What is the most boring book ever?

Interesting that so many chose Moby Dick. It is a very unique work of art, to be sure. There's a block of about 200 pages in the middle of the book that is essentially a whaling textbook. This is extremely difficult to get through. However I think the book is brilliant and Melville's prose is still superior to any other English language writer I have read. His sentences, his vocabulary, are quite simply stunning. I can't count how many sentences I read in that book and realized that it would probably take me 20 minutes just to form a sentence this perfectly and lyrically. While reading that book, I was literally consumed by a feeling of disbelief that a single human being could sit down and create this from his mind. Genius. So don't look at the book as boring or exciting. It's a false and childish dichotomy. Look at conquering this book as an intellectual achievement, like working out your brain. Reading and understanding that book is something to be proud of IMO.

As for boring books, off the top of my head.....

I love Camus, The Plague and The Stranger are two of my favorite books of all-time, but I thought The Fall was oddly boring. I may have rushed through it and perhaps a second read would change my mind.

Recently read All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy and I thought it was far weaker than all the other books of his I've read. Probably 3/4 of that book was fairly unexciting.

Huge Kerouac fan, but I thought Big Sur was kind of boring, at least relative to On the Road and Dharma Bums.

Jude The Obscure by Thomas Hardy. All of the main characters annoyed me. Jude was such a shallow person and Sue well say no more. The only character that I like was Jude's great aunt, and she up and died halfway thru.

I have always enjoyed Hardy's books, but not this one.
My favourite of his was The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Most any novel by Henry James. There are exceptions, of course.

And The Jungle, by God. I appreciate it... I respect it, but I will never read it again.

Well, I'm currently reading Moby Dick and I must say it is indeed very boring.

Great Expectations

or

Less Than Zero

I wanted to add something new here, but alas, it has to be Moby Dick. Hands down worst novel ever.

Has To Be, Hands Down, Twilight.
Eclipse, Moon, whatever they are called.

Pathetic

x

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Originally Posted by iamnobody

I wanted to add something new here, but alas, it has to be Moby Dick. Hands down worst novel ever.

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Please do not confuse what you consider boring to poorly written.

I think it is funny so many mention Moby Dick, because that was the first actual book I've read (I was around eight), so with hindsight, I guess I couldn't have picked it worse (apart from Ulysses of course). I actually liked it, but maybe that was due to the fact that before this, I used to read children books with severely retarded, childish plots..

I don't think I understood much of it though. I remember complaining that it takes more than 200 pages until they finally see that awesome whale! Drove me crazy, I wanted action.

I can't really say what book I've read is most boring, because there are countless books I gave up after a period ranging from one sentence to 95% of the book (whoever thinks that giving up after one sentence is unfair, you shoulda seen that sentence it was the dumbest most boring thing I've ever read. I'd post it but it's German).

I think most classics (especially German) are boring and I hardly ever finish reading them.

Though there are sparks of genius and chapters that I love, Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea is excruciatingly boring.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

I think it is funny so many mention Moby Dick, because that was the first actual book I've read (I was around eight), so with hindsight, I guess I couldn't have picked it worse (apart from Ulysses of course). I actually liked it, but maybe that was due to the fact that before this, I used to read children books with severely retarded, childish plots..

I don't think I understood much of it though. I remember complaining that it takes more than 200 pages until they finally see that awesome whale! Drove me crazy, I wanted action.

I can't really say what book I've read is most boring, because there are countless books I gave up after a period ranging from one sentence to 95% of the book (whoever thinks that giving up after one sentence is unfair, you shoulda seen that sentence it was the dumbest most boring thing I've ever read. I'd post it but it's German).

I think most classics (especially German) are boring and I hardly ever finish reading them.

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I think there's a brilliant book in Moby Dick, there just happens to be a whaling manual and a whale encyclopeadia in there too.

I remember reading Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and I liked it, except for the discription of every single life form he encoutered under water.

Despite its crucial contribution in American history, I am having difficulty finishing The Federalist, I started it over a year ago. Other books I could not finish: The Fall of Napoleon by Michael V. Leggiere, DaVinci Code, and above all, the Bible.

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Originally Posted by Serena03

Despite its crucial contribution in American history, I am having difficulty finishing The Federalist, I started it over a year ago. Other books I could not finish: The Fall of Napoleon by Michael V. Leggiere, DaVinci Code, and above all, the Bible.

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The Da Vinci Code was not a good novel, but it was entertaining to an extent.

I found Washington Square pretty bad, but there are a lot of books i've yet to read so I can't say that it is the most boring.

General Patton once wrote a book about his experiences in WWII and it was dreadful. I do not know why it was published.

Well I'm new here, but I'm amazed that anyone mentions Moby Dick. Here's a selection of the "boring" part of Moby Dick:

Chapter xxxii - CETOLOGY

Now the various species of whales need some sort of popular comprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for the present, hereafter to be filled in all its departments by subsequent laborers. As no better man advances to take this matter in hand, I hereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I promise nothing complete; because any human thing supposed to be complete, must for that very reason infallibly be faulty. I shall not pretend to a minute anatomical description of the various species, or - in this place at least - to much of any description. My object here is simply to project the draught of a systematization of cetology. I am the architect, not the builder.

[And Melville goes on for a while and concludes]

. . . . Finally: It was stated at the outset, that this system would not be here, and at once, perfected. You cannot but plainly see that I have kept my word. But I now leave my cetological System standing thus unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with the crane still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower. For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything.

I admit that the first section is a bit strange, and nothing much seems to be happening. But the second? Is that really so boring? It seems to me one of the most exciting passages ever written. The whale is a mystery, and human understanding of the whale's body (which is a metaphor for both the natural world and the workings of God's mind) must always be incomplete.

Christ, was going to start on Moby Dick the other day! Sack that off. For me there aren't many i found so boring - perhaps i'm just very tolerant. I found Erewhon by Samuel Butler really started to drag in the second half, but it was still interesting on the whole. I also realised recently that i had read Atomised by Michel Houllebecq a couple of years ago yet can remember ABOLUTELY NOTHING about it. Not a good sign. I remember being bored by Hesse on 2 occassions as well (Demian and Siddhartha), though again not entirely. Yet to find a completely meritless novel, but i will continue to live in fear.

Ulysses, by Joyce. I read about half of it, then gave up due to the utter insignificance of it.

Cecilia by Fanny Burney. I could not concentrate while reading it. Fell asleep.

In all honesty, the Holy Bible.

To me, most literature is boring, LOL.

I love non-fiction, but with fiction, I prefer short stories or pulp.

I guess the most boring I've read was Red Badge of Courage.

I read Moby Dick last month and find it a very interesting read, even the facts about Cetology! But, mostly, it's a great adventure story. I can't see how anyone could find it boring. I agree with the negative comments about Ulysses & The Bible! For me, they tie with Proust for 'most boring'.

Hands down: the most boring book ever: 'EAT, PRAY, LOVE'

I COULDN'T WAIT TO FINISH READING THIS NOVEL, AND THE MOVIE WAS EVEN WORSE!

Jack Welch's autobiography(former CEO of GE) was tough to get through. It was not necessarily boring, but he sure was. Endless stories of firing people who had crossed him in the past and talking of his greatness.

And, oh yea, alot of stories about how he thought he made a mistake, but then it turned out to be a great thing in the end.

It's the only autobiography that I did not finish.

Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Totally pretentious and boringly macho. By the end I knew nothing more about Zen or Motorbikes than at the beginning. And was sick of the pompous twit.

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Originally Posted by Tournesol

Hands down: the most boring book ever: 'EAT, PRAY, LOVE'

I COULDN'T WAIT TO FINISH READING THIS NOVEL, AND THE MOVIE WAS EVEN WORSE!

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I hated that book. I agree with you. I could brave the movie. Good to her it is as bad as the book. I'll avoid it.

Tie:
White Noise--trash can after 70 pages
Of Mice And Men--that I was compelled to finish.

It's truly sad to see how many people can't, or (probably more accurate) aren't willing to read and discover the beauty, intricacy, innovation, humor, and language that makes Moby Dick so amazing.

As for me, I find the Where's Waldo? series rather slow.

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Originally Posted by tonywalt

Jack Welch's autobiography(former CEO of GE) was tough to get through. It was not necessarily boring, but he sure was. Endless stories of firing people who had crossed him in the past and talking of his greatness.

And, oh yea, alot of stories about how he thought he made a mistake, but then it turned out to be a great thing in the end.

It's the only autobiography that I did not finish.

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Sorry, but it serves you right for picking that book off the shelf. Who would have thought that a Gordon Gekko facsimile could be boring and pretentious?

Dracula by Bram Stoker is so absurd that it can't even be read for fun. You keep wishing for death while you are trying to read it and death never comes. It smells of rank undead Puritanism, but then all vampire stories do, yet what is really unforgivable is its religious tone. It is quite Victorian, it is quite stupid, and it is quite insufferable.

I never read it, but from the Gary Oldman film I seem to remember some really romantic anguish.

And, may I ask, what else is there to expect from something written so early apart from a lot of emotion? The Victorians were very much religion and morality oriented. I would say, stay away from anything 19th century if you don't want to be exasperated. Apart from Austen, then.

I never read Dickens for the very reason I never finished Dracula, Stoker's The Lair of the White Worm is alright though.

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Originally Posted by Tournesol

Hands down: the most boring book ever: 'EAT, PRAY, LOVE'

I COULDN'T WAIT TO FINISH READING THIS NOVEL, AND THE MOVIE WAS EVEN WORSE!

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This book is awful. Why did you bother finishing it, I gave up after thirty pages...

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Originally Posted by Seasider

Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Totally pretentious and boringly macho. By the end I knew nothing more about Zen or Motorbikes than at the beginning. And was sick of the pompous twit.

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Well, you might of guessed that it was pretentious (Zen) and boringly macho (motorbikes) from the title. It used to make me laugh when I saw someone reading it as though it wasn't just another piece of 1970s nonsense with a catchpenny title.

i'll go with skipping christmas. incredibly boring!! a couple choose not to have christmas.. so there they are.. not having christmas.. then their daughter says she wants to come home for christmas with her new boyfriend.. so.. oh dear.. theyve gt to have xmas after all.. so they go out shopping (yes, every shopping trip is explained in detail) and then they have xmas...
WHO CARES??
most boring novel on this planet!

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Originally Posted by DanielBenoit

To paraphrase a critic at the time of the play's debut, "Waiting for Godot achieves a theoretical impossibility in which nothing happens, and yet is completely able to hold our attention. And since the second act is merely a reflection of the first, it's a play in which nothing happens, twice."

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So if you didn't get it in the first act you won't get it in the second.

The Indian and the Cupboard.
It's so annoying.:out:

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Originally Posted by Emil Miller

So if you didn't get it in the first act you won't get it in the second.

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In the meantime, while we are waiting for Godot, I assume life goes on.

-Ask the Dust - JOHN FANTE

-The Bridge of San Luis Rey - THORNTON WILDER

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Originally Posted by deguonis

-Ask the Dust - JOHN FANTE

-The Bridge of San Luis Rey - THORNTON WILDER

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Ask the Dust by John Fante - the most boring book ever? I think not, I disagree.

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Originally Posted by G L Wilson

Ask the Dust by John Fante - the most boring book ever? I think not, I disagree.

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Right.

No. Not the most boring book ever but a true disappointment. Bukowski's review was quite appealing as he said "Fante is my God." So, although I hadn't read Bukowski prior to that date I envisioned "Ask the Dust" to be a truly good book. It was good. Just good. I expected it to be brilliant. That's why I say "a true disappointment."
Anyways, I'm beating about the bush.
Don't get mad, please.
Degu Onis