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Paul Verhaeghen is kicking my butt
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Have you ever delved into a novel you could tell was amazing, but it was so challenging you didn’t know if you could finish it?
I felt that way about “Ulysses,” and “Gravity’s Rainbow,” and I’m currently feeling that way midway through the new book “Omega Minor,” by Georgia Tech professor Paul Verhaeghen.
It’s really good. And really hard. Verhaeghen is a cognitive psychology teacher at Ga. Tech, and originally from Belgium. He wrote “Omega Minor” in Dutch, then translated it himself into English. It just came out, and Time magazine gave it a huge rave. Read it here.
Verhaeghen will do an appearance and signing at 7 p.m. Monday Dec. 17 at A Cappella Books in Little Five Points, and he was more than willing to indulge me with an interview. The whole Q&A is scheduled to run in Saturday’s paper, and a free-lance review will run in Sunday’s Arts & Books section. I asked Verhaeghen how he would tell someone what “Omega Minor” is about, just because it’s about so much, and this is what he answered.
“It’s the story of two Jewish boys growing up in the 1920s, one escapes just in time, goes to the United States, becomes a physicist, works in the Manhattan Project, and starts having serious doubts about what is happening there with the nuclear bomb. And the second boy stays in Berlin and ends up in the Resistance and in Auschwitz and escapes. And it all comes together in 1995. … So it deals with the Holocaust, it deals with physics, it deals with the nature of the universe. If I have to sum it up in seven words, I say that it’s about the things that make life really interesting: war, love, sex, death, pigeons, food and blasphemy.
Yes, pigeons. But trust me, you’ll remember the Holocaust scenes and the sex scenes a lot more. Verhaeghen can really write, and some of his scenes are just searing.
I’m about 300 pages into “Omega Minor,” less than half way, and it’s a very engaging read in some ways, and a very tough one in other ways. I doubt if anyone here will have had much chance yet to get into it, as it’s just out, but I would encourage you to:
a. Go get a copy and dive in.
b. Talk about your own experience with tackling a challenging book that you worried might end up being too much for you. (To circle back to the beginning, and in the interest of full disclosure, I never finished “Ulysses” or “Rainbow.”) I hope I can finish “Omega Minor.”
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By Ramona
December 14, 2007 9:01 AM | Link to this
Right now I am working on 100 Years of Solitude. Am stuck at about page 50 or so. The thread of the story has revealed enough to have me in awe of this amazing, dreamlike world, but alas, it is also slow reading at this point. I’ve heard nothing but raves about this book so I plan to stick it out. Wish me luck!
By Jeff
December 14, 2007 9:13 AM | Link to this
The LOTR books. Specifically The Hobbit. Started it, because my aunt thought I might be interested, never finished it (never made it more than about 10 pages in!).
Paul: A man of grace and grit by Charles Stanley. Been reading it off and on for years, have yet to finish it.
Believe it or not, my 2007 book of the year, One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer was one that I initially had a hard time with. Once I got into the OCS material though, I was hooked.
The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald was one that I struggled with in HS. Once my English teacher forced me past the third chapter or so though, it was an AMAZING story.
The Three Musketeers by Dumas. Read most of the way, and for some reason put it down and never picked it back up.
Others through the years have mostly been required reading for some ENGL class that I never read and yet managed to pick up enough about in class to BS my way through any assignments relating to them.
By lovelyliz
December 14, 2007 9:15 AM | Link to this
I read Beowulf in the original Old English language and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in Middle English. Don Quixote took some time to get through, but I manged.
For some reason Jonathan Franzen’s seminal American novel The Corrections kicks my butt. I bought it 6 years ago and a couple of times a year, I pick it up, struggle to read it and at about chapter 3 or 4 I give up until the next attempt. If I don’t finish it, perhaps I’ll be buried with it.
By Cindy
December 14, 2007 9:57 AM | Link to this
I just finished Cryptonomicon. That was hard. Very interesting, book, though. About 1000 pages. It took months…in contrast, I just read Water For Elephants in three evenings, and Welcome To The World, Baby Girl in one evening…
By Maria
December 14, 2007 10:26 AM | Link to this
When I was 14 I decided to read Les Miserables because I loved the musical so much. I got the unabridged version from the library and spent a month with the tome basically attached to me. It was tough to keep all the characters and the history straight, but the experience was really rewarding. To date, it’s still the longest book I’ve ever read.
I had about five false starts with Ulysses before I finally dove in and read it all the way through. I channeled my past English major self and made notes as I went through it. I also made a habit of reading the complex stream-of-consciousness parts out loud to myself. Molly Bloom’s closing monologue made a whole lot more sense when I heard it than when I tried to read it silently. I did the same thing when I read Virginia Woolf’s The Waves. I think I read that whole book out loud. I was at home in bed with a sports injury at the time.
The weighty book I haven’t been able to finish? Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace. I’ve started it twice and have found many things to like about the characters and the style, but there just wasn’t enough to captivate me through all 1000-ish pages. Maybe I’ll try again next year.
By Debby
December 14, 2007 10:28 AM | Link to this
I’m 50 years old—waaaay beyond being required to read anything. I also work at the local public library, so am surrounded by books. I won’t spend one more minute than I have to on anything that feels like a chore to read.
So many books—so little time
By Michelle
December 14, 2007 10:35 AM | Link to this
I loved Atlas Shrugged and have recommended and bought the book for several family members and friends. I also let them know that while the book has a powerful message, it took me about 2 months to read it. I devour books, love to read, and usually read several books at the same time. This was the first book I had this problem with but I am so glad I finished it.
By erinanne
December 14, 2007 10:51 AM | Link to this
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. One of those classics that I’m sure I’m ‘supposed’ to have read, but I just couldn’t get into the story. I read about three chapters and gave up. I don’t know that I necessarily found it difficult, but I wasn’t interested.
Jeff, I also have never made it through the LOTR or the Hobbit. Maria told me to listen to them on CD, and I would probably be able to get into them, but I haven’t taken her advice yet.
lovelyliz, I will pass that advice on to you, because that’s how I read The Corrections. I’m positive I wouldn’t have read it otherwise.
The other book that I tried to read recently and couldn’t make it through for the difficulty of the language was Amy Tan’s Saving Fish From Drowning. Her prose was beautiful and challenging, but by the time I actually felt interested in the story I was 200 pages in and still hadn’t connected with a single one of the characters, so I gave up. I would still like to go back and finish the story, but I think I would have to pick up where I left off, rather than try and read it again.
By Tricia S
December 14, 2007 11:39 AM | Link to this
I read Crime and Punishment when I was 16 and I consider that to be a difficult read.
One suggestion for challenging books - listen to them! The libraries have great selections and the performances are so entertaining. I listened to Saving Fish from Drowning and it was very enjoyable. Reading it would have been a chore.
By BPJ
December 14, 2007 12:53 PM | Link to this
Probably the most challenging novel I’ve read is The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco. It’s set in a medieval monastery, and there are long passages of theological debates, with scattered passages in Latin (and occasional French, German, and Italian). And it’s 800+ pages. I hope that doesn’t discourage anyone, because it is a delightful novel, with a murder mystery to keep you guessing. I was lucky because shortly after I started reading it, a friend told me about a little book called The Key to the Name of the Rose, which translates the foreign phrases, identifies the historical characters, heresies, etc. If you can’t manage the book, the film, with Sean Connery, is well made, although it necessarily lacks the richness of the novel. There are other tough-but-worth-it novels I’d recommend, including several by Virginia Woolf (see above post), A. S. Byatt’s Possession, John Updike’s The Centaur, and Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady. I would not recommend anything by Ayn Rand; it is an open question whether she is more awful as a thinker or as a writer.
By Joan
December 14, 2007 12:59 PM | Link to this
In college many years ago a professor made us read “trashy” books (this was in UK, but think LaVyrle Spencer or Nora Roberts equivalents). It was a chore - horribly two dimensional characters at best, totally unbelievable and confusing plot, drenched in purple prose. It is far easier to read real literature than trash.
By ron
December 14, 2007 2:35 PM | Link to this
I read,”A Brief History of Time”,by Stephen Hawking,and a bit of that went over my head,if you don’t mind understatements.Somewhere after page one,he kept losing me.When he explained that the reason a single particle appeared to be passing through two different holes simultaneously,was because it actually was,I never reovered.The only solace I can find is that if I apply Occam’s razor,the statement has to be true.
By Kat
December 14, 2007 10:54 PM | Link to this
I had a hard time with Angela’s Ashes. I tried to to read it just a few weeks after having a baby girl of my own. It was just overwhelmingly sad, on top of my own postpartum hormones! I had to put it away and pick it up a few months later. That time I managed to finish it, and was pleased that it got lighter as it went, and even had some funny scenes toward the end. But the beginning was heartbreaking.