What is the most boring book ever?

I think that Jane Austen's Pride and Predjudice is the most boring book ever written. It is an overrated cheesy romance that appeals mainly to adolscent girls with nothing else to do on Saturday night. If published today, it would be featured at the checkout stand next to Sweet Valley High and Baby Sitter Club books, complete with a lurid cover of Elizabeth swept back in Mr. Darcy's arms and wind blowing through her hair. How did this book ever become "Classic" literature? Does anyone else feel this way?

I must strongly disagree with your filtered and base opinion of Prie and Prejudice. THis book is a fine piece of LIterature and to place it on the same level as Sweet Valley High and Baby Sitter books is like comparing dirt to pencils. THis book is perhaps one of the greatest illustrations of human nature that we have in our culture. To say such vile things aboout this work sugguest that perhaps you, "I hate Jane Austen" have not carefully read the book. I highly suggest that you read this book once more to gain a greater understanding of its morals and virtues.

I second that, Wilfred!

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Originally Posted by Wilfred

THis book is a fine piece of LIterature and to place it on the same level as Sweet Valley High and Baby Sitter books is like comparing dirt to pencils.

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Becuz if you've got somethin' against dirt and pencils, you've got somethin' against yourself!

Umm... Abdo, I think you missed something.

Robinson Crusoe by Defoe :evil:

Wuthering Heights off the top of my head

Indeed Wuthering Heights made my eyes bleed. :evil: :( But I loved the movie tho'.

I love "Wuthering Heights," but then I've got a big thing for doomed romances, and you get more doom in the book than the film.

The most boring read I ever in encountered was Angela Bowie's memoirs. I got to page 15 and gave up. How you can take the late '60s/early '70s rock scene and turn it into paint drying, I don't know, but she managed it.

ihrocks

I don't know if anyone has said this yet, but On the Beach. I think that was the title. It's supposed to be about a submarine that is out to sea during a nuclear war. I did a book report on it in in tenth grade, it went something like this:

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On the Beach is about Australian naval personell, and how dehydrated they are. They can't seem to quench this massive thirst. On page 2, a man and a woman drink beer on a beach. On page 14, a two officers order lemonade in a restaraunt. On page 22, coffee is served at a meeting. On page 36, someone drinks a glass of water. On page 48, a glass of limeade is ordered, and, two paragraphs later, a waitress brings it. On page 62, someone brews tea. I must confess, I stopped reading after page 120. Surely, I missed the ordering of the ceremonial apple juice, which must be the climax of the book.

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I don't mind books where people actually do things (ie, talk in a restraunt and order and recieve food), but the sheer amount of refreshing via liquid was distracting.

Everything by Marcel Proust that I have ever tried to read I have not been able to finish. I have tried again and again, approaching his work with an open mind, but every time I have been disappointed and bored so much that I put the book down before finishing it--which is extremely unusual for me.

Blood electric , by Kenji Siratori is probably the worst book I ever tried to read. Can´t decide if its plain dull ur just unreadable.

I quote the first lines -

" <<I record the vital-icon+our chromosome form escape of the suck=blood chromosome::the horizon of the body fluid= murder like the dog that was doen to nude gene= TV/spasm// "

And so on. For 224 pages!

Ugh, what horrible stuff. Did you buy this book? Keep the reciept? I'd take it back, with lots of growling.

And here comes opion #429, people please don't try so damn hard to be `cool' and `hip' and `modern' and `different'. It's awful, you write yourself into oblivion with stuff like this.

Maybe people will say, `Well hell, this Siratori guy is way ahead of his time" or somesuch, but it's deliberate and contrived, like painting by numbers, only this guy has jumbled up crosswords or something. UNintelligible. Or maybe you need to be on heroin to comprehend.

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Originally Posted by Isagel

Blood electric , by Kenji Siratori is probably the worst book I ever tried to read. Can´t decide if its plain dull ur just unreadable.

I quote the first lines -

" <<I record the vital-icon+our chromosome form escape of the suck=blood chromosome::the horizon of the body fluid= murder like the dog that was doen to nude gene= TV/spasm// "

And so on. For 224 pages!

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There's only one book I haven't been able to finish though I tried- 3 times! I'm not sure if it's the book's fault or mine, so I won't say "boring book" but the one I certainly can't stand - Dr. Zhivago. I've never got beyond 40 pages!
Um- I actually quite liked Moby Dick. Ditto for Ulysses and Crime and Punishment. And Pride and Prejdice and Wuthering Heights are high on my list of perpetual rereads.

I just finished "A Room With a View." While there was some great characterization and artistic symbolism in it, the plot went nowhere. Forster wrote about things that happened in the story in such a way that they seem significant, but if you think about what just happened, you realize that NOTHING HAPPENED AT ALL!

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" <<I record the vital-icon+our chromosome form escape of the suck=blood chromosome::the horizon of the body fluid= murder like the dog that was doen to nude gene= TV/spasm// "

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Did anyone else think that this looked like >shudder< E.E. Comings trying to write a novel?
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I know a book that would win 'most boring book ever' HANDS DOWN. IT IS THE MOST BORING BOOK EVER. My economics book (of course). Unclear explanations, convoluted sentences, it's got it all.

I cast my vote for Cry, the Beloved Country. While I could appreciate what it was trying to do, I was bored out of my mind the entire time.

And I love Fitzgerald, but gosh, Tender is the Night was a chore to get through!

Which book you have read is the most boring one?

Thus Spake Zarathustra

I don't think it would have been so bad if I would have had more than 5 days to read it. And if I wouldn't have had the biggest jerk for a teacher for who's class I was reading this book. When he asked what was taking us so long to read it and we said we could not understand the book if we read too fast, he said "what's to understand. IT's a book. You never read to understand, just to gain the form of the book." When asked "What is the form of a book?" He points to a chair and says "That is a form." and walks out of the classroom. No one ever understood what he meant by the "FORM" of a book. It doesn't matter to me anymore. I got an A in the class.

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Originally Posted by Monica

Which book you have read is the most boring one?

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Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. Had to read it for school, and I hated my teacher for it.

CBW, your teacher said, "You never read to understand"??? *mouth agape* What a terrible teacher!! What other reason is there to read? Boy oh boy.

Well, it's not a book per se, but I was thoroughly bored when we read "A Doll's House" by Ibsen in school. At least there wasn't much of it.

Jane Eyre.

I was forced to read that dreck for highschool English. I found it hard to concentrate on the book for want of checking every 5 minutes to see if the paint on the walls had peeled a little further... it was THAT BAD...

oh gosh. I just had to read To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf and The Portrait of a Young Artist by James Joyce for my Modern British Literature class and I hated them. I hated them with a passion. They were immensely boring, in fact so much so that I used them to cure insomnia. Okay I'll stop bashing them. I'm sure there are people out there who liked them. They simply weren't my cup of tea.

J.Sand "Consuela"
Bulgakov "Master and Margarita"
They were so boring that my efforts to finish them flew away and I threw those books too far from me.
There was one boring book else by Faulkner, but I don't know its correct name in English. But in translation it sounds as "private residence"

Dickens. Anything by him. I've never had the patience for it.

And Madam Bovary. Couldn't get past the first 20 or so pages for all the capitalization. Read what Sparknotes had to say about it, since it was for a class, and became very happy that I didn't actually read the thing.

Moby Dicks. And anything by Conrad and Henry James. Not that I ever read any of those completely, of course.

I agree with you on Joyce's `Portrait' :brickwall It just went on and on and on and on with no plot or point, I kept reading trying to find the pearl, the jewels of wisdom that would compel me to turn the page. I didn't finish it, and that rarely happens to me. Although I was reading it on advice of someone else who obviously doesn't know my interests or taste in lit at all.


I also can't stand reading `fiction' that is rife with endnotes. Of course for the version of Portrait I have it's helpful to have some contextual notes on pronunciation, meaning and /or background on some colloqialisms etc. to derive futher meaning. But put `em as footnotes for gawds sake! 56 pages of them for 272 pages of text, that's about 4 endnotes per page! Really distracting flipping back and forth when you're trying to `follow' the gist.




I'm reading Wild Animus now by Rich Shapero ... it was a freebie give away advance reading copy from bookcrossing.com and omg I can't stand it it's obvious it's his first book, very naive and so cliche ridden I keep tossing it aside.


It's about some guy who wants to be a Dall sheep, consumes daily amounts of lsd to `get into the spirit of' a ram, and goes to Alaska's Mount Wrangell to fulfill his `destiny', dressed up as a ram, cloven hoof shoes and all, whilst his hapless girlfriend waits tables to fund his `spiritual quest' to bring lsd-hazed enlightenment to the masses. :rolleyes:

Can you say flashback? Hello? The 60's called and they want their tired hippy flap-crap back. :lol:

But don't some of you feel compelled to read something sometime, because it was a book given to you? or you heard it was good ... I have to read boring dry scholarly journals and technical stuff for work, and I hated it in school being `sentenced' to reading certain books. I found Lord of the Flies boring too because we studied it in-depth for weeks on end, every comma and semi-colon. It was cool to see the movie though.

Give me Wilbur Smith, James Michener or Anne Rice any day ... when I have to read stuff for work, I need some good history-based escapism too.

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Originally Posted by Love to Read

oh gosh. I just had to read To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf and The Portrait of a Young Artist by James Joyce for my Modern British Literature class and I hated them. I hated them with a passion. They were immensely boring, in fact so much so that I used them to cure insomnia. Okay I'll stop bashing them. I'm sure there are people out there who liked them. They simply weren't my cup of tea.

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pride and prejudice. i read it in high school and detested it, but then again, high school wasn't so great on explaining literature that well. i had to read sense and sensibility for a british lit course in college last year, and to my surprise, it wasn't as bad as i thought it was going to be. there is a lot going on besides the soap opera aspects, so maybe i should give pride and prejudice a try again...not too likely anytime soon, though.

*wheedling voice
not even for the forum book club?

Diceman I'm with you, Jane Eyre was pitiful and just plain boring.
Same with you Mike Pride and Prejudice didn't do anything for me, nor did Wuthering Heights.

A lot of the books I read in school were really boring
Lord of the Flies
Contents of a Copper Cylinder
Thirty Acres
etc.

Anything else, I probably read and forgot that I didn't like. School books are just easier to recall because you talk about them so much.

That's a good point. But school does have a unique way of squelching the enjoyability of literature. Although I remember really enjoying Lord of the Flies.

I can't choose...

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Originally Posted by Diceman

Jane Eyre.

I was forced to read that dreck for highschool English. I found it hard to concentrate on the book for want of checking every 5 minutes to see if the paint on the walls had peeled a little further... it was THAT BAD...

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I agree with you, Diceman.

Jane Eyre was such a struggle to read that I didn't even finish it. I just couldn't engage with it at all.

Another vote for Jane Eyre..the story is very plain. i finished reading it though..

Splendid avatar, Sub. :D

i second, third, and fourth that.

Shall I express the fifth then, or is that already taken?

Hmm. "Jane Eyre" wasn't nearly as boring for me as "Daisy Miller" by Henry James, or "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin. It was a freakin' glass bottle full of firecrackers compared to the vast majority of Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" which was essentially a couple hundred pages of binomial nomenclature for underwater whatnots. Yeehawr, let the party begin!
Also, am I the only one that was bored crapless by "Frankenstein"? I'm not really sure why that one bored me so much, but it did, and very well that that.

The only James Joyce I've read so far is "The Dead", which I could hardly bear the first time I had to read it, but thoroughly enjoyed the second time around. Go figure.

Thank you for Frankenstein! That book was deplorable. I'll forgive it being remembered as a "classic" all these years, since there are worse with that label, but someone explain why it's been given the label "horror"? It was more like "Travels With Sasquatch."