Most boring/difficult books you've ever read.
- Thread starter ALuckyChance
- Start date
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.Amethyst Wind said:
THE PICKLE DISH. OH GOD THE PICKLE DISH.
I was told to read the Grapes of Wrath for summer reading before my senior year of high school. I got 10 pages into it and decided I would rather not torture away my summer. i have never been that bored reading a book in my life.
I love this thread, I'm a bookworm extraordinaire! I must disagree with quite a few posters here, I love all of the Middle Earth books, I read them all as a child and they really captured my imagination.
I read Mice and Men in secondary school; I must admit my English teacher was absolutely fantastic and really managed to get her class interested in a rather boring book; most of my class managed to pass her lessons with pretty high grades and I think it must have been down to her enthusiasm
The education system should take into account the age of the kids they're teaching to when they choose books for Literature classes, I reckon most kids couldn't care less about racism in the deep south of America in the last century, or some guy and his family who suffer because of his job loss.
Despite my teacher's enthusiasm, I hated Death of a Salesman. I yawned through every page and just hated the book. It didn't fire up my imagination and I had no empathy for the characters whatsoever, although I think being older might change my mind.
I haven't read the whole thread through yet, but one author who I love, yet struggle with at times is Steve Aylett. Slaughtermatic is a great book and it owes a real debt to Clockwork Orange, but I found myself getting lost in places.
...don't get me started about James Joyce *hatehatehate*
I read Mice and Men in secondary school; I must admit my English teacher was absolutely fantastic and really managed to get her class interested in a rather boring book; most of my class managed to pass her lessons with pretty high grades and I think it must have been down to her enthusiasm
The education system should take into account the age of the kids they're teaching to when they choose books for Literature classes, I reckon most kids couldn't care less about racism in the deep south of America in the last century, or some guy and his family who suffer because of his job loss. Despite my teacher's enthusiasm, I hated Death of a Salesman. I yawned through every page and just hated the book. It didn't fire up my imagination and I had no empathy for the characters whatsoever, although I think being older might change my mind.
I haven't read the whole thread through yet, but one author who I love, yet struggle with at times is Steve Aylett. Slaughtermatic is a great book and it owes a real debt to Clockwork Orange, but I found myself getting lost in places.
...don't get me started about James Joyce *hatehatehate*
Homer's Odyssey & Illiad. Oh and Virgil's Aeneid, they may be epic works, but to a modern audience they are so bloody sluggish.
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.Zeeky_Santos said:
A lot of things by Shakespeare...
And I didn't have to read constantly.
Actually, this, because at least I had a choice on reading Shakespeares books.Sacman said:
And I didn't have to read constantly.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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.
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)
