Complexity
Related: convolutedness - experimental - intellectualness - knowledge - randomness
Difficult books: Ulysses (1922) - In Search of Lost Time (1913 -1927) - Gravity's Rainbow (1973) - ergodic literature and experimental fiction
Contrast: simplicity and easiness
Definition
Complexity in its most general meaning is the opposite of simplicity. In psychology, a complex is a group of mental factors that are unconsciously associated by the individual with a particular subject and influence the individual's attitude and behavior. An example is the Madonna-whore complex. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity [Oct 2006]
Difficult women
If Sylvia Plath maintains that "every woman adores a fascist," it is equally true that every man adores a femme fatale, bad girl or difficult woman. The archetypical difficult women in world literature are Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina. [Aug 2006]
Reading tip: Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women (1998) by Elizabeth Wurtzel.
Anna Karenina and Emma Bovary: escapism and the dangers of reading:
Anna Karenina and Emma Bovary live out their dreams and fantasies through reading novels which serve as palliatives for their painful lives. Reading novels is not the primary theme in their lives nor is it the primary reason they kill themselves. But their use of reading as an escape from reality is critical to Anna and Emma's characters. It is Anna and Emma's reading of novels which allows them to abandon their husbands and pursue their fantasies both in life and in their minds. It is reading which prevents them from using reason to correct their troubles. It is reading which distorts their reality and forces them to become dissatisfied and bored with the ordinary pleasures of life. Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary are books ironically about the dangers of reading.
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