Most boring/difficult books you've ever read.

[Gunner 51]

I found Romeo and Juliet to be the biggest pile of rom-com dreck I've ever read. (Followed closely by A Midsummer Night's Dream.) Though in balance, MacBeth, Hamlet and Othello were pretty good.

 

[Luap26]

Things Fall Apart and The Heart of Darkness have to be the shitties books i have read.

 

[kintaris]

(does the woman know that sentences are meant to be less than 2 pages long?)

Yes yes she did. She also understood how the train of thought (aka stream of consciousness)does not stop for pauses. Our minds run on and on without stopping and that is what she picks up on in her works.

Like I said I actually loved the book, and understood the point. That was just a little joke, and my attempt to illustrate the point that some books are difficult, but that doesn't mean they aren't great. The challenge is part of the reading experience.

 

[ssgt splatter]

Any or all books. I hate books.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

A lot of things by Shakespeare...

The Bible... I used to go to catholic school so I had memorize certain parts... it wasn't inspiring, it was torture...

Actually, this, because at least I had a choice on reading Shakespeares books.

And I didn't have to read constantly.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

This book we had to read for English called "The Coral Island."
Biggest borefest ever.
Unnecessary borefest too, as even though I didn't finish it, I still got 17/20 for the essay we had to write about it.

 

[Rainforce]

Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri........was kinda difficult and boring in german :/

 

[Stillve]

Reading books on quantum mechanics is some hard SRS BSNS :C
I generally enjoy novels, got no problems with their ''difficulty''...loved reading the lord of the rings trilogy to death, and sci-fi stuff like Jack Vance's novels.
Oh, some writings by folks like Nietzsche and Kafka (just naming a few, I've read Also Sprach Zarathustra and a few short Kafka stories) can boggle my mind!

 

[the Dept of Science]

I remember in English for GCSE we read The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway. That book is <100 pages long. We spent pretty much a whole term on it (a few 1 hour lessons a week for 2 months or something). Every page of the book had 1/2 an A4 page of notes to go with it.

The thing is though, if I had read it in 1 session (2 hours or so), and then been given maybe 5 or 10 pages of good, concise notes, I probably would have enjoyed it about 100 times more and got about the same out of it.

Also... any teacher trying to convince kids that Midsummer Nights Dream is funny is always a painful experience. "Ok, I know you guys thing Shakespeare is all BORING, but Midsummer Nights Dream is funny! Let me give you an explanation of this joke he makes..."
Again I wouldn't say Midsummer Nights Dream is bad. Its just awful to study and awful for children to read.

 

[Zac Smith]

Backing up the 2 people who already said it Lord Of The Flies -.- 1st time wasn't too bad, but after the 2nd, 3rd even 4th I wanted to kill myself. But in the end, I a GCSE in English for it and went on to study English at college and got an A-Level. (I'm from England so I don't know how the grades work for USA, what the equivalent is etc)

 

[kintaris]

I couldn't agree more with Nightmonger (i forgot to quote,lol)...
I really enjoy reading Tolkien's books, but they aren't just for everyone.
Because, Tolkien, is too much descriptive and he immerse the stories and enviroments around his characters,it's like reading the "history" of the mythical world that he created -which is enormous-,it's not an easy read.
Personally,I really like Tolkien's extensive descriptiveness,I have read The Silmarillion twice.
The first time I read it in my language,greek and the second in english.

I'm reading some Ancient Greek texts and plays right now, challenging but wonderful nonetheless. Reading them in English at the moment but someday I hope to read them in Greek

 

[oooooooooooooooooooooooooo]

Nothing really. If a book begins to bore me, I stop reading it and move on.

 

[Fetzenfisch]

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

No, thats perfectly understandable. I've tried reading Fellowship of the Ring at least 5 times, I've never made it more than 100 pages in without trying something else.

Crime and Punishment is probably the longest I've spent on a book this year. On the other hand, its the good sort of difficult.

I tried reading the Cantebury Tales, but only managed to read the prologue. The lesson I learned from it was that standardised spelling is a very good thing. You also have to learn tonnes of new words to get through it.

Currently reading Neuromancer, I'll admit, I had to look at a plot summary on the internet a couple of times to get myself up to speed.

yeah tolkien can give you a hard time, but the two towers make up for that. i never finished the 3rd book though.
the canterbury tales are a great and funny read. but need some preparation i guess. Medieval English literature is part of my studies, if it wouldnt i guess it'd not be the easiest literature.
(but still much better than the medieval german texts, the niebelungenlied is kinda interesting , the rest is all the same boring shit. the englishmen had their humor even back in the dark ages)

 

[ALuckyChance]

To me, Crime and Punishment, I like it so far, but I can't help but to find it boring most of the time, not to mention, how long it is. Every time I try to read it, I end stopping. And this comes from someone who read Dune in a whole day non-stop.

 

[Unesh52]

Ayn Rand. She's such a pretentious ****; all her books are overlong, blunt, vapid dissertations about impractical, idealized, pseudo-philosophical bullshit. I hate her.

 

[Hazzaslagga]

when I was 13 I read a little book called shogun. twas a book larger than the dictionary with 1246 or1426 pages. on top of this each page took about 2 minutes to read as fast as i could and i can read faster than anyone I know. anyone else know of this book. it took a very long time to read. twas fairly difficult for my young self to get my head round it.

 

[Daselthechaz]

The Scarlet Letter. Thank you, Mr. Hawthorne, but I don't want an eleven page description of a woman walking through a door.

Hallelujah! And you know what's really sad about it? The whole thing totally turned me off of Hawthorne for years, despite the fact that his short fiction is actually REALLY FUCKING GOOD.

If you're reading this and you're about to have to read The Scarlet Letter for a class or some such thing, the only way to do it without losing your grip on sanity (or grammar) is to take a break after you hit the word "bosom" three times. You'll have finished roughly 3/4 of a sentence by that point, and then you can come back refreshed.

As for Heart of Darkness, it is by far denser than uranium, but it also sits by my Bible and my copy of Watchmen to make sure that if I ever have a question about ethics, I have a one stop shop.

 

[Lionsfan]

The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck. Boy was that a slog, and ultimately unsatisfying.

I honestly can't see what makes that book a 'classic'.

This. I couldn't make it through the whole book as I was so damn bored and tired of the whole thing. That class also introduced me to two other books which I despise: The Great Gatsby and Ethan Frome.

THE PICKLE DISH. OH GOD THE PICKLE DISH.

Fuck that Pickle Dish and everything about it. Did you ever see the movie?

OT: Probably Ethan Frome and anything by Ayn Rand. Brave New World was pretty bad too

 

[Seydaman]

The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck. Boy was that a slog, and ultimately unsatisfying.

I honestly can't see what makes that book a 'classic'.

Write a book about bad shit
Instant classic
But you can't go tooo far
Or then you'll cause me to puke
Write about black oppresion? BEST SELLER
Write about how much vietnam sucked? BEST SELLER
Write about anything sad or controversal? BEST SELLER
Write the 120 sodom? I read a summary online, I think that summary alone scared me shitless.

 

[Seydaman]

The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck. Boy was that a slog, and ultimately unsatisfying.

I honestly can't see what makes that book a 'classic'.

This. I couldn't make it through the whole book as I was so damn bored and tired of the whole thing. That class also introduced me to two other books which I despise: The Great Gatsby and Ethan Frome.

THE PICKLE DISH. OH GOD THE PICKLE DISH.

Fuck that Pickle Dish and everything about it. Did you ever see the movie?

OT: Probably Ethan Frome and anything by Ayn Rand. Brave New World was pretty bad too

Brave New World sounds interesting, my older brother read it and told me a little about it, was interesting but then again he's a really good story teller.