[briandarvell]

Very interesting! I as well really enjoyed AK, but I also extremely enjoyed The Brothers Karamazov, even more than Anna Karenina. It's probably my favorite Russian classic! I too gave up on War and Peace however about 200-300 pages into the story.

I find timing plays a big part of my enjoyment of tougher classic novels. If I'm extremely busy or don't have time to dedicate to reading in decent chunks (an hour or more per day) then I find it hard to maintain motivation to read dense novels.

I somehow got through Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow but don't recommend anyone do that, I was just too stubborn to let it get the better of me :)

[WastingMyTime89]

I have read the first book of War and Peace a long time ago and had a fairly similar experience to you. I never got to reading the second one because I didn’t have the time to do so at the time. I remember it as long but easy reading however. War and Peace definitely is entertaining.

> I somehow got through Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow but don't recommend anyone do that, I was just too stubborn to let it get the better of me

Strangely I think everyone should do that. It’s an insanely fun book once you have accepted you are not supposed to get everything. Pynchon is probably my favourite author all things considered. Still I think starting with Inherent Vice, The Crying of Lot 49 or Vineland is probably a good idea.

[romanhn]

These comments are very interesting to me. I first read War and Peace in abridged format in English as a high school assignment, and loved it enough to follow up immediately with unabridged in Russian (am a native speaker). Found it enthralling.

On the other hand I recently gave Gravity's Rainbow a go right after slogging through David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, and just couldn't do it. The premise seems interesting/odd enough, but I found the writing impossible to follow. I'm sure listening to it as an audiobook didn't help, but this was the first book I gave up on after 15 years of audiobooks. At some point I just thought to myself, why am I subjecting myself to something I neither comprehend nor enjoy...

[WastingMyTime89]

I can’t help you with the Infinite Jest comparaison. I have only read short stories by Foster Wallace, didn’t really like his style and had no interest in the themes explored in Infinite Jest so I am probably never going to try reading it.

I really like Pynchon style however. I think he perfectly nails the mix of serious and zany. Vineland is a good example. On the one hand, it’s a fairly serious book about the end of the counterculture and what the election of Nixon meant for the American dream but on the other hand it’s also a book in which a community of living-dead has its own radio station, one hundred pages in the middle of it concerns a woman training to be a lethal ninja and perfecting a delayed assassination technique and Godzilla makes a cameo and despite all of that the whole things feel coherent and properly jointed. I also really enjoy the rhythm of Pynchon sentences. I can definitely see why it wouldn’t work as an audiobook however. It’s writing you definitely have to read at your own pace.

[briandarvell]

I can imagine reading them in original Russian would add another level to the experience.

Interestingly enough, I devoured Infinite Jest and loved the entire novel. Gravity's Rainbow was simply too confusing to me and I think I would have done better had I used a reading guide to support me through the novel.

[krylon]

https://pynchonwiki.com/ has page-by-page annotations to all of Pynchon's novels.

A similar website exists for Infinite Jest: https://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster-wallace/in...

I think it is almost impossible to read Gravity's Rainbow exactly once. Either you give up halfway through it, or you finish it and re-read it. It makes more sense, I think, when re-reading it.

[mek6800d2]

Youth and timing! I dropped out of college after my 3rd semester. I read widely and kept seeing W&P cited as the greatest piece of literature ever. I read it and liked it -- in two weeks, which was about 100 pages a day. I read it during breakfasts, dinners, coffee breaks and lunch at work, and then at bedtime until 2 in the morning. So, I was able to concentrate on it and enjoy it; being young, I could slough off the lack of sleep.

I read AK next and it was great. A customer at work saw me carrying AK and suggested I read BK, so I did. I too found BK to be my favorite of FD's novels. I also read most of his other novels, except I only got part-way through The Idiot. When I returned to school, I took a Russian Literature course, for which I reread W&P, AK, BK, and Crime and Punishment (instead of using the Cliff's Notes).

(My professor pointed out the humor at the end of AK, something I had failed to see in two readings: the narrator is talking to what's-his-name, who has a horrific toothache and therefore doesn't really care that the most beautiful woman in Russia ... oops, no spoiler here! It was kind of funny when he explained it and he was a zillion times more knowledgeable than me about FD and FD's writings.)

Again, I had youth on my side and, as you noted is important, I had the time to concentrate on the books. Decades later, a few years ago, I finally read The Idiot all the way through -- it was a long slog; it being a weird story anyway didn't help.

[olvy0]

Just as another data point, I managed to finish and kind of enjoy Gravity's Rainbow, accepting that I just couldn't understand everything and just go along for the (rocket) ride. Only after finishing it I read some notes and interpretations online.

But I tried several times reading or listening to The Brothers Karamazov and I didn't manage to finish it, I felt out of touch with the characters, their little lives and foibles weren't interesting, the tone felt dry and didactic, and there was no "fun" mystery to keep me hooked.

This was weird because I did manage to finish and ultimately like Crime & Punishment several years earlier.

However like you said, this was back before I had my current job. I wouldn't be able to read any of them today, I think, I'd lose motivation.