# What was the most boring book you were ever forced to read for a class? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 22, 2013, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373 "2013-04-22T02:35:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/41 "2013-04-22T12:00:56Z")
I read and enoyed many of these, although I agree that _Heart of Darkness_ is a slog. My choices: _The Death of Ivan Ilych_ Anything by Henry James. I found _Turn of the Screw_ unbearable (only Henry James can make a ghost story boring), but _The Beast in the Jungle_ is worse. The titular Beast is metaphorical – the point of the book is that _Nothing Happens_. But it takes so damned long to Not Happen. But the ansolute worst – and I know people love this, and will think me crazy – was Jane Austen’s _Pride and Prejudice_, which I had to force myself to read every page of. By the way, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s _History of the Kins of Britain_ was not (to me) as reptitive as _le Morte d’Arthur_. I read it all the way through on my own, not for a course. But then again, I liked \*The Canterbury Tales, Animal Farm, \* and many of the others listed above, so YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/42 "2013-04-22T12:11:32Z")
_As I Lay Dying_ by William Faulkner, with _Wings of a Dove_ by Henry James a close second. ---
**Author:** ![Weedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/weedy/32/301_2.png) [@Weedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weedy)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/43 "2013-04-22T12:13:20Z")
_North and South_ by Elizabeth Gaskell. Not having read _Heart of Darkness_, I am morbidly intrigued by these reviews. I’ll have to seek it out. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/44 "2013-04-22T12:53:26Z")
Miguel Delibes’ first novel, _Cinco horas con Mario_ (Five Hours With Mario); the internal dialogue of a widow sitting alone with her husband’s casket. The only good thing I can say about that brick is that Delibes appears to have been one of those people who needed to unload a horribly overwrought book before they could start writing good ones. Literary critics loved it, but your average 15yo reckons it’s great for starting fires. ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/45 "2013-04-22T13:00:58Z")
**A Separate Peace** \<\\> ---
**Author:** ![Swamp\_Adder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/977dab/32.png) [@Swamp\_Adder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swamp_Adder)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/46 "2013-04-22T13:02:14Z")
_A Farewell to Arms_. _A Separate Peace_ is a close runner-up, though. ---
**Author:** ![Uncle\_Jocko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uncle_jocko/32/2932_2.png) [@Uncle\_Jocko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Jocko)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/47 "2013-04-22T13:04:24Z")
> [@koeeoaddi](#): > > **Billy** (fucking) **Budd** Amen to that. My high school English teacher, in what must have been a fit of sadistic glee, assigned this as extra credit. Well, extra credit that was _required_ if you wanted an A for the quarter. What a slog that was. Yeah, we get it, Billy Budd is like Jesus, wrap up already, Herman! At least he didn’t have **Moby Dick** on the syllabus. While I loathed **The Scarlet Letter** , it was less because it was boring and more because Hawthorne’s writing style sucks ass. I forgot about reading **Pilgrim’s Progress** until I saw it mentioned here. Yeah, it belongs on this list. ---
**Author:** ![Cumberdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@Cumberdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cumberdale)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/48 "2013-04-22T13:10:54Z")
_Old Man and the Sea_. I believe it it the only book for school I wasn’t able to finish. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/49 "2013-04-22T13:13:24Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > Wow, I like a great many of the books mentioned, and I am not a person into scholarly reading. The one book I could not stand that I had to read for school whas The Pilgrim’s Progress. I, too, like some of the books that have been mentioned (including _The Pilgrim’s Progress_ :)); others were okay, but I can understand why some people got bogged down by them. My own answers would probably be: High School: Concur with _Heart of Darkness_ (and also Conrad’s “Secret Sharer”). Also had to read the first book of _The Forsyte Saga_, and I don’t remember enough about it even to know if it was boring. College: Fiction: _Mrs. Dalloway_ and _The Turn of the Screw_, though neither one actually ended up being discussed in class. Nonfiction: _The Sacred Canopy_, which I had to read for a religion class and which I think the whole class found impenetrable. ---
**Author:** ![Koldanar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@Koldanar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koldanar)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/50 "2013-04-22T13:15:02Z")
**Madame Bovary.** AP English, the teacher as well as the class was unfamiliar with the book. After reviewing, the unanimous consensus was it was too boring to assign, ever again. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/51 "2013-04-22T13:21:11Z")
There was a book by Gertrude Stein – the name escapes me – that I found completely incomprehensible. But partly through, I realized it was _meant_ to be incomprehensible, so I slogged through it and wrote that the point of the book was to undercut our desire for meaning in a book, a concept that’s interesting in theory but duller than dirt in practice. The professor was very hurt by my analysis. He tried to show how that somewhere there _was_ a meaning in the book, but when you can’t even determine whether a word was being used as a noun or a verb, it’s hard to make a case. ---
**Author:** ![Ms.Pumpkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a87d85/32.png) [@Ms.Pumpkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms.Pumpkin)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/52 "2013-04-22T13:22:58Z")
Another vote for **Ethan Frome**. I don’t remember one thing about that book, other than how boring it was and how much I hated it. Honorable mentions to **Heart of Darkness** and **The Great Gatsby**. ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/53 "2013-04-22T13:23:44Z")
_Wuthering Heights._ Fuck the Bronte sisters. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/54 "2013-04-22T13:30:22Z")
Just another vote for **Heart of Darkness.** The boredom, the boredom. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/55 "2013-04-22T13:31:37Z")
Lord of the Flies. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/56 "2013-04-22T13:32:18Z")
Charles Dickens’s _Hard Times_, for a religion and literature course in college. ---
**Author:** ![glaeken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@glaeken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glaeken)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/57 "2013-04-22T13:41:01Z")
_Moby Dick_ for me. A whole chapters on comparing the colour white to good things and bad things. A chapter about the painting in the Inn Ishmael happens to be staying in. Chapters and chapters describing various types of whales. I don’t think I have ever read such a verbose book. The central plot only surfaced every two of three chapters and then only for a paragraph or so. I have read a lot of the other books people have listed in this thread and nothing comes close to _Moby Dick_ in my view. A lot of the books people have listed are actually pretty short e.g. Heart of Darkness, The great Gatsby, The old man and the sea, Animal farm etc. but _Moby Dick_ does not even have that going for it. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/58 "2013-04-22T14:22:08Z")
_Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_. Ugh, that thing was awful. Also _Moby Dick_. I still don’t know how I made it all the way through that one. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/59 "2013-04-22T14:39:09Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > \*One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich \*was one of the most boring books I ever read. However, this was pretty much the point of the book, and at the end, it hit me how meaningful the boringness of the book actually was. In fact, if one had found the book entertaining and exciting all the way through, the ending would have very little impact on you, I would assume. For me, it was profound and thus the only book where being bored through it was actually enjoyable (but only in retrospect at the terrific ending). > > Can’t really think of many other Wikipedia doesn’t seem to say what happens in the end. Can you spoil it for me? ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/60 "2013-04-22T14:43:24Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > Lord of the Flies. > [@Koldanar](#): > > **Madame Bovary.** What they said. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373.md?page=4)