Ever notice how Hawthorne's works border on unreadable? I've read some thick stuff: I love authors like Joyce and Faulkner, and I've even made it through some of Chaucer in the original Middle English, but I just can't do Hawthorne. I have to read it really quickly or else I forget what the sentence was about by the time I get to the end.

What are your thoughts on Hawthorne?

The Scarlet Letter was the worst piece of crap I've ever had to trudge through, next to some stupid mystery novel about a moonstone or something like that.

Granted, I read both when I was 12, but the enmity remains just as intense as it ever was.

(As for what you said, OP -- Tolkein has the exact same effect on me ._.)

Some authors have a very special kind of wrinting, a style that is, that corresponds to a certain train of thought, a certain perspective in seeing things.

You'll have to try and put yourself in that perspective, and then their style will seem way less obscure.

If you can't manage to do that, put the book down, and wait a while. Weeks, months, years. Pick it up again later. You'll enjoy it far better than if you push yourself. You might end up hating authors, that way, that you could have otherwise liked a lot.