Nemesis Trivia Quiz

Answer: Atlas Shrugged

Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" was published in 1957, and although it wasn't a critical success, it did well commercially. The novel followed the efforts of a businesswoman to keep her railroad company afloat during difficult times, and Rand used the story to promote her political philosophy of objectivism, in which people should be guided by reasons of self-interest. Most of the blog comments regarding the difficulty of reading "Atlas Shrugged" mention its length -- depending on the version, it contains about 1,300 pages.

There's even a blog with tips on how to get through it!

Answer: A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange" was published in 1962 and met with mixed reviews, mainly due to its disturbing content. Burgess claimed that he wrote the novel "in a state of near drunkenness in order to deal with material that upset me very much".

Many blog comments regarding the difficulty of reading "A Clockwork Orange" mention the slang used in the book. The language was Burgess' creation, and it was mainly a mixture of English and Russian but also contained "gypsy talk and odd bits of Jacobean prose".

Answer: Remembrance of Things Past

Also known as "In Search of Lost Time", Marcel Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" was published in seven volumes over a period of time in the early 1900s. The novel was semi-autobiographical and dealt with the role of memory in life. Besides being lengthy (over 3,000 pages in most versions), it lacked a defined plot; reviewer Dan Schneider compared it to the TV show "Seinfeld" by calling it "a piece of art that glorifies nothing".

Answer: Ulysses

James Joyce's "Ulysses" first appeared as a magazine serial in 1918 and was published in its entirety in 1922 in Paris (although allegations of obscenity delayed publication in other locations). The novel focuses on a particular day in Dublin (June 16th, 1904) in the life of an "everyman", advertising canvasser, Leopold Bloom.

There are a lot of blogs about the difficulty of reading "Ulysses". A particularly funny one, "Reading James Joyce's Ulysses for the first time" lists the blogger's goal: "I'm going to read every single word of it, in sequence, within one year. I understand it's not understandable, but I shall try."

Answer: The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales" was written in the late fourteenth century and was first published in hand-copied manuscripts. Told in both poetry and prose, the tales were about pilgrims on their way to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. For those who struggle with reading the tales in Middle English, modern translations exist, as do partial translations, which maintain as much of the Middle English as possible while making the passages understandable to modern readers.

Answer: War and Peace

Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" was published in 1869 after first being featured in serialized form in a magazine. It dealt with the impact of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, combining both history and fiction. At well over 1,000 pages, its length makes it a literary nemesis, as does the use of various forms of the Russian names. Additionally, the original Russian version contained passages in French, and some of the English translations have kept the French portions, making it difficult to read if one's knowledge of French is limited to "croissant".

Answer: As I Lay Dying

William Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" was published in 1930, and it dealt with the death of a woman and the reaction from the people who knew her as they proceeded to meet her burial request. It has an amazing 59 chapters of differing lengths (one consists of only five words).

The chapters are narrated by fifteen different characters, which, along with the "stream-of-consciousness" style of prose, can make the story difficult to follow.

Answer: Naked Lunch

William S. Burroughs' "Naked Lunch" was initially published in France in 1959, but allegations of obscenity delayed the publication in other parts of the world. The novel essentially consists of several short stories about a traveling drug addict. The chapters can be read independently of each other (Burroughs supposedly chopped the work apart and then put it back together in random order), although the complete book needs to be read to get the full picture.

In addition to the lack of structure, the book is also a difficult read because of the syntax used for the sentences - they begin and end in fragments.

Answer: Moby Dick

Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" was published in 1851, and it has one of the most famous opening lines in literature: "Call me Ishmael". From there, the novel bogs down. The story of a man's obsession with a whale is told in great detail over the next 130 plus chapters.

Besides the extensive detail on whaling, the book is also a difficult read because of its syntax and the specialized vocabulary. The most common blog comment on the book is "boring". A classic comment comes from "Listverse" blogger Xilebat: "Some readers finished "Moby Dick" and joined Greenpeace, just to prevent this type of suffering from ever happening again.

Not for the whales-- for the readers."

Answer: Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" first appeared as a magazine serial in 1866 and was published in its entirety the following year. The novel explores the psychology of crime, guilt and punishment through the story of a man who commits a murder and then gradually suffers a breakdown from the guilt of his actions. Dostoevsky's other novels, including "The Brothers Karamazov" and "The Idiot" also show up on lists of difficult books to read.

Besides being difficult for English readers due to the structure and the usage of Russian names, the books are also filled with long passages without any action.