I'm sort of interested in reading my first long book, but I'm not sure if I can handle the difficulty of them (the difficulty that usually isn't just related to the length; Gravity's Rainbow and Infinite Jest being examples of books that are difficult independent of their length).

Is 2666 as difficult as GR? I'd like to read a super long book that I can settle into for a long time, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't intimidated by GR or IJ's difficulty level.

On a related note, how do I know if I can handle a long novel?