Thread 24490041 - /lit/ [Archived: 729 hours ago]

Anonymous
6/23/2025, 5:29:09 PM No.24490041
Ulysses-e1585575199317
Ulysses-e1585575199317
md5: b83737fce4926938d035c694496183c3🔍
Can you ESLs read difficult books in English?
Replies: >>24490085 >>24490150 >>24490152 >>24490248 >>24490260 >>24490271 >>24490341 >>24490357 >>24490794 >>24490817 >>24490826 >>24491885 >>24491906 >>24492312 >>24492845 >>24493290
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 5:53:19 PM No.24490085
>>24490041 (OP)
I struggle as an EOP
Replies: >>24490167
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 6:25:02 PM No.24490150
>>24490041 (OP)
I just finished Scylla & Charybdis. I'm struggling, a lot. Proteus was a massive filter in particular.
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 6:26:41 PM No.24490152
>>24490041 (OP)
I thank the interwebs for letting me grow up here. I couldnt have read difficult books in English without my internet addiction!
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 6:36:16 PM No.24490167
>>24490085
This
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 7:05:11 PM No.24490227
I'm honestly getting pretty filtered by Blood Meridian right now, and the funny thing is I bought it as a quick in-between read before starting another longer novel. It might be the most difficult thing I've read yet.
>They rode through regions of particolored stone upthrust in ragged kerfs and shelves of traprock reared in faults and anticlines curved back upon themselves and broken off like stumps of great stone treeboles and stones the lightning had clove open, seeps exploding in steam in some old storm. They rode past trapdykes of brown rock running down the narrow chines of the ridges and onto the plain like the ruins of old walls, such auguries everywhere of the hand of man before man was or any living thing.
Yeah I'm sorry I've no idea what like a third of these words means. Still I press on, of course.
Replies: >>24490690 >>24490817 >>24492891 >>24493196 >>24494734 >>24494929 >>24494981 >>24495387
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 7:13:46 PM No.24490248
>>24490041 (OP)
i read most of my lit in english so yes. havent read ulysses yet but its on my list.
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 7:16:42 PM No.24490255
i'm usually more impressed by a book that finds difficult ways of wrapping up its themes in unfamiliarity like kafka did in his time rather than use colloquialisms and difficult english to get a point across which i find pretentious
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 7:18:14 PM No.24490260
>>24490041 (OP)
I don't know what you consider difficult but I have read As I Lay Dying and Blood Meridian without big issues. I haven't read Ulysses or GR yet. I haven't read a book in English in a while, though.
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 7:23:43 PM No.24490271
>>24490041 (OP)
I read through about a third of The Federalist Papers and that was more difficult to read than than most other things I read in English, but I did understand it pretty well. But that one's mostly due to pretentiously complicated sentence structure.
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 7:31:24 PM No.24490283
There are levels to the difficulty. Some books are hard because of the prose, some are hard because of the vocabulary, some are hard because of the references. For me, the first kind are the hardest. The other things I can just look them up. For example, 18th century English books filter me more than Shakespeare, I admit. There's this longwinded and obscurantist nature in the way they're written that I have to constantly go back and read them again. Just having a character say 'thank you' takes the writer two dozen Latinate words. And all the nouns are capitalized which is annoying. So for me it depends. If we're talking about the famous difficult books like Infinite Jest, Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow and whatnot, I admit I haven't read them but I have flicked through them and they're nowhere near as hard as 18th century English books for me.
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 7:52:38 PM No.24490341
>>24490041 (OP)
Depends. I'm ETL, but these days I read almost exclusively in English (on account of being interested in many English speaking authors at the moment). Obviously more difficult books are more difficult but I'm sure that would be true no matter what language I'd read them in.
Though I would be so bald as to say that my English is pretty good for a non native.
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 7:58:41 PM No.24490357
>>24490041 (OP)
Nope. A lot of the books you guys recommend here read like nonsense.
Replies: >>24490359
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 7:59:38 PM No.24490359
>>24490357
examples?
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 9:56:06 PM No.24490690
>>24490227
What in the world of fuck? What is particolored? What is a kerf? What is traprock? I fucking give up, I'm not even picking up that book.
Replies: >>24490829
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 10:37:46 PM No.24490794
apu peek
apu peek
md5: 1a16ffb07acdb68149c5460778f41107🔍
>>24490041 (OP)

i am on chapter 8, started reading it some months ago

t. english 3rd language
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 10:46:24 PM No.24490817
>>24490227
I'm an ESL and that quote isn't that bad aside from a couple words.

>>24490041 (OP)
Chaucer is where I personally start to feel filtered, also some verses of Hopkins made me do double or triple takes. It's antediluvian material or tortured verse that makes me sweat, really. Latinate English is pretty easy, however.
Replies: >>24493222
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 10:50:50 PM No.24490826
>>24490041 (OP)
I read this 4 times in translation but quit it at aeolus when i tried in English
I did read the recognitions and the tunnel in English but I plan to read the former in translation eventually
I try
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 10:52:05 PM No.24490829
>>24490690
you know, kerf.
Replies: >>24491877
Anonymous
6/23/2025, 10:53:23 PM No.24490833
1750602821849604
1750602821849604
md5: 4676ca9f97d654d592e14fd14eacebd3🔍
I won't have a good time. Mind you I would not have a good time in my mother tongue either. Some books I just can't read. Such is life for a midwit.
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 7:14:06 AM No.24491877
>>24490829
Stfu bitch, I'm gonna kerf the shit out of your traprock till you are particolored
Replies: >>24493066
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 7:18:49 AM No.24491885
hardest book ever
hardest book ever
md5: ee151afa0ea03c3ad3d5c652c3fb6277🔍
>>24490041 (OP)
Of course. Actually, I read difficult books exclusively.
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 7:27:42 AM No.24491906
>>24490041 (OP)
No, English is a surface language without much depth. That's why it's so easy to learn it, perhaps this is why it has become the lingua franca. Nonetheless, most of us ESLs have been learning the language since childhood so these limitations I think wouldn't really apply; now, try reading Voyage au bout de la nuit or La Celestina as a non-native, that's a level of difficulty I've never found in an English work.
Replies: >>24493073
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 1:19:54 PM No.24492303
Reading Tarka the Otter, and the progress is rather slow.
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 1:30:01 PM No.24492312
>>24490041 (OP)
It clearly depends on their language proficiency.
t. 8.5 IELTS ESL
Replies: >>24492792
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 6:36:27 PM No.24492792
>>24492312
What the fuck is IELTS. Just use CEFR like a normal human bean
Replies: >>24492801
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 6:41:08 PM No.24492801
>>24492792
>What the fuck is IELTS.
International English Language Testing System
> CEFR
who uses that? europoors?
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 6:56:28 PM No.24492845
1743559435097148
1743559435097148
md5: 7facfd6d901e6548ad0a64e4bc368e18🔍
>>24490041 (OP)
Yeah I read difficult books like Pale Fire oh wait an ESL wrote that lmao
Replies: >>24492902
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 7:15:13 PM No.24492891
>>24490227
Does he think he's too cool for commas or something?
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 7:20:38 PM No.24492902
>>24492845
It was very strange to hear Nabokov speak English in an interview. His spoken English seemed fairly weak, at least compared to what one would expect from a distinguished writer and university lecturer of many years. Perhaps what I saw wasn't a good representation of his actual ability or it might be a similar case to Joseph Conrad who allegedly never learned to actually speak the language despite writing a bunch of highly esteemed novels.
Replies: >>24493079
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 8:10:59 PM No.24493066
>>24491877
Underrated.
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 8:12:50 PM No.24493073
>>24491906
>English is a surface language without much depth
What does this even mean?
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 8:15:06 PM No.24493079
>>24492902
He might have been deliberately mangling his English out of resentment, the way French people do.
Replies: >>24493307 >>24493367
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 8:51:48 PM No.24493196
>>24490227
Bro just get a geological dictionary or learn the words.
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 8:57:46 PM No.24493222
>>24490817
yeah it is that bad.
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 9:17:24 PM No.24493290
>>24490041 (OP)
yeah,but it's kinda hard for me to think deep on what something really meant.
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 9:21:05 PM No.24493307
>>24493079
Fair enough, I have recently decided to speak French in a cajun accent to spite the Parisians
Replies: >>24495357
Anonymous
6/24/2025, 9:38:22 PM No.24493367
>>24493079
cope
Replies: >>24495357
Anonymous
6/25/2025, 8:44:09 AM No.24494734
>>24490227
What were the longer books you were reading?
Replies: >>24494737
Anonymous
6/25/2025, 8:49:37 AM No.24494737
>>24494734
Franzen. Finished Purity, didn't like it but thought it was interesting enough to give The Corrections a shot. After that I'll probably go for Fowles and Ballard, I've been meaning to read those for a while.
Anonymous
6/25/2025, 11:34:45 AM No.24494929
>>24490227
>the funny thing is I bought it as a quick in-between read before starting another longer novel
This is exactly what happened with me. I was mistaken to assume Suttree and Blood Meridian were going to be fairly straight forward reads like most other late-20th century novels. I got filtered by BM the first time around and haven't got around to Sutree to give it a proper go.
Replies: >>24494942 >>24494981
Anonymous
6/25/2025, 11:46:43 AM No.24494942
>>24494929
What longer novels were you reading?
Anonymous
6/25/2025, 12:31:37 PM No.24494981
>>24490227
>>24494929
Ah, Blood Meridian, monsieur? That novel is the sark and chaparral of literature, the filament whereon rode the remuda of highbrow, corraled out of some destitute hacienda upon the arroyo, quirting and splurting with main and with pyrolatrous coagulate of lobated grandiloquence. Our eyes rode over the pages, monsieur, of that slatribed azotea like argonauts of suttee, juzgados of swole, bights and systoles of walleyed and tyrolean and carbolic and tectite and scurvid and querent and creosote and scapular malpais and shellalagh. We scalped, monsieur, the gantlet of its esker and led our naked bodies into the rebozos of its mennonite and siliceous fauna, wallowing in the jasper and the carnelian like archimandrites, teamsters, combers of cassinette scoria, centroids of holothurian chancre, with pizzles of enfiladed indigo panic grass in the saltbush of our vigas, true commodores of the written page, rebuses, monsieur, we were the mygale spiders too and the devonian and debouched pulque that settled on the frizzen studebakers, listening the wolves howling in the desert while we saw the judge rise out of a thicket of corbelled arches, whinstone, cairn, cholla, lemurs, femurs, leantos, moonblanched nacre, uncottered fistulas of groaning osnaburg and kelp, isomers of fluepipe and halms awap of griddle, guisado, piloncillo.
Replies: >>24494994 >>24495359
Anonymous
6/25/2025, 12:40:12 PM No.24494994
>>24494981
Yeah sounds about right, lmao. I can't say I don't like it but it's genuinely hard to believe old Cormac just casually conjured up all that verbose fluff and it's much more probable he specially looked up smart words which is quite silly.
Anonymous
6/25/2025, 4:36:10 PM No.24495357
>>24493307
Personally, I just speak to them very loudly and slowly in English, as if I'm addressing a complete idiot.
It doesn't always make them understand, but it often makes them go away.
>>24493367
HEE HAUGH HEE HAUGH
Anonymous
6/25/2025, 4:37:50 PM No.24495359
great_post
great_post
md5: e7be37683f76d74ef438cbc5e1101388🔍
>>24494981
I love the smell of fresh pasta.
Replies: >>24495425
Anonymous
6/25/2025, 4:48:10 PM No.24495387
>>24490227
You don't have to know all of the words if you get the gist of it. He is talking about geological formations older than life itself and how rough the whole environment is. What's so hard about that?
Replies: >>24495467
Anonymous
6/25/2025, 5:02:37 PM No.24495425
>>24495359
>fresh
Anonymous
6/25/2025, 5:21:09 PM No.24495467
>>24495387
I'm fine with not knowing an odd word or two every so often and ignoring that, but when there are dozens and more words I have no clue to the meaning of on every single page it directly reduces my ability to comprehend the text, let alone enjoy it.
>He is talking about geological formations older than life itself and how rough the whole environment is.
What is even the point of reading something renowned for its ornate prose if you're going to miss all of that and come away with only a most basic plot summary? I am doing this now out of necessity because I want to finish the book but this is hardly the preferred way of reading a novel, and I'm sure an educated, well-read native speaker would not find it nearly as difficult.

I'm rarely if ever challenged by vocabulary in works written in my native language, even when they are fairly old, so it seems logical to strive for the same level of comprehension in English, especially if I'm to read the best prose it has to offer (whether Blood Meridian counts as such is another question, of course).
Replies: >>24495566
Anonymous
6/25/2025, 5:58:26 PM No.24495566
>>24495467
>What is even the point of reading something renowned for its ornate prose if you're going to miss all of that and come away with only a most basic plot summary?
To learn, my friend. How else will you learn new words? Some words you must read several times through different contexts to really integrate to your vocabulary.

Of course, it must respect our level of vocabulary, if it's too hard, reading through it sucks, but if it's too easy, then I find it to be a poor experience also.

Sometimes I expect myself not to understand something. Have you ever read a pirate story? A captain may go on about several nautical terms you don't fully understand, but in a way, that makes it all the more real.