Originally Posted by Grit
To escape. The same goes for me.
To escape. The same goes for me.
The Pearl and Heart of Darkness
Nooooooo not Heart of Darkness! I've read that book at least a dozen times and still get something more out of it with each reading.
I found Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy to be exceedingly boring, same with A Theory of Justice by John Rawls. I don't think there is such thing as a most boring book though. Its a pretty subjective thing.
“To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.”
- Kurt Vonnegut
The Scarlet Letter - Hawthorne
Lisey's Story - King
Tess of D'Urbervilles - Hardy
Colonel Chabert by Honore de Balzac. I remember I had to read it for a class when I was a first year of high school. I tried very hard to read it, really. But each time I just fell asleep. I didn't even go over the second chapter ...
La contreverse de Valladolid (The controversy of Valladolid) by Carriere. I had to read it for French class for the part about slavery and it's just my worst memory about what I read at high school. But I read the whole book ... but I guess it was only because I was supposed to write an essay about it.
Othello by Shakespeare (I read it in English for a class). It was actually the first time I got to read Shakespeare and it was really a pain for me to understand and I'm not sure I did in the end ...
I am sad to say my latest boring one was "The Burgess Boys" by Elizabeth Strout, I love this author so I persevered.
I have tried I really have but it's a tie based on what mood I'm in whether its Wuthering Heights or Ethan Frome (Frome was forcedon us in English class and well after 40 years cna;t get that stupid pickle bowl out of my brain cells. Wuthering Herights is just a book of very unpleasant people and scary girlfriends. Just saying--I'm a simple man at heart.
Last edited by mtpspur; 06-04-2013 at 12:34 AM. Reason: uusal bad typing
Wow, Wuthering Heights? I thought that read like a train, as they say in Dutch. I agree with you it is strange and scary at times (not realistically so), but I thought that strangeness bemused me so much it almost put a spell on me. Together with Persuasion it must be my fastest read ever.
Each to his own, though.
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
I broke a cardinal rule of mine when I recently bought Greenmantle by John Buchan even though I suspected it might be a bit juvenile in its story of a dastardly German plot to stir up anti-British trouble in the Middle East during WWI. I have reached page 52 and cannot go on because the characters are pure cardboard and the plot-line as convoluted as anything I have come across. It bears resemblance to Erskine Childers The Riddle of the Sands, with dashing upper class Britishers foiling the evil Hun, but whereas Childers book is relatively well written, Buchan's is not. What makes it a boring book is the totally unbelievable situations that the protagonists get involved in and, even allowing that it's essentially a ripping yarn, there comes a point when the reader's credulity is stretched beyond any desire to continue.
It's ironic that Childers was executed by a British firing squad for running guns to Irish Republican rebels while Buchan went on to become Governor General of Canada.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
I read The 39 Steps back in high school days during my secret agent period of reading and THAT book cured me of moving on Greenmantle--over the years I have snuck a look back at Buchan but never more then a page or two. so for spy novels I'll stick to Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm or Adam Hall's Quiller series.
Candide by Voltaire. I almost threw the book.
This extract from Greenmantle highlights exactly why, except perhaps by an eleven-year-old schoolboy during the 1920s, a reader will encounter boredom, amusement, irritation or a combination of all three when attempting this novel:
I must spare a moment to introduce Sandy to the reader, for he cannot
be allowed to slip into this tale by a side-door. If you will consult
the Peerage you will find that to Edward Cospatrick, fifteenth Baron
Clanroyden, there was born in the year 1882, as his second son,
Ludovick Gustavus Arbuthnot, commonly called the Honourable, etc. The
said son was educated at Eton and New College, Oxford, was a captain in
the Tweeddale Yeomanry, and served for some years as honorary attache
at various embassies. The Peerage will stop short at this point, but
that is by no means the end of the story. For the rest you must
consult very different authorities. Lean brown men from the ends of
the earth may be seen on the London pavements now and then in creased
clothes, walking with the light outland step, slinking into clubs as if
they could not remember whether or not they belonged to them. From
them you may get news of Sandy. Better still, you will hear of him at
little forgotten fishing ports where the Albanian mountains dip to the
Adriatic. If you struck a Mecca pilgrimage the odds are you would meet
a dozen of Sandy's friends in it. In shepherds' huts in the Caucasus
you will find bits of his cast-off clothing, for he has a knack of
shedding garments as he goes. In the caravanserais of Bokhara and
Samarkand he is known, and there are shikaris in the Pamirs who still
speak of him round their fires. If you were going to visit Petrograd
or Rome or Cairo it would be no use asking him for introductions; if he
gave them, they would lead you into strange haunts. But if Fate
compelled you to go to Llasa or Yarkand or Seistan he could map out
your road for you and pass the word to potent friends.
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
It was Areopagitica, a pamphlet by John Milton. Although there were some brilliant passages in it, but I was too young to enjoy them. I found it quite boring and tedious read back then.
The Life of Charles Wesley--it was so boring I forgot the author's name. He writes in a stilted style which I hate, and the events in the life of Wesley are really non-events.
Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein
I'm not claiming it is among my fastest reads, but I did like the book and it did somehow read fluently. Especially during the passages that Leibniz's philosophy was being mocked...
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