Tolkein again for me though it was The Silmarillion. Always get so far then get a bout of why am I forcing myself to read this.
What's the most boring book you've ever read?
- Thread starter Kenbo Slice
- Start date
All books.
I like reading news, interviews, science, factual stuff, someone even dared me to read the whole Oxford dictionary so i did, but i can't get into fictional books. Just can't translate text to pictures like people who like books claim they do, video games and movies do that for me so i can enjoy stories in those mediums, but not books.
I like reading news, interviews, science, factual stuff, someone even dared me to read the whole Oxford dictionary so i did, but i can't get into fictional books. Just can't translate text to pictures like people who like books claim they do, video games and movies do that for me so i can enjoy stories in those mediums, but not books.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
It remains to date the only book I've ever read that actually physically put me to sleep.I'm not even joking.It was so boring I could never read more than ten pages without my eyes starting to close.I had to finish it as I was reading it for school but fuck me it was a chore
It remains to date the only book I've ever read that actually physically put me to sleep.I'm not even joking.It was so boring I could never read more than ten pages without my eyes starting to close.I had to finish it as I was reading it for school but fuck me it was a chore
At first, it would have been a toss up between Fellowship of the Ring and Great Expectations. Thing is, Fellowship's problem (in my mind, at least) was the beautiful descriptions being applied to trivial things, making things very, very long when they needn't have been. But after taking a class on the series (I had to burn an elective), it became obvious that Tolkien was more a linguist than an author. Put a whole lot of things into proper context, and it was interesting to see the million little paralels in the old english works he used. Still a slow book, but if you compress the events a bit, it's not bad.
Great Expectations has even less going for it. Near the end of it (had to read it for a high school class), my brain just put it's metaphorical foot down and refused to read another word. I got ill thinking about forcing myself and when I did it anyway, the ink on the page might as well have spelled out how to summon cthulu for all the good it did. Just...complete lack of care, translation of symbol to meaning did not occur. I only got through by audio book and even that was tortuously boring. The only upside to the entire bloody thing was the Convict whose name escapes me at the moment, and that's only the case because the guy who played him in a school production was very good.
Great Expectations has even less going for it. Near the end of it (had to read it for a high school class), my brain just put it's metaphorical foot down and refused to read another word. I got ill thinking about forcing myself and when I did it anyway, the ink on the page might as well have spelled out how to summon cthulu for all the good it did. Just...complete lack of care, translation of symbol to meaning did not occur. I only got through by audio book and even that was tortuously boring. The only upside to the entire bloody thing was the Convict whose name escapes me at the moment, and that's only the case because the guy who played him in a school production was very good.
I got two:
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. The whole book is long, full of characters and a Victorian language style that was too dense. Charles Dickens was paid by the word to write each chapter for the newspaper it first showed in. I'd like to say that a good artist is one who doesn't value money over what they make, but Dickens does not do that at all. There's too many words! So much of this writing could have been condensed down into something much shorter. Not only that, but both my mother, and my grandmother hate this novel. Why in the world was I ever assigned to read it in 9th grade?
Candid by Voltaire. What a lame book. The entire premise was supposed to be about a guy who does not care at all and is the epitome of apathy around others. He gets into a relationship, he doesn't care. He goes to jail, he doesn't care. He eats a salad, he doesn't care. Yeah, I don't think I'll ever care about this book.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. The whole book is long, full of characters and a Victorian language style that was too dense. Charles Dickens was paid by the word to write each chapter for the newspaper it first showed in. I'd like to say that a good artist is one who doesn't value money over what they make, but Dickens does not do that at all. There's too many words! So much of this writing could have been condensed down into something much shorter. Not only that, but both my mother, and my grandmother hate this novel. Why in the world was I ever assigned to read it in 9th grade?
Candid by Voltaire. What a lame book. The entire premise was supposed to be about a guy who does not care at all and is the epitome of apathy around others. He gets into a relationship, he doesn't care. He goes to jail, he doesn't care. He eats a salad, he doesn't care. Yeah, I don't think I'll ever care about this book.
The one that stands out to me as the most obnoxious on all levels was 'The Great Gatsby'. Apart from being badly paced and generally boring, I think a lot of it's (alleged) commentary is on something distinctly American and loses impact when read by an Australian.
Silas. Fucking. Marner.
Good heavens, I have never read a thing more dull in my life. If there is anything to get excited about in that book, it's how exceedingly awful every single bit of it is. Apparently, it's considered enough of a classic that it is part of literature courses. I can't see how. It goes on for pages and pages with nothing of consequence happening. Then it skips sixteen years to have more of the unlikable roles that fail to be characters do more nothing.
It's described as tackling themes of love and religion and community and all of that and as far as I could tell, no it fucking didn't that was a filthy fucking lie. Basically, the titular "character" is a hermit who accidentally ends up kidnapping a child and raising her as his own, redeeming his hermit-dom and hatefulness by completely turning it around with no actual motivation whatsoever. Then we SKIP the entire raising part (not like anything interesting happened there) to the point where her unlikable parents try to buy her back buy she decides to stay with the guy who you know fucking raised her since she was an infant are you honestly trying to buy back your abandoned child you sick freaks is anyone in this book human or are you all demons.
Needless to say, I wasn't particularly fond of it.
EDIT:
And ooh, a close second is "A Painted House" by someonewithafuckingfirstnameiforgot Grisham.
Basically, it acts like it's a coming-of-age novel, which is it's excuse for throwing nothing but pointless bullshit at us for several hundred pages all told from the perspective of an annoying, horny child. I am okay with the kind of life stories. I don't need high adventure or action or such. But if you're going to focus simply on someone's life, at least make their life remotely interesting or at least make the character remotely likable.
Good heavens, I have never read a thing more dull in my life. If there is anything to get excited about in that book, it's how exceedingly awful every single bit of it is. Apparently, it's considered enough of a classic that it is part of literature courses. I can't see how. It goes on for pages and pages with nothing of consequence happening. Then it skips sixteen years to have more of the unlikable roles that fail to be characters do more nothing.
It's described as tackling themes of love and religion and community and all of that and as far as I could tell, no it fucking didn't that was a filthy fucking lie. Basically, the titular "character" is a hermit who accidentally ends up kidnapping a child and raising her as his own, redeeming his hermit-dom and hatefulness by completely turning it around with no actual motivation whatsoever. Then we SKIP the entire raising part (not like anything interesting happened there) to the point where her unlikable parents try to buy her back buy she decides to stay with the guy who you know fucking raised her since she was an infant are you honestly trying to buy back your abandoned child you sick freaks is anyone in this book human or are you all demons.
Needless to say, I wasn't particularly fond of it.
EDIT:
And ooh, a close second is "A Painted House" by someonewithafuckingfirstnameiforgot Grisham.
Basically, it acts like it's a coming-of-age novel, which is it's excuse for throwing nothing but pointless bullshit at us for several hundred pages all told from the perspective of an annoying, horny child. I am okay with the kind of life stories. I don't need high adventure or action or such. But if you're going to focus simply on someone's life, at least make their life remotely interesting or at least make the character remotely likable.
I like several of the books already mentioned. 1984 in particular, which I would probably call my favourite book ever! Since I seem to like boring books, trust me when I say that The Room (no relation to Tommy Wiseau's masterpiece) by Hubert Selby Jr (of Requiem for a Dream fame (sorry for the abuse of parentheses)) is the most frustrating and tedious book I've ever read. It's about a simple-minded criminal who's locked in a cell and fantasizes about revenge. The end.
Wuthering Heights. And the fact that I had to read it for school really didn't help. Nothing. freaking. HAPPENS!
Mine has to be "Buddenbrooks" by Thomas Mann. In fact it's so boring it provides a whole new experience, plunging into depths of tedium seldomly reachable otherwise. I could almost recommend it.
What matters is that you liked it? No, no I don't think so. People reading it to reinforce their own hatred are being a bit silly, but - let's be honest - it's one of the most hated books ever written, at least by most of the internet's standards. At least these people are putting in an effort to see firsthand how awful it is.TheKangaroos said:
And I read it from an entirely unbiased perspective. I didn't even know what it was, going in. And let me say, I feel the hate is fully justified. I wouldn't say it here though. It isn't boring, persay. I think it's more along the lines of atrocious. I'm not hating the book for it's inability to keep me interested. I'm hating it for the fact that it's among the worst things I've ever read.
This. I tried reading it after the movies. Got as far as The Prancing Pony.....and that was such a chore.Elfgore said:
Atlas Shrugged.
It started out ok, and I was intrigued to find out who John Gault was. Then when he finally showed up he wouldn't stop talking and I just wished he'd go away. That was a rough one to get through. It was boring and became increasing immoral (at least in my mind).
It started out ok, and I was intrigued to find out who John Gault was. Then when he finally showed up he wouldn't stop talking and I just wished he'd go away. That was a rough one to get through. It was boring and became increasing immoral (at least in my mind).
I felt that the quality of the writing was on a par with J.K. Rowling's in all the Harry Potter's although the content/plot was admittedly worse, and that's all I had read before I read the Twilight books. Of course, you could also hold the Harry Potter books in the same low regard as Twilight so this might make no difference to you.Necromancer Jim said:
Just so as to get an idea of your tastes, what are 5 books you've enjoyed?
That... is not at all what Candide is about. It's about, in part, a man who finds the philosophical teachings of Optimism (that this is the best of all worlds, and everything that happens is the best thing that can possibly happen) to be the only way to look at the world and life. He then suffers a series of increasingly devastating events (most of which are hilarious) until he meets a man, Martin, who does not share his views of the world and in fact thinks everything is shit and finally Candide gives up on his optimistic (both the modern usage and the philosophical teachings) ideals.Slenn said:
Are you sure you mean Candide?
Seconded. I had to write an analysis on this book for a literature class, and I came up with jack all and a side of fries. There is no depth (or at the least, a lot lot less than the board of literature professors who developed the class seem to think there is) to this book.Dirty Hipsters said:
You've been down this road before. The concept of "a boring and unfulfilling life" is such a basic and well known concept that children's stories seem content to launch off of it and subvert it in the first act. But no. Essentially, you're waiting for a magical adventure that never happens, and you're just left with Tom and Laura moping about and doing nothing of consequence for the whole story.
Your real life is more interesting than this, because at least you have the internet. There's nothing for anyone in this book. Really.
"Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervntes is the only book I've ever NOT finished.
It's a classic! It's philosophical! It's a thousand pages of basically the same thing happening every chapter:
Don Quixote and Pancho Villa ride into town. Quixote mistakes something for something else and acts in a way the enrages the townspeople. They run him out of town. Pancho Villa saves the day.
Later. Rinse. Repeat.
It's a classic! It's philosophical! It's a thousand pages of basically the same thing happening every chapter:
Don Quixote and Pancho Villa ride into town. Quixote mistakes something for something else and acts in a way the enrages the townspeople. They run him out of town. Pancho Villa saves the day.
Later. Rinse. Repeat.
It's like a quarter of the book (I'm exaggerating a little...) of him just speaking for hours and it's easily my favourite part of the whole thing. I love it! I may be weird like that, but I like to listen to people speak passionately and artfully, whether it be about something important (Christopher Hitchens, Martin Luther King) or something frivolous (Steve Jobs). I totally get your objection, though, and I think you are right. I could never recommend the book to someone, but I personally love it.ellers07 said:
I like a lot of the stuff mentioned in this thread, such as 1984, Lord of the Rings (not a favourite, but so many people seem to hate it, I just wanted to mention it*), Crime and Punishment and some other stuff that may have been mentioned just once.
On topic: David Copperfield - I make an effort to read most of "the classics" and usually I don't find it a chore. There's some highs (Crime and Punishment, Animal Farm), some lows (Robinson Crusoe), but they all "work" fairly effortlessly.
David Copperfield, though, is just painful. It put me off my whole classics reading mission for 6 months, because it took so much out of me. I can't say it's not an adventure, or a grand life lived, but it just fails to make me care about any of the characters and the writing style does not help the reader at all, but instead just makes each sentence an uphill climb.
*I liked the movies when they were new and shiny, but they just do not hold up - so shallow and boring!)