Amph Most boring books ever

There were quite a few books we read in high school that were boring, but nothing came close to Jude the Obscure.

 

But that's ... sort of the point of the whole book, isn't it? I gathered Flaubert was shining a light on how repulsive the middle class's tastes were, how they were utterly insipid, and consequently Emma was the anti-heroine to end all anti-heroines?

 

the catcher in the rye

 

The Old Man and the Sea.

And I could never finish The Brothers Karamazov, no matter how many times I've tried. That book is frustratingly tedious.

 

WHAT?

Candide was amazing. The funniest book I have ever read. I used to sit in the cafeteria at lunch and read it giggling like a madman. I got so many funny looks that year...
Voltaire just skewers Leibniz. It's divine.

 

I agree with you that Brave New World is disturbing. It's funny, but people often utilize 1984 as an example of dystopian government. I think it's an important book, but Brave New World manages to capture the fact that what we love and enjoy can be used to control us just as readily as what we fear. Still have some issues with both books, but they're definitely worthwhile reads.

It's weird, too, but I found both much easier to get through than the V for Vendetta graphic novel that my English teacher lent me. I never did finish it either (although that was more due to the school year ending).

Oh and anakinfansince1983

It's cool if you don't like Candide. One of the reasons I came to really enjoy it was because we had a substitute in English class once who taught philosophy that spent a good while chatting with me about it. In fairness to you, too, my mother told me she didn't enjoy it either when she read it in high school.

 

For me, it wasn't that the book bored me, but that the lead character was such a total jerk that I didn't want to read about him.

 

Wasn't that the working title for Seutonius' The Twelve Caesars?

 

That's possible. If I'd been told that when I first read the book, that might have helped...

 

You didn't need to be told anything about the point of the book. You hated her, just as you were supposed to. You experienced the book exactly is Flaubert intended. The problem is when you distrust your experience; "Oh, I hated Emma Bovary, but I doubt that's how I'm supposed to feel. It's probably supposed to be a romance and it fails to be a romance." Trust your experience; you hated her, so assume that you were supposed to. Unless someone flat out told you that the book was a romance, in which case that person was an idiot.

I think some people are listing books that aren't really boring, but books that they hated. If a book is boring, you'll really have no feeling about it at all except tedium. Some people named books that they seemed angry about; but if a book makes you angry, it could be many things, but boring isn't one of those things. I don't see, for instance, how Ender could call the Bible boring. He seems to enjoy discussing it a whole lot and portions of it seem to infuriate him. Just because you find a book disagreeable in some philosophical or emotional way, that doesn't make it boring. Like The Painted Bird; it's the book that I loathe the most in the whole world. It's the one book that makes me wish I believed in burning books. It definitely wasn't boring it. The experience of reading it was an experience of deeply visceral distaste for the story, the characters and the author; it was a rage-inducing experience filled with disdain and moral outrage. It's my least favorite book ever, but it wasn't boring . . . on the contrary, it was actually one of the most visceral reading experiences I've ever had.

Herewith a couple of mine.

The Magus - John Fowles - guy goes to remote island and some dude on the island likes to play mind games that the book thinks are really fascinating and philosophical. Unfortunately, everyone is so lackadaisical that it hardly seems any mind games are going on at all. That thing could have used an editor or ten; over seven hundred pages of lounging around an island talking about philosophy (without having any genuine insights at all) and occasionally the main character would be like, "Huh, that's kind of weird; I wonder if I'm being tricked or something. Well, whatever."

The Immoralist - Andre Gide - French guy decides that he's going to live a life of total selfishness and amorality and just basically not care who he screws over for the rest of his life. Spends the rest of the book sitting around thinking about how enlightened he is while smoking and basically doesn't do anything else. Yes, it's all very shocking for Gide to create a genuinely sociopathic character. Next time, maybe a sociopath who actually does something instead of just sit around congratulating himself for being a sociopath.

Let's see, there was another one I had, but it's slipped my mind.

Well, I see a pattern. I need to stop reading books that have titles that start with "The."

 

The only two books I've been genuinely bored by are Northanger Abbey and Wuthering Heights. Yes, I know lots of people love the second one, but I don't see it.

 

There were several novels in high school that I utterly detested, The Stone Angel was one, To Kill A Mockingbird was another and Lord of the Flies was a third. I also absolutely hated Frankenstein. I chalk it up the fact that all the cool authors that I actually would have enjoyed being taught, like JRR Tolkien, Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan were all on the ISU/book report list.

 

Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are real wrist-slitters.... If Charlie Rose were a novel.
Dragon Lance crap too... ugh.

 

Y'all stop bashing Catcher in the Rye, or I will go to your house and steal all of your Star Wars toys.

 

Or they don't like to read icky old stuff....

 

Sorry dude, Catcher in the Rye is a piece of poop. Holden is a nasty little Sociopath. I hope its never made into a movie, how could anyone root for this prick?

 

Thanks for crapping on two American classics... Mark Twain will love it.

 

I don't you can compare Lord of the Rings and Dragon Lance.

What I would have liked is for my English teachers to understand that the most easily teachable books are the ones that have something to say and do it in an entertaining manner instead of making me slog through 500 pages of boring, badly written pretentious crap.

 

Hipsters root for him. I root for him. He's also not a sociopath. He comes from a crappy upbringing and is extremely cynical and depressed.

 

@PiettsHat: Quite. I found 1984 rather unsettling as well but both are worth reading for the warnings they contain. HS forced reading is something I don't miss. I love reading and learning but not about such topics as these books cover.

 

I sort of agree with you in that oh my god The Brothers Karamazov just keeps on going and going and Dmitri's an absolute idiot, but I still really like it. It's like Moby-Dick, there's a really good book in there if you can stay awake during the (many) digressions.

But you're wrong about The Old Man and the Sea