What’s the hardest/most challenging book you’ve ever read? Was it worth the effort? Did you read it by choice or was it an assignment/obligation?

The hardest book that I’ve ever read is without a doubt Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.  This wasn’t because the book itself was particularly challenging (it’s actually incredibly straightforward, if a bit wordy in the way of most 18th century novels) but because of the time that I read it.  I read Robinson Crusoe as the first set text on my first year ‘Inventing the Novel’ course at university.  It was hard because there were a hundred and one things that I would rather be doing; because I had just discovered medieval literature and wanted to spend all my time buried in that; because the Shakespeare lecturer was opening my eyes to so many new interpretations of plays that I thought I knew well; because the library was filled with more interesting books.  Most of all, it was difficult because it was just boring.

There, I’ve said it.  I thought Robinson Crusoe was dull as ditch water.  There’s nothing wrong with the story in itself, but the level of detail necessitated by the 18th century desire for realism is just mind-numbing.  Robinson Crusoe doesn’t merely grow grapes, oh no; he discovers vines, digs some up, transports them to his garden, replants them, waters them, cultivates them, watches the grapes grow, harvests the grapes, weaves baskets to put them in, eats some grapes and dries some for storage as raisins.  Being cast away on a desert island is exciting: the minutiae of daily life and survival is not.  There’s also the bizarre section at the end of the novel which everyone always forgets in which Crusoe and Friday travel to Europe and hunt bears and wolves.  Getting through that lot was hard.

I finished it because it was a set text, I knew I was going to have to write several essays and answer an exam about it and I don’t believe in doing that without reading the book properly.  Had it not been for that stick I would happily have ignored it.