What's the most boring book you've ever read?

[Lightknight]

Yeah, I'd say The Fountainhead was the last time Ayn Rand had any intellectually defensible ideas, before her ego consumed her entirely and all that. Except the fucking creepy self-inflicted-rape-seduction-romance between the the male and female leads. It's likely because her ideas look waaaay less awful when framed in terms of artistic idealism as opposed to economic and physical reality. She is a shit writer though, and the woman needed an editor who could actually take a machete to a piece of writing.

That scene did certainly take a weird turn. But the idea was that he knew her so well that he knew she wasn't actually saying no. In the real world, that's totally rape. In this fictional setting there was nigh supernatural subtext to the situation that made it otherwise. Like having a partner who screams "Oh no, oh stop (shortly to be followed by multiple yes's and then one shazaam)" when that's not really what they mean and you only know that because of your familiarity. Still an awkward and unnecessary situation. She did make the situation that on purpose, but he understood and that provides some relief from the gravity of the situation.

Did she write something before The Fountainhead that was equally intellectually defensible? Well, I don't know if intellectually defensible is the term. Her values and ethics, while starkly contrary to social norms, were intellectually pled. Perhaps morally defensable would be better suited to it?

Also, while you're first point certainly is correct, looking at what a lot of people have to say about lots of the "literary" books on this thread, it seems like lots of escapists did in fact miss the point of their least favorite works. What worries me more is that people seem to automatically write off any story that has an abundance of characters who are "assholes". Which just looks close minded to me. We've all been assholes at times, and if people don't recognize that being a bit of a jerk can make the difference between a bland character and a bloody brilliant character, or make a banal story into one that has one hell of a lot to say under the surface

I fully agree with you and find the books with a bunch of jerks in it to be a lot more entertaining. But tastes in literature are so subjective that I can't really blame people for disliking some works anymore than movies or TV shows. My disgust at Herman Meville's writing in Moby Dick were the chapters he went into intricate detail with full-blown chapters on topics that could not have interested me any less. Someone else may like the detail he went into. That's one of the same reasons I can't honestly put 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at the top of my list despite really enjoying the story otherwise. It's well above Moby Dick though because Jules Verne was practically predicting electric submarines in the 1870's. But man if he didn't delve into biological matters in a similar manner to how a truly boring biologist would at finding a peculiar slug with a single red stripe. I get that it sets the tone, but in both Moby Dick and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea it was a boring tone it was setting unless you're fascinated by that subject in particular. And yet, I found the copious details in several other works to be fascinating. But that's just by topic, I suppose. A biologist or oceanographer (amature or otherwise) may have loved those sections in both.

So, that's to say that subjectivity makes it difficult to judge one's evaluation of boredom unless their critic contains clear and objective innaccuracies. Like they got really bored during the Robinson Crusoe when Crusoe first opened up the casino and trained the native monkeys as butlers. Then you can really go, "What... no... that's wrong."

 

[Dedtoo]

Well, I didn't really like "Gaunt's Ghosts: First and only". It was just too many names, and too little happening for me. I got past the first battle, and no names stuck to my mind, nor any personalities or anything else. I found it... Boring. So I stopped reading it.

But as there's come out a bunch of books after that in the series, I'm obviously wrong.

 

[LadyTiamat]

1st - Twilight: it bored me so much I never finished the book.

2nd - Drayling (by terry j newman): it promised a dysopian mystery but all i got was 90% explanation of the world, history, character's actions I gave up on caring. Kept reading to find out the 'big mystery' but was filled with so many plot holes it was just a letdown.

3rd: Anything by Anne McAffery; I may have liked her as a teen but my tastes have moved on. She just puts me to sleep.

 

[LadyTiamat]

Fucking Eragon. Christopher Paolini is, and will always be, male Stephenie Meyer. The dude just can't write.

The book is about 400ish pages, and about half of that is stuffed full of useless fucking shit like "Eragon made dinner. Eragon sat down at the table. Eragon ate dinner."

And it only gets worse in the second book, Eldest.

I agree; but i read all the books and i blame for immature read tastes as a teen for starting me reading them but just plain curiosity to finish......I will never read any more of his books.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Pride and Prejudice for me. I can understand that it was a big game-changer when it was published, and I respect what it did for the literary world. But my God, was it dull.

 

[ClockworkAngel]

In middle school I was required to read Great Expectations. Maybe it's unfair for me to say it's the most boring book I ever read, because I read the first sentence of that book, said "Nope!", and closed it forever.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

In middle school I was required to read Great Expectations. Maybe it's unfair for me to say it's the most boring book I ever read, because I read the first sentence of that book, said "Nope!", and closed it forever.

Would you say that "Great Expectations" was less than you were hoping for?

 

[Brian Tams]

Fucking Eragon. Christopher Paolini is, and will always be, male Stephenie Meyer. The dude just can't write.

The book is about 400ish pages, and about half of that is stuffed full of useless fucking shit like "Eragon made dinner. Eragon sat down at the table. Eragon ate dinner."

And it only gets worse in the second book, Eldest.

Wasn't there some big hype when the book first came out because he got it published at 13? Which would go a long way to explaining why the book has writing issues.

Two things about that.

1. He was fifteen when he wrote the first draft.
2. I also expected bad writing in the first because it was his first ever book. However, he was much older when Eldest was published, and he had clearly regressed as a writer. The last two books after that hovered around Eldest level of writing.

 

[Lightknight]

In middle school I was required to read Great Expectations. Maybe it's unfair for me to say it's the most boring book I ever read, because I read the first sentence of that book, said "Nope!", and closed it forever.

Would you say that "Great Expectations" was less than you were hoping for?

Perhaps ClockworkAngel thought the book would be much better from the onset but was subsequently let down due to his/her lofty presumption as to the work's entertainment value?

 

[CheeksMcGraw]

I cannot imagine a worse book than The Scarlet Letter. What little plot that exists is stopped for pages and pages over Hawthorne talking about the intrinsic beauty of some rosebush that's inconsequential to anything in the story. Also the paragraphs just go on forever, as if the guy had never heard of paragraph breaks, making the act of reading absurdly tedious.

 

[o_d]

Just think how many great books mentioned in this thread (Gatsby, Mockingbird, Dickens) have been ruined for people because they were forced to read them in school.

 

[[REDACTED]]

I absolutely hated Gore Vidal's Creation when I read it a few years back. Decent history and comparative mythology textbook, terrible novel. The plot didn't seem to ever go anywhere, existing mainly as an excuse to ferry the main character from place to place, chatting with famous people from history. It was an absolute slog, not at all helped by the fact that the main character was completely unlikeable. I loved Julian, so this was a pretty severe disappointment to me.

Edit:

Snow Crash.
The main character's name is "Hero Protagonist" ...
Need I say more?

Well... yes, actually. Seems to me like a novel could easily get away with that if it had a less-than-serious tone.

SNIP

YOU SHUT YOUR... okay, it's okay, not everyone has to like the same things, it's okay...

*Deep breath*

So your reason for disliking the Metamorphosis is that they never explain the bug thing. Just out of curiosity, and not at all out of barely restrained psychotic rage, do you think it would have been a better story if Kafka had explained it? Or should he just not have written the story at all?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Put me down as another person who was bored to tears by Twilight. I saw the first movie and thought it was halfway decent (this may have had something to do with just how abysmal my expecations were), so I went ahead and tried to read the book. I gave up when I was a quarter of the way through and literally nothing had happened. To this day I see that movie as an example of how to make a movie anyone can enjoy out of a book you have to be a special kind of crazy to like.

In fact, that's my big beef with Twilight: I don't hate it, I have very little opinion on the content [footnote]My most hated book would probably be Wuthering Heights, actually. Hard to like a book where you hate every single character.[/footnote]. It's just so mind numbingly boring that I don't understand how it could have gotten so popular. I mean The Silmarillion moves faster, and that's /really/ saying something.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Mein Kampf.

You would think that a book describing in great detail a plan to commit genocide and take over Europe would hold your attention.

Nope, it just drones on and on. The most interesting section was copied straight from a German field manual. AN ARMY FIELD MANUAL.

How was this the book that led to his rise to power?

 

[Dalisclock]

Wrong Person! I didn't write that :/

My apologies, Ponyholder.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

Starship Troopers.

I know, I'm committing nerd heresy, but it put me to sleep trying to read through it.

 

[Chocolate Mousse]

Cry the Beloved Country

What the bloody hell? Why is dialogue begun with a dash? Why are the characters so lifeless? What is going on?

If you want good African literature, i suggest Things Fall Apart instead. That book as amazing.

 

[sagitel]

Les Misérables. it is the most tedious thing i have ever tried to read. my mom had the book so she told me to get them. i saw the complete edition in a bookstore and bought them. and it was the worst mistake i have done in my reading life. he just goes on and on and on about things that are not interesting or important at all! remember bishop myriel that gave Jean Valjean a new life? he gets 100 pages. and everything important about him is that he saw Jean Valjean and gave him some silver things then let Jean Valjean escape. thats it! he gets 100 pages of history. then there are at least 50 page about who lived in paris at that day. after a while i found myself reading only 1 page out of every 15 and still not loosing any plot points. and having an old school translation with big words and small font size certainly didnt help.

 

[Amaror]

A german book called "Die Leiden des jungen Werters" which would translate to "The Sufferings of the young Werter"
It's an old book and it's pretty well done but god it is booooring.
Although to be fair it's hard to make a story exciting if everyone that reads your books is going to hate the main character.
He's a useless idiot, born of a rich family, so he never has to work or anything. He falls in love with this girl, that doesn't love him and that's basically the story. He continues to whine and whine how hard and unfair his live is, while he doesn't do ANYTHING productive and his very neighbors have to work all day to keep them fed and he just whines and whines.