Infinite Jest.
I will venture a guess that approx. 20% of the American population would also name that same book.
These are the dense books I pick up and keep trying to get through...without much luck. However, there are mini-episodes that make the books worth picking up even if I never finish the entire story:
The Recognitions by William Gaddis
Remembrance of Things Past - Proust
Any Pynchon book other than Crying of Lot 69
Awesome, non-obvious picks like Finnegan's Wake (apart from Proust, but I mean that in a good way). Big gigantic roman a clefs are just too easy to give up on, and yet hard to live with knowing that you gave up so far in.
Did you mean in your comment above that you are trying/have tried Finnegan's Wake? That is so ambitious. I can't say that I have met anyone who has shown the slightest interest in it...
I've skimmed through Finnegan's Wake but it isn't my Lost Book. It is intriguing, but I haven't even made it through Ulysses. Neither one is as important for me to finish as the other books I listed above. Maybe when I am old and retired I can sit down with one of Joyce's books and a couple of the companion/guides which have been published to explain his more obscure references.
Also, I read the first part of Infinite Jest but just couldn't get into it. Either it felt forced, or the voice/tone wasn't doing it for me, or I wasn't into the story...I don't know, but Amazon keeps recommending it to me, so maybe I should try it again.
A book I did finish and enjoy was House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I am almost ashamed to admit that I've read everything Bret Easton Ellis has written...the stories are MTV-like in all the debauchery they feature. The characters would certainly annoy me beyond belief if they were real, but they aren't and it is fascinating.
The Magic Mountain.
Commenting by HaloScan
