inquiry : books you just cant get through !

I was wondering about what are the books people fails to read entirely , in other words: the most boring / depressive books of them all !

this just to start... also it would be nice if you add a particular reason if any, how far you reached and if you plan to complete it sometimes.

for me :
Dostojevski - Crime and punishment (3/4, deadly boredom, and I was drafted in the navy, too)

Trotsky - History of the Russian Revolution (3/4, more stimulant readings available, to complete)

Kafka - The trial ( almost zero, the acquiescence of the main character freaks me out from the very first pages)


up to you reckless readers now, let's poll for the most unsustainable book ever !

 

for me it would be LOTR i got threw the 1st one just but then i am afriad to say that that i just couldn't bring myslef to struggle threw the 2nd one i just couldn't cope any more.

 

lol LOTR is a "so long , so good" for me instead. When it was over i was soo sorry, I had to start it over again ! The only other book (again in the 1000 pages range) which gave me this feeling before was Jaroslav Ha¨ek's "The good soldier ¦vejk" , but in that case i was excused since Ha¨ek died leaving it incomplete :$ . It is a total masterpiece of anti-war humor.
Good old Jaroslav also looked like a hippie ante litteram in his private way of life ...

come on readers, let's compile a digest for the library of neverending boredom !
anyone got stuck with "The Manuscript Found in Saragossa" ?

 

You have an odd taste in books, I cannot possibly imagine finding those books boring.

I have finished practically every book I have ever started... might have put down one or two, but I honestly don't remember what they were.

 

Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
and
Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Though i've read both of these books in their entirety, and have read virtually every other work by both of them, I have never fully grasped the context and true meaning behind either.....i've been trying for years.

 

The LOTR books are a tough go.. They're just dreadful.

I could barely get through I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. The only reason I read it was because I had to for my English class.

Also, Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton was pretty damn dry. I didn't even finish that book for class.

 

I couldnt finish the da vinci code...

 

well , Crime and Punishment was spoiled since I already knew the plot :tongue:. and besides, i was too depressed to carry on. with Kafka it's different: it's not ... boring , i found it irritating.
Trotsky was a better military leader than writer, hands down (just my opinion, dont freak out). My interest for history was clouded by his prose which I found a pedantic and inspirationless chronicle. I've just suspended that reading sine die anyway.
Yes I have odd or straightforwardly "bad" taste in reading and movies and more generally in everything, since I loved Potocki for instance but cant suffer some things of Kafka.

I understand that you are able to read everything to the end , that's good for you, this testifies that you are able to discern good from bad readings, or those more suitable to your temper. Personally I dont feel it's wrong if someone gives up with a reading which can be too much for him or just plain a pile of shit. Reading as an obligation is useless.

"a man's got to know his limitations"


...

up to now, LOTR leads the course , but I suspect it's just for the size.

 

Wow..I'm sorry, but you can't have much taste! That's probably one of my favourite books, and probably the best I've read in a LONG time.

I found Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs a very hard read. It took me 3-4 months to even get through it.

 

Well, at least you know that Clint Eastwood is a badass

Uhhum, same here... took me a whiiiiiile to read Naked Lunch.... I kept on getting lost in it and was reading other books while reading it... so it was hard to focus on Naked Lunch's oddness while other books were interesting and well... a tad balanced out.

 

we cant all be as smart as you, fellow

 

Well, for me it's contrary: the most boring/depressing books I tend to find most readable and I always go through them easily and with a big pleasure, and those that are considered to be most interesting I find boring! I've read 'Crime and Punishment' three times, 'Magic Mountain' maybe five, and I couldn't get through 'The Da Vinci Code'...But there are some books I had problems with: Ulisses by Joyce - I've never managed to get to the second page of it ( so 'The Finnegan's Wake' I never even tried to read), and I've been starting to read 'Joseph and his brothers' by Thomas Mann few times and never read more than maybe 5 pages.

 

i found Some of Kafka irritating Too. some of his short stories were good. When the man is walking uphill after leaving the bar and two men run past him; i love the rationalization.

 

Microsoft Access 97 for Intermediates. I just cant get past the first chapter it is too dull

 

I couldn't finish "on the road" by jack kerouac. I liked the sence of in-the-moment-freedom that the characters seek, but the narritor is an idiot. Dean shows up, carts him off to some remote location and inevedably ditches him, lost and pennyless. The narritor begs, borrows and steals to get back home then Dean shows up and the cycle starts all over again. Yet the whole time the narritor does nothing but sing Dean's praises like he's some guru, when he is anything but.
Another one I couldn't finish is "filth" by irving welsh. I liked all of his other books a lot, but I disliked the main character in filth so much that I stopped caring what happened about 100 pages into it. I don't know anyone who finshed that book, come to think of it.

 

Heart of Darkness because I find it boring. A dear friend gave me a copy years ago, commenting that it was her favorite book. I've tried to read it several times since then and just can't get past the first three pages or so.

Anything by Ayn Rand becaue iI just find them so depressing. Technically, I did read all the way through The Fountainhead once. But I can't finish anything else by her. Also, I normally read so many books several times, but I just couldn't bring myself to with The Fountainhead.

 

LOTR i read the hobbit and got about halfway through the first one and then decided to just watch the movies

 

war and peace

 

I read war and peace but couldn't get through Anna Karenina - I think I gave up half-way through. I once forced myself to read to the end of Ulysses. Other books I've abandoned include Moby Dick, Dombey and Son, Joseph Heller's novel about King David, something by Terry Pratchett (can't remember the title).

On the Road actually gets a lot better at the end when they arrive in Mexico. I agree that Kerouac's constant hero-worship of Neal Casady (Dean Moriarty) gets a little tedious. I preferred The Dharma Bums.

 

I suppose Kerouac doesn't hold as much intrest for those of us that don't belive in gurus.