# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![eltro102](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@eltro102](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eltro102)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/101 "2013-04-22T19:57:20Z")
Jekyll and Hyde & Moby Dick still haunt me in my sleep all these years later ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/102 "2013-04-22T19:58:52Z")
> [@eltro102](#): > > Jekyll and Hyde & Moby Dick Sounds like an awesome crossover novel. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/103 "2013-04-22T20:01:06Z")
The Scarlet Letter. Best I can tell, high school lit class is designed specifically to make young people hate the classics. Maybe teachers don’t want the competition? Or maybe they hate those books from their school days. I don’t know. A lot of the books mentioned here are great books (The Scarlet Letter excepted) for a reason. Unfortunately, they aren’t good books for beginners. It helps to have a little history, a little life experience, a little context and a little practice at reading before being thrown into the deep end with Mody Dick. Heart of Darkness - awesome book IMO. I’m so glad I wasn’t forced to read it in school because I would have never picked it up again. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/104 "2013-04-22T20:06:59Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > I see that people here hated **A Separate Peace** - as did many of my classmates but I never understood why. Is it the dated irrelevance? Is it the contrived conflicts? Is it the undertones of self importance contrast with what in reality would be relative triviality? The “ersatz homosexual relationship” argument For me it was the self-important pop-psych claptrap,but since I was not forced to read this for any class (I actually read it voluntarily, and at the time, in my teens, I think I thought it was deep; maybe it was the ersatz homosexual relationship that caught my interest, or something) I won’t say anything more. Roddy ---
**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, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/105 "2013-04-22T20:10:00Z")
Has anybody mentioned William ('scuse me while I stifle a yawn) Faulkner? ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/106 "2013-04-22T20:18:03Z")
> [@campp](#): > > **A Separate Peace** \<\\> That’s my pick as well. ---
**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, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/107 "2013-04-22T20:32:49Z")
> [@campp](#): > > **A Separate Peace** \<\\> Both my wife Pepper Mill and I had to read this one. we both hated it. She had to read it _twice_, for different courses. It’s awful, but not as bad as Henry James. I also had to read James Agee’s _A Death in the Family_, which I found as unbearable as A Separate Peace. ---
**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, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/108 "2013-04-22T20:37:56Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > Another one: **Fun with Dick and Jane**. No plot to speak of, no character development. The characters would have to reach to be two-dimensional. Probably sexist and racist. At least it was short… The two movie versions are arguably better. ---
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/109 "2013-04-22T20:51:13Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > _The Sound and the Fury_. Not only did we have to read the stupid thing - we had to \*BUY \*it ourselves. I was rather proud of my smart-ass self when the instructor asked what we thought the title meant, and I said the sound was a yawn and the fury was having to pay $6.95 for the book. (This was in the mid-70s when that was a significant chunk of change.) I got half-way through before throwing the damn thing out the window. ---
**Author:** ![CapnPitt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/edb3f5/32.png) [@CapnPitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CapnPitt)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/110 "2013-04-22T21:44:30Z")
**The Bridge of San Luis Rey** by Thornton Wilder. The only book I failed to finish for a high school class. I just couldn’t do it. Bridge collapses. Everybody dies. Turns out the people’s lives all intertwined in some way. Big f’ing deal. They were all boring characters anyhow. ---
**Author:** ![cwthree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/111 "2013-04-22T21:51:22Z")
Put me down as another hater of _The Great Gatsby_ and _The Old Man and the Sea_. Uninteresting storylines plus turgid prose. Curiously, I enjoyed _Lord of the Flies_ and _Billy Budd_. That probably says something awful about me. I can’t think of anything I simply failed to finish reading for a class. On the other hand, I can’t remember truly enjoying anything I had to read for class, either. Simply knowing that I had to finish it on time and extract the “correct” meaning of the text was enough to take the fun out of reading for me. If we’re allowed to cite nonfiction as long as it’s not a textbook, I nominate _Distinction_by Bourdieu. That soporific fucker is pretty much what convinced me I had no business being in grad school. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Hen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@Small\_Hen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Hen)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/112 "2013-04-22T21:54:10Z")
Throw another few points behind The Scarlet Letter, The Red Pony, and The Pearl (I did, however, love Of Mice and Men, The Great Gadsby, The Catcher in the Rye, and The Old Man and the Sea). There was a thread recently about it, but I’m also going to pick A Confederacy of Dunces. I’m not sure that boring was quite the word for it - aggressively unpleasant, maybe, but lord was it a slog. I dreaded picking it up, because every second spent with Ignatius J. Reilly was like being stuck on the back of a long bus ride with a unwashed man who’s discretely masturbating under his hat. ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/113 "2013-04-22T22:08:33Z")
My freshman year in college I struggled through a collection of stories and essays called, _Personal Integrity._ The same for Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book on costly grace. Name escapes me. _Costly Grace,_ I think! Those two were just above my head at the time. And felt a lot like brainwashing to this rebellious young thing. And then slogging on through the Russian authors, save Kafka, and the dry-as-a-bone early American authors. The usual suspects have been named. I only finished _Heart of Darkness_ recently after seeing a new film version. I like the plot and premise. For a matter of fact the theme of accidental corruption in pursuit of one’s work is one of my favorites. It’s the darned form of that piece that’s unpalatable. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/114 "2013-04-22T22:51:24Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > **The Pearl**. Ugh. > > **Heart of Darkness** , too, but I read less of that than I read of **The Pearl** (I was awesome at Cliffs Notes). Oh God, I hate, hated, _ **hated** _ _The Pearl_. If that wasn’t the worst, most hateful, and boring book, then it was _Great Expectations_. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/115 "2013-04-22T23:01:40Z")
The Scarlet Letter. Just the thought of that one still makes me shudder. ---
**Author:** ![Wargamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Wargamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wargamer)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/116 "2013-04-22T23:04:20Z")
I don’t know how having sex in a carriage could be written to be boring, but Flaubert managed it in _Madame Bovary_. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/117 "2013-04-22T23:16:21Z")
I can’t understand the hate for _Crime and Punishment_. Maybe its the translation but I enjoyed reading it immensely. Anything by Dickens personally. I can’t the stand the attempt at being humours and sentimental at once. Also poems by E.E. Cummings (sorry, Mr. Cummings, but your name has to be capitalized). ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/118 "2013-04-22T23:39:54Z")
Definitely _Atlas Shrugged_, especially the long speech. Just don’t read what my user name is! ---
**Author:** ![Schrodinger\_s\_Platypus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Schrodinger\_s\_Platypus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schrodinger_s_Platypus)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/119 "2013-04-22T23:44:57Z")
How Green Was My Valley, assigned because of a lack of cliffnotes and the fact that the movie of it premiered in our very own dying coal town. A slog through the early years of a boy in a coal mining family, in which at one point the description of a boy getting an erection was so boring a bunch of teenagers didn’t giggle. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/120 "2013-04-22T23:47:58Z")
The most boring university book I had to read from was a collection of works by Aristotle. Not only was it as impenetrable as stereo instructions, it was like stereo instructions by Geoffrey Chaucer, where words all had some kind of archaic idiosyncratic meaning. I dropped that class **so** fast. [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=5) [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=7)