mhh 'Consciousness and the Absolute' by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj was a pretty hard but rewarding read. 'Faust' by Goethe and 'The Magic Mountain' by Thomas Mann were also challenging reads for me.
Hardest book I've read? Without a doubt, Ulysses by James Joyce. I read it when I was still in high school and far too young and inexperienced a reader to get 95% of the allusions in the book, but it was still a beautiful read. I keep meaning to return to it, now that I have some pertinent literature under my belt but I suspect there is much in it that will still be opaque to me.
Okay, I'm humbled and impressed. Maybe I'll hitch up my jeans and give PL a try again. Thinking about Milton taking meanings with him to his grave, there's a great anecdote they tell about Robert Browning. At some kind of event, a woman asked him about a particular line of his poetry and what it meant. He responded that when he wrote the line, only he and God knew what it meant. "And now," he said, "only God knows."
Thank you for this video, Rob. I'm so grateful to have discovered your channel a month ago. You have given me the impulse to dive back into classical literature and 2025 is the year to begin this exciting adventure! Have an amazing new year full of possibilities. I can't wait for your next videos. Take care. Happy new year everyone! 🎉🌟🥂😄
Refreshing as always Rob, thank you! Which lecture sources did you turn to? Are there any you recommend that have written versions? I have found reading lectures before material dense in allusions a week or so before a reread of the actual text primes me for thinking about these references when I get to them, or encourages me to read the reference beforehand so as not to rabbit hole myself and break the flow. Not a great approach for a first read admittedly.
I listened to the ones by Tim McGee and just some other random TH-cam videos. Hillsdale College just put out their course but I wish it was out before I did mine or I would have used it for help as well. I read a few random blogs as well. Just tried to get a well-rounded view. I like the approach you mentioned. I have listened to some lectures by Dr. Sugrue and I am looking forward to listening to them again before I get to the books. As you mentioned it is not the best for a first read but some of these reads, at least for me, require a good deal of homework beforehand. Thanks for watching and I truly appreciate your generosity. Have a blessed year my friend!
That’s well said. I greatly respect and enjoy the videos you did for that book. Cause I have had to watch your videos on that book more than once. Keep them coming. May you be safe, with this winter weather we are having right now. Also wish your whole family to be safe and healthy
Thanks for the kind words! We are barely getting to freezing here in Louisiana. We never get snow. Looks like it is a different story for the rest of the country. Stay safe my friend!
My church had a reading group through it (not because we thought it was biblically accurate, but just because it interested people.) The pastor's wife has a PhD in British literature, so her insights were so valuable to hear. We're only ~1/3 of the way through, but it has been so interesting thus far. I disagree with Milton on a lot, but he's still clearly a master of verse and reading.
Your craving for knowledge and the approach you have to continue building your innate knowledge is an increasingly rare quality in people. I've not watched all of your videos but, it is vital that we share how we learn and what we retained from each new effort of self improvement. Many commendations to you. As for difficult books, I recently took on Sartre's Being and Nothingness and Heidegger's Being and Time. These are quintessential existential philosophy books and represent significant personal challenge.
I find that works like _Paradise Lost_ or _The Faerie Queene_ are easier to read if I read a summary from Wikipedia or Cliff's Notes before each chapter or major section. It helps to figure out what some hundred-line monologue is about or where Person X fits into the plot.
I find immersion reading-reading physically while listening simultaneously to the audiobook-so helpful when tackling challenging books! A really helpful technique for better internalization.
Paradise Lost is one of the most brilliant works in the English language. Milton and Shakespeare are reasons why I’m grateful to be a native speaker of English. It’s by no means easier to understand, but there is something of a connection. It’s ineffable. It’s like Italians who can read Dante without translation. Great video!
While reading the first lines of your comment, I was thinking "I know this feeling. Reading dante in his own language is what makes me feel lucky about being italian". And then it came the rest of your message 😂
great job as always Rob! i personally love to listen while I read, especially for the more difficult books with strange structure or weird names (hello Russian writers! lol)... haven't dug into Paradise Lost yet, but I'm tossing around the idea of reading it in 2025 and if i do i'll be sure to reference your videos! keep up the great work and happy new year man!
I just picked up paradise lost from a local used bookstore. I really enjoy your videos and they will definitely help when I attempt to tackle it. Happy new year!
Hard books are worth it! I read Paradise Lost in an annotated version and that helped a lot. I got the gist of it, enough to appreciate it as a masterpiece, but I know I didn't plumb the depths of it. When I go to re-read it, which I will eventually, I will use the helps you suggested. Great ideas!
I was an English literature major in undergrad so I am quite familiar with Beowulf, Milton, and Chaucer. Great stuff and a lot of understanding from my professors. One certainly learns to appreciate good literature and he always returns to it. Even after completing a PhD in the social sciences with a concentration in stats and demography.
That's awesome! I am sure your professors really helped you appreciate those great works and you have a great understanding of them. I enjoy venturing out and reading modern authors and different cultures but there is just something about how Milton and Bacon wrote. No one I can find writes with such beauty and clarity anymore. Milton's work was beautiful at the end and writers like Bacon say so much in just a sentence or two. I am rambling. Thanks for watching and I hope you have a blessed New Year!
Oooooh, Paradise Lost! Wonderful, wonderful book! Thank you for this lovely video! Adam Walker has some great insights and advice for those approaching it for the first (or fifth!) time.
Adam Walker is so chill to listen too. I will definitely listen through his as well the next time I revisit Paradise Lost. Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
I've been challenging myself to read more lately. Halfway through reading the hunchback of Notre dame. In middle school and high school, I was forced to read to "pass the time" and grew to hate it, but now I love to read.
haha yes indeed! I feel we all go through that in our school years. I use to never want to be in front of a book and now that life is constantly pulling me away from reading I cherish the time so much more. Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
So I watched this while I was sitting on my motorcycle letting it run to keep the battery charged which I do periodically when it gets too cold to ride (although I have ridden in weather much colder than this) but your video took my mind off the chill
I read Paradise Lost in 2023 and loved it. I'm an atheist but was brought up in a fundamentalist family of Bible readers, so having read the Bible several times as a young person, it helped. Last year I read Dante's Divine Comedy, another tough book, but so worth effort.
I am looking forward to Dante's Divine Comedy. I hear so much about it I feel it has to be read soon! haha. I really admire when people are open minded enough to not be a christian or muslim and still read the works of those who are. Thanks so much for watching and have a blessed New Year!
@The_Cause I think like most readers you will find it tough, but you will find it so rewarding. Having read Milton will help. I'm keep in mind that Dante is sometimes teasing us with comedy lol
One book I put down. Was a biography of Himmler. I have never encountered a book so difficult. It’s still sitting there, waiting for me to pick it back up
Don't think of it as a defeat. Think of it as a strategic retreat, until the next time you attempt it. Spinoza has forced me, too, to retreat, since I got stuck trying to understand self-cause as necessarily involving essence and existence. But I found online someone's PhD. thesis on that very topic, and am reading that before I return to his Ethics.
It is really good! I struggled with it "ALOT" but it was so worth it. Plus it is nice now there are so many lectures and help online that you can pull yourself out of the weeds pretty easy. Good luck and I hope you enjoy! Have a blessed New Year!
Happy and blessed new year from the Netherlands. Whooooohoooo ...!! When i read the Divine comedy by Dante i had the same experience you did . But i stopped reading half way into it,then read some other books. But now i want to go back to Dante and finish the book ,also because i know what i am getting into . I have never read poetry like that before. So that to me was the hardest book . All the best wishes and "everybody come on,come on ,come on ,come on......... Whooooohoooooo
I started PL in my natural inner voice and found the language extremely difficult. About 20 pages in I realized - Groundskeeper Willy! I let Willy be my narrator. From there on the text flowed like melted butter. One of my most treasured reads.
This is actually a fantastic tip! I find myself shifting voices to suit the piece all the time now. I could not have read De Tocqueville or Montaigne as well if I had not heard the french noble accent in my head. For some reason Thomas Payne and Benjamin Franklin read best with the classic "southern gentleman" voice, and Locke was only smooth when heard with a Tennant style scottish.
Discourse on Method. Because very long sentences. Reading from the paperback version, one sentence was more than one page in some cases. It was a challenge to just stop, break it down, and then re-read it once deciphered. And re-read it again to focus on the flow of its ideas.
haha yes indeed. Sometimes the first pass through the text is just figuring things out to eventually go back and read to enjoy and understand. I am going to have to check that book out. Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
Inspirational as always Rob I've added you to my weekly prayer list for 2025. Let's keep the hard work and dedication flowing into 2025 💪 Greetings from Transylvania !
I felt this way reading Kant. Like I was dealing with someone on a completely different level. It was a real struggle to grind through it. Thanks to some outside research including YT videos from subject matter experts and reading some articles online, I was able to get through it with some level of understanding but nothing approaching clarity! Tough books are both maddening and rewarding. 😅 ☕️ 📖
Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth. There are plenty of highly technical works that require you to sit there with a dictionary if you're already well educated in the field, but this book is next level. It's only 350ish pages but it took me 6 months to get through it, and I feel like I earned with an honorsry doctorate in philosophy by the end because of all the other entire books I had to read to comprehend it. 😂
Your intellectual journey brings to mind Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis and Q's Legacy by Helene Hanff, both of which you might enjoy. Each not too long, but both meaningful. At any rate, thanks for letting us all travel along on this voyage of discovery. A very happy new year to you and yours!
Thanks for sharing! I'll have to check those out. I enjoy C.S. Lewis but like Milton, he leaves me scratching my head from time to time. Haha. Have a blessed New Year as well!
I have never read that book before but I will put it on the list! Thanks for sharing! I truly appreciate you watching and hope you have a blessed New Year!
The hardest book I have ever read was The Road by Cormac McCarthy, not because of the the prose or the writing style, but due to the hard imagery and the subject. Definitely an emotional read.
I have actually finished this book and paradise regained. I actually struggled with reading from Satan's perspective. Paradise regained is by far my favorite of the two. With a lot of these long poems or epics i have read from the the Harvard classics, i plan to read again. The references to roman and greek mythology was a struggle for me through all of the works in the collection. As i read, i have found other works filling in the blanks, for instance the greek dramas. I see all of this as an education, and read it like the Bible. First time reading is meant to provide familiarity with all the subjects, i plan on returning later with a more mature and informed education on the subjects. Child = milk, adult = meat.
Nice! I have heard of Pope but I regrettably have not read any of his works. I may have to find one today and check him out. Truly appreciate you watching and have a blessed New Year!
@The_Cause Pope's An Essay on Criticism, The Rape of the Lock, and Essay on Man are three that I'm covering in my personal reading hopefully to finish in January. Pope is the one who wrote "A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow droughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again." Thank you for making this channel, it's encouraging to see others who have a thrist for knowledge. Best wishes as you sail through the deep waters of minds that came before us.
@@The_Cause if you have the complete Harvard classics series im pretty sure he's already in your library. Can't recall which volumes exactly have Pope but I'm 99% sure he's in one of the books
Haven't read this, but The Sound and The Fury may be the hardest one I've ever read. That shit is generally agreed up as needing 3-4 read through to even understand 😂
@@The_Cause The Sound and the Fury is great. It might be a good idea to read it in combination with Ross & Polk "The Sound and the Fury, Glossary and commentary". I did so and it helped me a lot to understand this rather complex book (not the ghardest book I've ever read. That one is still Finnegan's Wake)
Thanks for the advice! I keep hearing how hard Finnegans Wake is and I looked it up and read the first page… It made no sense. I would have to spend so much time to get through a book like that. It just doesn’t come easy to me on books like that. Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
"On the Orator" by Marcus Tullius Cicero (the Harvard University Press translation/part of the Loeb Classical Library collection) pushed my reading comprehension to a new level. My first read through books 1 and 2 were a real wrestling match (after book 2, I found book 3 was a lot easier to understand). I highly recommend it; if you enjoy the art of communication and its many wonderful forms, one of history's best and greatest orators won't disappoint.
I'm going through the Great Books of the Western World in order, and I've only just finished Herodotus. So I've got a ways to go until this one melts my brain, but I'm looking forward to it
I started reading The Advancement of Learning by Francis Bacon and I put it down after about 20 pages. So much new vocabulary for me that I wasn’t able to understand most of what he was trying to say. I bought a copy of Finnegan’s Wake which is in my opinion impossible for anyone to interpret properly but it’s hilarious to just read the words in an Irish accent and catch a few bits here and there.
I think it took me a good amount of trial and error while reading Beowulf to understand the words. And there still is a portion that I don't understand, hopefully on a re-read that'll make more sense having dipped into the Poets and Shakespeare since then. The hardest book I have ever read is probably not because it was dense, but because the translation was painful. It's is Penguin Classics edition of Arabian Nights. I read volume one and two, but I've saved three. Now I know why selected tale editions are a must. Lol.
I looked at a few James Joyce books and do not think I am quite ready yet! The first page of Fin. Wake seemed very difficult. I truly appreciate you watching and hope you have a blessed New Year!
I am picking up the Great Books of the western world reading plan afer life got in the way. "Paradise Lost" happens at some point. I am so looking forward to it. I managed to dodge it in school, but my crusty old ass will appreciate it more than my idiot younger fool self would have. Thank you for the awesome content!
It's just a miracle: right now, on New Year's night, there is an air alert and the Russian occupiers are again attacking civilians in our city with drones, and I have the opportunity to watch your new video and enjoy talking about complicated books! Greetings from unconquered Ukraine!
Junaynah at Dn- garden of Eden- located at 20/20 by 42/55 in Asir region western Arabia with the 4 rivers and gold etc. Dante and ALL before and since were clueless until Kamal Salibi wrote the first of 4 books about the Bible and the myth, legend, history and science it contains. Good luck!
I'm a big fan of epic and narrative poetry, particularly the Iliad, the Odyssey, and Paradise Lost. I'm incredibly grateful that at least one of my three favorites was originally written in English, so I don't have to rely on a translation that is forced to rework aspects of the original (although Fitzgerald has masterful translations of Homer - would highly recommend. Lattimore and especially Fagles are trash in comparison). I have been meaning to reread PL. Maybe today's the day? 'Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mold me man? Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?' By the way, I didn't rewind to check, but it sounded for a moment like you went into iambic around halfway through the video when you started talking about meter. Did I catch that right? ETA: hardest book would probably be Being & Time. In literature, though, I'd say the first part of The Sound & the Fury. Was the first time as an adult experiencing that sensation I had in high school of rereading something a dozen times and still getting no closer to understanding it.
My wife is out getting some Graham crackers right now. I am about to go light the fire up under the oak tree in a bit and we are going to make smores and cook a little something. I think some cousins may come over and play with the kiddos. Just enjoy the night! I hope you have a blessed New Year as well!
@The_Cause it's pretty interesting. It was written in 1579 and it's a book that the founders would have known about and read. It's basically about weather or not a Christian can lawfully resist tyranny and fight against tyrants. The name is latin for "a defense of liberty against tyrants" and I think a video on it would be really interesting. Thanks and a blessed New Year to you as well!
So far, the hardest book this year is the one I'm reading, or rather trying to read, right now, and that is William Morris' translation of Beowulf. I haven't yet hit on the cadence. It's like reading a bad translation from Old English to modern English via a bewildered Google Translate.
I highly recommend Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf and listen to him read it on TH-cam while following along in the book. It’s amazing! There is a TH-cam posting of part 1 and 2, they’re about each 30min long.
It sounds like a book I need to own rather than get it from the library. Maybe I'll put it on my TBR in 2026 as 2025 is a no buy year! Especially no books! I have at least 1500 books and need to cut that number by at least 1/3. 😊
I love that you are actually taking action on the problem we all have. There is no reason for me to buy another book this year but sadly... I most likely will. Kudos to your discipline! Thanks for watching and stay blessed!
Adobe - Premiere Pro. If you use the entire Adobe suite or at least a few then it is well worth it. It comes with Lightroom, Illustrator, Audio, and many others.
We will be getting to it in the Harvard Classics eventually. I will definitely check out Longfellow’s translation. I love Longfellow’ works. Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
Next up Spenser’s Faerie Queene! No seriously. Audible is great for this-especially book + audiobook. I wonder if being visually impaired helps with getting the sound perfect.
The title and description is automatically translated to German. There is some strange feature which can only be disabled on the creator side and I hate it. I have no way of knowing what your actual title says and it is known to make some very stupid translation mistakes. But even if it were correct, I hate it nonetheless. I'm bilingual and those enforced AI features take away all personality from the creator and they set up false expectations on one of the most important first impressions. And now to the topic. The hardest book I probably read is _Analog Integrated Circuit Design, International Student Version._ Non-surprisingly I had to read it for school. But now I like to read academic books of various fields even outside my expertise. When I read them as a hobby I don't have to understand them in detail to the point that I could solve exercises about it. Since I don't do that, I of course don't remember as much as I could otherwise. But I still learn a lot.
Of all the books I've slogged through, Paradise Lost was the least worth it. Jesus, the Christ by Talmage was the most rewarding, and I only got a quarter way through.
What do you think turned you off to Paradise Lost? The only issue I had with it going in was I new the outcome would be fairly predictable. Other than that I truly enjoyed how he presented it. The fact that he was blind when he "dictated it" blows my mind as well. Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year! I will have to look up that book by Talmage. I never heard of it.
What is the hardest book you ever read? I want to hear about them!
Have a blessed New Year and Stay Safe!
Coffee: cedarotacoffee.com/
The Fountain Head. 50+hours of hearing about Howard struggle through life. I listened to it if that counts.
I always admired Howard for his beautiful gothic style of architecture. He detested those straight lined buildings... LOL
mhh 'Consciousness and the Absolute' by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj was a pretty hard but rewarding read. 'Faust' by Goethe and 'The Magic Mountain' by Thomas Mann were also challenging reads for me.
I am looking forward to getting to Faust in the Harvard Classics. I have heard so much about it. Thanks for sharing and have a blessed New Year!
Hardest book I've read? Without a doubt, Ulysses by James Joyce. I read it when I was still in high school and far too young and inexperienced a reader to get 95% of the allusions in the book, but it was still a beautiful read. I keep meaning to return to it, now that I have some pertinent literature under my belt but I suspect there is much in it that will still be opaque to me.
Okay, I'm humbled and impressed. Maybe I'll hitch up my jeans and give PL a try again. Thinking about Milton taking meanings with him to his grave, there's a great anecdote they tell about Robert Browning. At some kind of event, a woman asked him about a particular line of his poetry and what it meant. He responded that when he wrote the line, only he and God knew what it meant. "And now," he said, "only God knows."
Thank you for this video, Rob. I'm so grateful to have discovered your channel a month ago. You have given me the impulse to dive back into classical literature and 2025 is the year to begin this exciting adventure!
Have an amazing new year full of possibilities. I can't wait for your next videos. Take care.
Happy new year everyone! 🎉🌟🥂😄
Refreshing as always Rob, thank you! Which lecture sources did you turn to? Are there any you recommend that have written versions? I have found reading lectures before material dense in allusions a week or so before a reread of the actual text primes me for thinking about these references when I get to them, or encourages me to read the reference beforehand so as not to rabbit hole myself and break the flow. Not a great approach for a first read admittedly.
I listened to the ones by Tim McGee and just some other random TH-cam videos. Hillsdale College just put out their course but I wish it was out before I did mine or I would have used it for help as well. I read a few random blogs as well. Just tried to get a well-rounded view. I like the approach you mentioned. I have listened to some lectures by Dr. Sugrue and I am looking forward to listening to them again before I get to the books. As you mentioned it is not the best for a first read but some of these reads, at least for me, require a good deal of homework beforehand. Thanks for watching and I truly appreciate your generosity. Have a blessed year my friend!
That’s well said. I greatly respect and enjoy the videos you did for that book. Cause I have had to watch your videos on that book more than once. Keep them coming. May you be safe, with this winter weather we are having right now. Also wish your whole family to be safe and healthy
Thanks for the kind words! We are barely getting to freezing here in Louisiana. We never get snow. Looks like it is a different story for the rest of the country. Stay safe my friend!
Iambic pentameter is used because it has the rhythm of a heartbeat. It was used to make the material more emotional and have it be felt deeply.
My church had a reading group through it (not because we thought it was biblically accurate, but just because it interested people.) The pastor's wife has a PhD in British literature, so her insights were so valuable to hear. We're only ~1/3 of the way through, but it has been so interesting thus far. I disagree with Milton on a lot, but he's still clearly a master of verse and reading.
Your craving for knowledge and the approach you have to continue building your innate knowledge is an increasingly rare quality in people. I've not watched all of your videos but, it is vital that we share how we learn and what we retained from each new effort of self improvement. Many commendations to you. As for difficult books, I recently took on Sartre's Being and Nothingness and Heidegger's Being and Time. These are quintessential existential philosophy books and represent significant personal challenge.
I find that works like _Paradise Lost_ or _The Faerie Queene_ are easier to read if I read a summary from Wikipedia or Cliff's Notes before each chapter or major section. It helps to figure out what some hundred-line monologue is about or where Person X fits into the plot.
I find immersion reading-reading physically while listening simultaneously to the audiobook-so helpful when tackling challenging books! A really helpful technique for better internalization.
Paradise Lost is one of the most brilliant works in the English language. Milton and Shakespeare are reasons why I’m grateful to be a native speaker of English. It’s by no means easier to understand, but there is something of a connection. It’s ineffable. It’s like Italians who can read Dante without translation. Great video!
Nothing will top Shakespeare. Milton is hard for the lay man to understand, and I personally think that is why Shakespeare is the centre of the canon.
While reading the first lines of your comment, I was thinking "I know this feeling. Reading dante in his own language is what makes me feel lucky about being italian". And then it came the rest of your message 😂
@ Great minds think alike!
great job as always Rob! i personally love to listen while I read, especially for the more difficult books with strange structure or weird names (hello Russian writers! lol)... haven't dug into Paradise Lost yet, but I'm tossing around the idea of reading it in 2025 and if i do i'll be sure to reference your videos! keep up the great work and happy new year man!
I just picked up paradise lost from a local used bookstore. I really enjoy your videos and they will definitely help when I attempt to tackle it. Happy new year!
Hard books require hard coffee! If your book can be read without coffee then is it even a book? Haha great vid coffee dude!
Please stop offending the tea drinkers... Milton was British remember... But.... I low key agree.
Hahaha I read my books with tea.. and decaf tea. My books must be weeeeakkk 😅
Hard books are worth it! I read Paradise Lost in an annotated version and that helped a lot. I got the gist of it, enough to appreciate it as a masterpiece, but I know I didn't plumb the depths of it. When I go to re-read it, which I will eventually, I will use the helps you suggested. Great ideas!
I was an English literature major in undergrad so I am quite familiar with Beowulf, Milton, and Chaucer. Great stuff and a lot of understanding from my professors. One certainly learns to appreciate good literature and he always returns to it. Even after completing a PhD in the social sciences with a concentration in stats and demography.
That's awesome! I am sure your professors really helped you appreciate those great works and you have a great understanding of them. I enjoy venturing out and reading modern authors and different cultures but there is just something about how Milton and Bacon wrote. No one I can find writes with such beauty and clarity anymore. Milton's work was beautiful at the end and writers like Bacon say so much in just a sentence or two. I am rambling. Thanks for watching and I hope you have a blessed New Year!
Oooooh, Paradise Lost! Wonderful, wonderful book! Thank you for this lovely video!
Adam Walker has some great insights and advice for those approaching it for the first (or fifth!) time.
Adam Walker is so chill to listen too. I will definitely listen through his as well the next time I revisit Paradise Lost. Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
Love the finigan’s wake mention at the end as I thought immediately about that when I saw the video title 😂
Dude!! How have you been! Long time no chat! Hope all has been well and hope the wedding season is going well! Have a blessed New Year!
I've been challenging myself to read more lately. Halfway through reading the hunchback of Notre dame. In middle school and high school, I was forced to read to "pass the time" and grew to hate it, but now I love to read.
haha yes indeed! I feel we all go through that in our school years. I use to never want to be in front of a book and now that life is constantly pulling me away from reading I cherish the time so much more. Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
This channel is a gem
Happy to hear that! I truly enjoy making these videos. Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
So I watched this while I was sitting on my motorcycle letting it run to keep the battery charged which I do periodically when it gets too cold to ride (although I have ridden in weather much colder than this) but your video took my mind off the chill
I read Paradise Lost in 2023 and loved it. I'm an atheist but was brought up in a fundamentalist family of Bible readers, so having read the Bible several times as a young person, it helped. Last year I read Dante's Divine Comedy, another tough book, but so worth effort.
I am looking forward to Dante's Divine Comedy. I hear so much about it I feel it has to be read soon! haha. I really admire when people are open minded enough to not be a christian or muslim and still read the works of those who are. Thanks so much for watching and have a blessed New Year!
@The_Cause I think like most readers you will find it tough, but you will find it so rewarding. Having read Milton will help. I'm keep in mind that Dante is sometimes teasing us with comedy lol
One book I put down. Was a biography of Himmler. I have never encountered a book so difficult. It’s still sitting there, waiting for me to pick it back up
Spinoza's Ethics defeated me.
Don't think of it as a defeat. Think of it as a strategic retreat, until the next time you attempt it. Spinoza has forced me, too, to retreat, since I got stuck trying to understand self-cause as necessarily involving essence and existence. But I found online someone's PhD. thesis on that very topic, and am reading that before I return to his Ethics.
@@OrdenJust Good advice. Thanks!
I am just about to read Paradise Lost! This was helpful.
It is really good! I struggled with it "ALOT" but it was so worth it. Plus it is nice now there are so many lectures and help online that you can pull yourself out of the weeds pretty easy. Good luck and I hope you enjoy! Have a blessed New Year!
Happy and blessed new year from the Netherlands. Whooooohoooo ...!!
When i read the Divine comedy by Dante i had the same experience you did . But i stopped reading half way into it,then read some other books. But now i want to go back to Dante and finish the book ,also because i know what i am getting into . I have never read poetry like that before.
So that to me was the hardest book .
All the best wishes and "everybody come on,come on ,come on ,come on.........
Whooooohoooooo
I started PL in my natural inner voice and found the language extremely difficult. About 20 pages in I realized - Groundskeeper Willy! I let Willy be my narrator. From there on the text flowed like melted butter. One of my most treasured reads.
haha that is awesome! You read it in Willy's voice? I like that idea. I might have to try that! Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
This is actually a fantastic tip! I find myself shifting voices to suit the piece all the time now. I could not have read De Tocqueville or Montaigne as well if I had not heard the french noble accent in my head. For some reason Thomas Payne and Benjamin Franklin read best with the classic "southern gentleman" voice, and Locke was only smooth when heard with a Tennant style scottish.
Discourse on Method. Because very long sentences. Reading from the paperback version, one sentence was more than one page in some cases. It was a challenge to just stop, break it down, and then re-read it once deciphered. And re-read it again to focus on the flow of its ideas.
haha yes indeed. Sometimes the first pass through the text is just figuring things out to eventually go back and read to enjoy and understand. I am going to have to check that book out. Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
Thank you for challenging me to be better!
Any time! I gain just as much from you all as well. Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
Inspirational as always Rob
I've added you to my weekly prayer list for 2025. Let's keep the hard work and dedication flowing into 2025 💪
Greetings from Transylvania !
Love that! I truly appreciate it! That is a really kind thing to do. I truly appreciate you watching my videos and hope you have a blessed New Year!
@@The_Cause
I felt this way reading Kant. Like I was dealing with someone on a completely different level. It was a real struggle to grind through it. Thanks to some outside research including YT videos from subject matter experts and reading some articles online, I was able to get through it with some level of understanding but nothing approaching clarity! Tough books are both maddening and rewarding. 😅 ☕️ 📖
Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth.
There are plenty of highly technical works that require you to sit there with a dictionary if you're already well educated in the field, but this book is next level.
It's only 350ish pages but it took me 6 months to get through it, and I feel like I earned with an honorsry doctorate in philosophy by the end because of all the other entire books I had to read to comprehend it. 😂
Your intellectual journey brings to mind Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis and Q's Legacy by Helene Hanff, both of which you might enjoy. Each not too long, but both meaningful. At any rate, thanks for letting us all travel along on this voyage of discovery. A very happy new year to you and yours!
Thanks for sharing! I'll have to check those out. I enjoy C.S. Lewis but like Milton, he leaves me scratching my head from time to time. Haha. Have a blessed New Year as well!
@The_Cause you are welcome! Agreed on Lewis. Thank you!
Excellent 👌 video I love it.
Glad to hear! Thank you so much for watching and have a blessed New Year!
C S Lewis "Preface to Paradise Lost" is another great book to mix in with Milton's book. Go Rob go, coffee and guidance.
I have never read that book before but I will put it on the list! Thanks for sharing! I truly appreciate you watching and hope you have a blessed New Year!
I struggled with Martin’s Being and Time but it gets easier as you read
The hardest book I have ever read was The Road by Cormac McCarthy, not because of the the prose or the writing style, but due to the hard imagery and the subject. Definitely an emotional read.
Oh nice! I have never heard of it. I am going to have to look it up. Thanks for sharing and have a blessed New Year!
@@The_Cause You as well!!!
@@The_CauseIt is easy to read, but not a feel-good book.
I have actually finished this book and paradise regained. I actually struggled with reading from Satan's perspective. Paradise regained is by far my favorite of the two. With a lot of these long poems or epics i have read from the the Harvard classics, i plan to read again. The references to roman and greek mythology was a struggle for me through all of the works in the collection. As i read, i have found other works filling in the blanks, for instance the greek dramas. I see all of this as an education, and read it like the Bible. First time reading is meant to provide familiarity with all the subjects, i plan on returning later with a more mature and informed education on the subjects. Child = milk, adult = meat.
I'll have to revisit Milton. Currently, covering Alexander Pope. Kudos and keep them coming!
Nice! I have heard of Pope but I regrettably have not read any of his works. I may have to find one today and check him out. Truly appreciate you watching and have a blessed New Year!
@The_Cause Pope's An Essay on Criticism, The Rape of the Lock, and Essay on Man are three that I'm covering in my personal reading hopefully to finish in January. Pope is the one who wrote "A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow droughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again." Thank you for making this channel, it's encouraging to see others who have a thrist for knowledge. Best wishes as you sail through the deep waters of minds that came before us.
@@The_Cause if you have the complete Harvard classics series im pretty sure he's already in your library. Can't recall which volumes exactly have Pope but I'm 99% sure he's in one of the books
How interesting, I'll have to check it out nothing like being humbled by words on paper.😅
haha yes indeed. Milton had a way of doing that with me! Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
Haven't read this, but The Sound and The Fury may be the hardest one I've ever read. That shit is generally agreed up as needing 3-4 read through to even understand 😂
Some books are like that! I have not read that one yet. Would you recommend it? Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
@@The_Cause The Sound and the Fury is great. It might be a good idea to read it in combination with Ross & Polk "The Sound and the Fury, Glossary and commentary". I did so and it helped me a lot to understand this rather complex book (not the ghardest book I've ever read. That one is still Finnegan's Wake)
Thanks for the advice! I keep hearing how hard Finnegans Wake is and I looked it up and read the first page… It made no sense. I would have to spend so much time to get through a book like that. It just doesn’t come easy to me on books like that. Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
I made it about 10 pages into Kants Critique of Pure Reason before I gave up.
"On the Orator" by Marcus Tullius Cicero (the Harvard University Press translation/part of the Loeb Classical Library collection) pushed my reading comprehension to a new level. My first read through books 1 and 2 were a real wrestling match (after book 2, I found book 3 was a lot easier to understand). I highly recommend it; if you enjoy the art of communication and its many wonderful forms, one of history's best and greatest orators won't disappoint.
That was great. I will read this book now.❤🎉
Bulgakov the master and Margarita. I could not get through it.
Hope you enjoy it! It is a challenge but I gained so much from the challenge it was worth it. Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
I'm going through the Great Books of the Western World in order, and I've only just finished Herodotus. So I've got a ways to go until this one melts my brain, but I'm looking forward to it
Paradise Lost wasn't so hard for me because it was paperback...ok I'll leave now.
No wait come back! Class is not dismissed yet!
Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
I started reading The Advancement of Learning by Francis Bacon and I put it down after about 20 pages. So much new vocabulary for me that I wasn’t able to understand most of what he was trying to say. I bought a copy of Finnegan’s Wake which is in my opinion impossible for anyone to interpret properly but it’s hilarious to just read the words in an Irish accent and catch a few bits here and there.
I think it took me a good amount of trial and error while reading Beowulf to understand the words. And there still is a portion that I don't understand, hopefully on a re-read that'll make more sense having dipped into the Poets and Shakespeare since then.
The hardest book I have ever read is probably not because it was dense, but because the translation was painful. It's is Penguin Classics edition of Arabian Nights. I read volume one and two, but I've saved three. Now I know why selected tale editions are a must. Lol.
Word of the day elocution. 2:22
haha yes indeed. It an old one but a good one! Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
Good stuff 👍
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
Without a doubt, a lot of James Joyce is quite challenging and also Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.
I looked at a few James Joyce books and do not think I am quite ready yet! The first page of Fin. Wake seemed very difficult. I truly appreciate you watching and hope you have a blessed New Year!
I am picking up the Great Books of the western world reading plan afer life got in the way. "Paradise Lost" happens at some point. I am so looking forward to it. I managed to dodge it in school, but my crusty old ass will appreciate it more than my idiot younger fool self would have.
Thank you for the awesome content!
It's just a miracle: right now, on New Year's night, there is an air alert and the Russian occupiers are again attacking civilians in our city with drones, and I have the opportunity to watch your new video and enjoy talking about complicated books!
Greetings from unconquered Ukraine!
Junaynah at Dn- garden of Eden- located at 20/20 by 42/55 in Asir region western Arabia with the 4 rivers and gold etc. Dante and ALL before and since were clueless until Kamal Salibi wrote the first of 4 books about the Bible and the myth, legend, history and science it contains. Good luck!
My first watched video of the year in youtube lol !!!! Happy New year !!!🍻🍻
Haha, I love that! Happy to hear we started it off together! lol Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
I'm a big fan of epic and narrative poetry, particularly the Iliad, the Odyssey, and Paradise Lost. I'm incredibly grateful that at least one of my three favorites was originally written in English, so I don't have to rely on a translation that is forced to rework aspects of the original (although Fitzgerald has masterful translations of Homer - would highly recommend. Lattimore and especially Fagles are trash in comparison). I have been meaning to reread PL. Maybe today's the day? 'Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mold me man? Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?'
By the way, I didn't rewind to check, but it sounded for a moment like you went into iambic around halfway through the video when you started talking about meter. Did I catch that right?
ETA: hardest book would probably be Being & Time. In literature, though, I'd say the first part of The Sound & the Fury. Was the first time as an adult experiencing that sensation I had in high school of rereading something a dozen times and still getting no closer to understanding it.
Wise words.
Yes indeed! Milton's words of course! haha Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
Love your style in video. Have a happy and healthy New Year. What are you doing to celebrate the new year?
My wife is out getting some Graham crackers right now. I am about to go light the fire up under the oak tree in a bit and we are going to make smores and cook a little something. I think some cousins may come over and play with the kiddos. Just enjoy the night! I hope you have a blessed New Year as well!
You should try reading "vindiciae contra tyrannos" talk about difficult language LoL
I will look it up and check it out. I have not heard of that one. Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
@The_Cause it's pretty interesting. It was written in 1579 and it's a book that the founders would have known about and read. It's basically about weather or not a Christian can lawfully resist tyranny and fight against tyrants. The name is latin for "a defense of liberty against tyrants" and I think a video on it would be really interesting. Thanks and a blessed New Year to you as well!
So far, the hardest book this year is the one I'm reading, or rather trying to read, right now, and that is William Morris' translation of Beowulf. I haven't yet hit on the cadence. It's like reading a bad translation from Old English to modern English via a bewildered Google Translate.
I highly recommend Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf and listen to him read it on TH-cam while following along in the book. It’s amazing! There is a TH-cam posting of part 1 and 2, they’re about each 30min long.
@@ivymoonstone8080 I've listened to it on Audible, but I think it's incomplete, I will definitely listen to the TH-cam video and read along. Thanks.
It sounds like a book I need to own rather than get it from the library. Maybe I'll put it on my TBR in 2026 as 2025 is a no buy year! Especially no books! I have at least 1500 books and need to cut that number by at least 1/3. 😊
I love that you are actually taking action on the problem we all have. There is no reason for me to buy another book this year but sadly... I most likely will. Kudos to your discipline! Thanks for watching and stay blessed!
What video editing software do you use?
Adobe - Premiere Pro. If you use the entire Adobe suite or at least a few then it is well worth it. It comes with Lightroom, Illustrator, Audio, and many others.
Try Longfellow's translation of The Divine Comedy
We will be getting to it in the Harvard Classics eventually. I will definitely check out Longfellow’s translation. I love Longfellow’ works. Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
Next up Spenser’s Faerie Queene!
No seriously. Audible is great for this-especially book + audiobook.
I wonder if being visually impaired helps with getting the sound perfect.
O God, No! Not the "Fairy Queen"! If he thinks "Paradise Lost" is a slog, the "Fairy Queen" will just boil his brain.
The title and description is automatically translated to German. There is some strange feature which can only be disabled on the creator side and I hate it. I have no way of knowing what your actual title says and it is known to make some very stupid translation mistakes. But even if it were correct, I hate it nonetheless. I'm bilingual and those enforced AI features take away all personality from the creator and they set up false expectations on one of the most important first impressions.
And now to the topic.
The hardest book I probably read is _Analog Integrated Circuit Design, International Student Version._ Non-surprisingly I had to read it for school. But now I like to read academic books of various fields even outside my expertise. When I read them as a hobby I don't have to understand them in detail to the point that I could solve exercises about it. Since I don't do that, I of course don't remember as much as I could otherwise. But I still learn a lot.
Read Aristotle's physics
I will someday read this 😂
Just remember. In the words of Zach... "someday is always right here." haha
@ True!!!🤷🏻♂️😂
Alright realtree cap let’s see what you got to say…
haha this actually made me laugh! Thanks! I hope you enjoyed the video and have a blessed New Year!
Its the Bible
The Bible is a hard one indeed. So many styles of writing and over such a vast timeframe. Stay blessed my friend!
the theory of the leisure class....yikes!
Concerning Milton? Would you expand on the idea? I would love to understand more. Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year!
Of all the books I've slogged through, Paradise Lost was the least worth it. Jesus, the Christ by Talmage was the most rewarding, and I only got a quarter way through.
What do you think turned you off to Paradise Lost? The only issue I had with it going in was I new the outcome would be fairly predictable. Other than that I truly enjoyed how he presented it. The fact that he was blind when he "dictated it" blows my mind as well. Thanks for watching and have a blessed New Year! I will have to look up that book by Talmage. I never heard of it.
One doesn't have to be a believer to appreciate PL. The same goes for appreciating the genius of JS Bach.
👍
Thanks! Have a blessed New Year!