Most boring/difficult books you've ever read.

[Zyxx]

Three spring immediately to mind: The Great Gatsby, A Farewell to Arms and The Scarlet Letter (I think I had to read all of them for the Worst English Class I Ever Took, back in high school, and normally English was my best subject.)

The Great Gatsby I hated because if I want to see idiot yuppies doing stupid things, I've got an effing door that can take me outside.

A Farewell to Arms I hated because it was just boring. Here's this jackass gets hurt in the war, knocks up a nurse, nurse and baby die, he goes and drinks beer. None of these events inspire emotional reaction in any character. The end.

The Scarlet Letter I didn't actually think was all that bad, but for some reason every time I tried to read it I got sleepy, like some dark force was absorbing my energy.

 

[Kermi]

Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. I loved Cryptonomicon and Stephenson's baroque cycle trilogy was suppose to be a spiritual precursor... but it was all so dry and dull and it rambled from page to page namedropping historical figures and accomplishing nothing narratively. I've tried to read it four times and never gotten more than three hundred pages in.

 

[Juan de Betolaza]

The Silmarillion. Even though I finished it, it was torture.

 

[Zarthek]

Displaying my heresy here, I'll say ANYTHING BY TOLKIEN.

About time for another execution anyway....

OT: Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.. /shudders

 

[Dalisclock]

I've tried reading Thus Spake Zarathustra and Gravity's Rainbow several times and failed due to the difficulty.

But special mention goes to Catcher in the Rye, not because it's difficult but because the Protagonist is possibly the most unlikable and annoying in the history of fiction. I'm trying to slog through it just to see if it ever comes to anything, but I'm not hopeful.

 

[Fensfield]

Lord of the Flies -.-

My entire attempt to follow that thing was just dumb staring at the sheer contrivance.. I found it no surprise at the end of the course to discover the author had explained there were no girls in the story because he felt it would undermine his message about children being a bunch of animals.

 

[ALuckyChance]

Wow. I play Rome: Total War for 2 hours, come back, and see an extra 150 replies. Holy crap.

The Harry Potter series were the most boring books I ever read.
And as for difficult, I'm not sure. I don't read a lot.

I used to love the Harry Potter books when I read them, but after a few years, I realized they were only average in quality.

 

[Zinaxos]

Not, Fight Club.

 

[KarumaK]

An American Tragedy... I think it actually stopped my brain functions while I read it.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Definitely Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. Once, I actually fell asleep while reading it. Which wouldn't be too weird, except for the fact that I kept reading.

 

[Hallow'sEve]

HItty
by Rachel Field

The Alchemist
by Paulo Coelho

Had to do it for summer vacation

 

[milo2215]

The Great Gatsby. The end moral is basicaly "Rich people always get the happy ending."

 

[Hallow'sEve]

The Great Gatsby. The end moral is basicaly "Rich people always get the happy ending."

Can't say it isn't true in real life tho

 

[The Heik]

Mine would have to be The Children of Hurin; anyone agree that it was incredibly dull?
Most difficult to read - to me, anyway - would be Robinson Crusoe, simply because of the insane amounts of semicolons in every mammoth-sized sentence, that once you finish you immediately forget what it was all about.

For me, it would ave to be It by Stephen King. 1000 pages, and most of it was unnecessary or just plain weird. Not what a horror book should be doing.

 

[careful]

ayn rand's fountain head
its cliche, boring, etc.

 

[milo2215]

The Great Gatsby. The end moral is basicaly "Rich people always get the happy ending."

Can't say it isn't true in real life tho

True, but after all that build up in the actual story, nothing happens. Except for DEATH.

 

[AmericanIdiot1993]

I just read The House of Mirth, and that book is so boring! I could barely finish it. That, and then of course my all time least favorite book ever, Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko. It is a lesser known book, and thats a good thing, because it is atrocious.

 

[Siuki]

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I guess I was only interested in the giant squid on the cover...

 

[coleslawghter]

Have to say Tess of the D'Urbervilles, though Heart of Darkness is a close second.

I totally agree with heart off darkness, i go it from the library and was like KICK ASS this book is what apocalypse now is based on... read a page and a half, couldn't catch a word of it. A clockwork orange on the other hand started out difficult as hell and slowly got easier

 

[nYuknYuknYuk]

Any of the "classics" that people say they like just to sound smart.