before! Then he would have found me reading Alton Locke. Just for a moment it occurred to me to tell him this, but after a little reflection I decided that it would be unwise. He might have misunderstood the bearings of the revelation."

[emuelle1]

(09-06-2013 08:08 PM)Roosh Wrote:  

I believe a strategy for some writers is to make their work so dense that even people who don't understand it will claim to love it so that they can show intellectual superiority to others.

Case in point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

I haven't read Keynes' General Theory yet, but I've heard that was one of his tactics. The reason his economic theory pervades is because nobody understands it, so they assume he's smarter than them and should be listened to.

Whereas easier to understand economic theories are considered lesser. If we can understand them, the authors may not be as smart as we are. According to the people thinking that.

A platitude I've taken to using lately is "If you can't explain it, you don't understand it."

[cardguy]

I will stick with a hard book if it is worthwhile and informative.

But if I suspect bullshit - I will just put it down.

Pleasure is an important part of why I read. And if a book is not pleasurable - it better be giving me information that I really want or need.

[MunichSux]

All "Market Wizards" book by Jack Schwager - a total of four by now. Google for some of the interviewees ... "Ray Dalio", "Bruce Kovner", "Steve Cohen". Talk about paycheck envy.

The newest one : http://www.amazon.com/Hedge-Fund-Market-...nd+wizards

[Grizzly]

"History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," unabridged, by Edward Gibbon.

I struggled with some of the more obscure topics like the minute details of Christian religious controversies and in the end skimmed through those parts. It was also really difficult to take in everything, because in such a long work that covers about 10 centuries you tend to lose sight of the bigger picture. Gibbon's prose style is long-winded and dense by today's standards, but its brilliant once you get the hang of it.

In the end its absolutely worth it. The sections on the Gothic invasions of the Western Empire are riveting.

[Hades]

Blood Meridian by McCarthy took me about three tries to read all the way through. The violence is astounding.

It's one of those books that sort of stands alone, it doesn't moralize through tone or events within the book, and overall it seems nihilistic. The mood within the book is very dark and biblical, the prose occasionally incomprehensible, but it's not grating to read or listen to like shitty spoken word artists or anything ever written by Maya Angelou.

I do think that the book is better spoken than read, not sure if an audiobook has been released but it would be a worthy purchase.

[bodmon]

probz Heart of Darkness

[scorpion]

(09-06-2013 08:08 PM)Roosh Wrote:  

I believe a strategy for some writers is to make their work so dense that even people who don't understand it will claim to love it so that they can show intellectual superiority to others.

Case in point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

This is what Schopenhauer accused Hegel of doing, and I think he was right. In his own words:

“But the height of audacity in serving up pure nonsense, in stringing together senseless and extravagant mazes of words, such as had previously been known only in madhouses, was finally reached in Hegel, and became the instrument of the most barefaced general mystification that has ever taken place, with a result which will appear fabulous to posterity, and will remain as a monument to German stupidity.”

[RXB]

In all seriousness I just finished The Trial and Death of Socrates and it was really hard.

[Intl_Rasta]

(09-07-2013 10:58 AM)MunichSux Wrote:  

All "Market Wizards" book by Jack Schwager - a total of four by now. Google for some of the interviewees ... "Ray Dalio", "Bruce Kovner", "Steve Cohen". Talk about paycheck envy.

The newest one : http://www.amazon.com/Hedge-Fund-Market-...nd+wizards

One of my favorite books read it many times.

[JohnKreese]

http://www.amazon.com/Day-Bang-Casually-...956&sr=1-2

The whole GULNAC concept was a bit abstract for me...

[Windom Earle]

1,245 pages, and frequent foot-notes, it would have to be this:

   

Review by Roosh - http://www.rooshv.com/more-book-reviews-11

...and if you enjoy the topic, this is a good (not hard) read too:

   

[LeBeau]

(09-09-2013 07:01 PM)Intl_Rasta Wrote:  

(09-07-2013 10:58 AM)MunichSux Wrote:  

All "Market Wizards" book by Jack Schwager - a total of four by now. Google for some of the interviewees ... "Ray Dalio", "Bruce Kovner", "Steve Cohen". Talk about paycheck envy.

The newest one : http://www.amazon.com/Hedge-Fund-Market-...nd+wizards

One of my favorite books read it many times.

Yeah I bought this solely off the Jamie Mai and Ray Dalio interviews...the rest were just icing on the cake.

I didn't find it difficult at all though, more so an enjoyable read.

I'd say the Rogoff and Reinhart "This Time Is Different" felt like much more of a drag to get through in comparison.

[phaedrus]

Dissemination by Derrida. Previously it was Truth and Method by Hans Georg Gadamer. I volunteered to read both for a class.

[Giovonny]

The Bible or anything about The Theory of Relativity.

[Videl]

Research and Statistics..........................

Facking hate that topic. Probably why I only passed it with a lousy grade.

If I like something, it is less difficult to learn.

[gandt]

The Iliad isn't complicated per se but there are TONS of names and extensions of family that you need to keep track of that makes attention to detail very important.

Besides, Ancient Greek history is sweet.

[gandt]

Oh boy, I just remembered a goodie from when I used to major in English Lit in university:

Paradise Lost - John Milton

Quote:

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608-1674). It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, changed into twelve books (in the manner of the division of Virgil's Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification.[1] It is considered by critics to be Milton's "major work", and the work helped to solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of his time.[2]

This is one complicated piece of writing with depth of meaning that you wont believe.

[bojangles]

Dante's Inferno, fuck me, that was a difficult read, I thought the Iliad in its original poem form and the Mahabharata in its poem form were hard, but Dante's Inferno was a killer, just trying to comprehend the old style grammar was difficult. Damn Dante

[Quintus Curtius]

Good thread.
If someone were to ask me the question "What's the hardest book you ever read?", I would have to break my answer down into 3 categories:

Category 1. Hardest book that I finished and was truly worth reading.
Category 2. Hardest book that I finished and was not worth the investment in time and effort.
Category 3. Hardest book that was so fucking hard that I just threw in the town and didn't finish.

For Category 1, the book was Plotinus's "Enneads". Hard as hell, and I needed to read commentaries along with it to make sure I knew what the author was talking about, but the payoff is a whole new way of looking at the world. Close runner-up in this category was "Moby Dick".

For Category 2, the book was Arnold Toynbee's "A Study of History". A frightful bore. Close runner up: Spengler's "Decline of the West".

For Category 3: Immanuel Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason". Five hundred pages of Teutonic philosophy in English translation, with not one sentence making sense.
(Maybe I need to get Samseau to explain this one to me!)

[MunichSux]

(09-09-2013 07:01 PM)Intl_Rasta Wrote:  

(09-07-2013 10:58 AM)MunichSux Wrote:  

All "Market Wizards" book by Jack Schwager - a total of four by now. Google for some of the interviewees ... "Ray Dalio", "Bruce Kovner", "Steve Cohen". Talk about paycheck envy.

The newest one : http://www.amazon.com/Hedge-Fund-Market-...nd+wizards

One of my favorite books read it many times.

Did it pay off in terms of you "Gaming" the markets ?

[Cyr]

Scale and Scope, The Dynamics of International Capitalism.
I don't know if anyone else has read this but its a real killer. It would take me about an hour to read 30 pages, because the writing was so dense, there were tons of facts and figures to keep track of and you had to keep backtracking to understand what he was talking about. I ended up reading about 300 pages out of 800 and gave up a week ago. To be honest reading MikeCF comment that reading a hard book increases IQ has probably motivated me to continue, as Im not just learning, Im learning to learn.

[Duke Castile]

Yeah, I've heard that just reading the whole book of Critique of Pure Reason is something to brag about among Phd philosophy scholars.

Tried to read Genealogy of Morals by FN and put it back on the bookshelf after 3 pages.

[ElJefe]

For me it's been books by Wooldridge on Econometrics. Mind-numbingly dull... and so important! Grrr!!!

I adored the Master and Margarita, by the way. I am reading Seven Pillars of Wisdom now... it's supposed to be pure drudgery, but I really like it so far.

[Nemencine]

The most difficult book i ever read?

short answer: None. All books are easy for me.

I never find any book to be difficult to read or understand. I dont know what you mere mortals are talking about.

I guess i am a bloody genius.

--Nemencine

Here i am in my laboratory working feverishly to synthesize the feminist antigen:


When i am not doing that...i am busy trying to outdo albert einstein in achievement with my grand unification theory. frack the superstrings.


Naturally, i always have inventions here and there...with my sidekick and my latest invention:


My mission is simple: