What was the most confusing book you ever read?

[LivreAmour217]

I recently read Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma. It's a well written novel overall, but it is somewhat confusing. The author deliberately left out some crucial information, and I think that less imaginative readers would struggle to understand the story.

[DLS19]

I bought this book last year, and I still trying to attempt to read it completely. It takes a while because of all the style editing and such.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Dainelewski

Its a good story, but its confusing at times because I try to keep up with everything.

[moderntimes]

Sometimes, sadly, it's the author who is at fault and simply fails to write a coherent story.

I review mysteries for a website and read maybe 5-6 novels per month. I find that occasionally I find, even in a professionally published novel, gaps and mis-written narrative which is misleading (not deliberately per a red herring mystery but just wrong) and there are simply open spaces in the story.

[Sarah_Khan]

When I think about a confusing book, Catch-22 and A Clockwork Orange come to mind. For me Catch-22 was puzzling in the beginning until I got used to the author repeating things multiple times. The made up language in A Clockwork Orange was extremely bewildering.

[moderntimes]

I can understand difficulty with Clockwork Orange, the use of Burgess' special slang lingo "Nadsat" which is complex and tricky. Myself, I sailed thru it because I'd already been a fan of Joyce's "Ulysses" which has tons of intricate speech patterns which aren't typical prose. Perhaps you read a very early print version which didn't have the Nadsat glossary in the appendix?

I don't know why the difficulty with Catch-22 although it did have several varied points of view and partially subjective mental imagery from the characters.

Hey, if you want confusing narrative, check the later novel by Joseph Heller, "Something Happened" -- it's a deliberately jumbled personal narrative, stream of consciousness, and a challenging read.

[jott_2009]

Two of the most confusing books I have read are The Great Expectations and Fahrenheit 451. Great expectations i read in high school for a lit class. While it wasnt an awful read, some of it was hard to keep up with. Fahrenheit 451 I attempted to read on my own but couldn't make it through because I didn't understand it.

[moderntimes]

What was it about 451 that made it difficult for you to comprehend? Far as I know, it's a pretty standard novel.

[lily_kh87]

the Trial by Franz Kafka was the first weird book I've ever read in my life. It's so confusing from the first page til the last one.

[Trixieloves]

Game of thrones confused me to no end

[kjsoldani]

The book I tried to read currently called Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain was confusing and uninteresting because it had far too much cooking slang. Too many french words that I had no idea what they meant and a lot of experiences that I just couldn't relate to. Granted in the preface he warned about this but I figured there would still be some entertaining stories within. Needless to say I didn't get real far in the book and I gave up. Moving on to the next one on the list.

As far as the most confusing to comprehend I would have to go with The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I read this maybe in elementary or middle school back when it was the craze and going around the school. Did that happen to anyone? Books were fads in school just like music, clothes and movies were. It seemed like every year there was a book that EVERYONE was reading. But I digress, The Five People You Meet in Heaven was hard for me to understand back when I read it. I may have to read it again to see if I can get something out of it this time.

[The Researcher]

The Alchemist and The catcher in the Rye

[DiverseSpirit]

Ironically, I remember the book that confused me more than any other book. It is called Yonder Stands Your Orphan by Barry Hannah.

I had an idea of the setting, but I was completely lost when it came to understanding the story itself. If I understood it to its core, I would have been thrilled to write a summary about it. Unfortunately, I was so confused that I did not know what I read.

[Violet Devreaux]

Sound and the Fury by Faulkner is quite confusing, but I really liked it.