Quote:
Originally Posted by haertig
I can't think of any books I could call "the most boring". Because I usually fall asleep multiple times then abandon them long before I even know what the story is about. So me calling them boring would be premature.
Two that come to mind are by Alexandre Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers. These are both obviously classics. And the movies that have been made from them were enjoyable for me. However, I just could not read the books. I don't think I made it through even the first chapter of them. The wording and writing style just could not hold my interest. Now that I think about it, Moby Dick fit this same "not for me" classification. I've tried a couple of times, but it appears "the classics" are just not my cup of tea. I'll just have to stick with the movies that were generated from the books.
One "modern" book that that hit me the same way and was quickly abandoned was "The Road". I really can't recall it very well, but I seem to remember that it was just a jumble of short, curt, half-sentences. I remember flipping way ahead to see if the book would eventually morph into something halfway normal. But it didn't. So I abandoned it.
These all could actually be great books. And probably are. But they just weren't my style.
|
I had a similar experience reading Les Miserables. It starts out with a seemingly over a 100 pages of stuff on the Bishop of D_. A very long winded story of Cossette's early years. On my first attempt at the novel I got to the battle of Waterloo. I was reading a paperback and it seemed like it was about 70 pages of a real small font. For what? The only relation to the story seemed to be the Thenadiers robbing dead bodies at the end of the battle. (All this would have corrected itself had I continued. I pulled the plug at that point.
Years later I'd make a second attempt. I was richly rewarded for my efforts as more things fell into place as the novel progressed. I was glad I have it a second try and I really enjoyed it.