# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/141 "2013-04-23T11:51:41Z")
Hemmingway’s _The Sun Also Rises_. Absolutely nothing happens in the whole book. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/142 "2013-04-23T13:13:57Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > I read _One Day in the Life of Ivan Dennisovich_ in one night - I stayed up all night for it. (It was required for Russian History.) I thought it was a wonderful, beautiful, lyrical, depressing, shattering work. To this day I will recommend it as one of the most affecting books I’d ever read. I also read _The Old Man and the Sea_, for my own reasons, and enjoyed it. Being the one who nominated it, I just wanted to say that I agree it was very well written, depressing, shattering, etc. It was also just very boring to me, though I did read it quickly. However, like I said, overall I would highly recommend it to anyone and I think it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. It is also perhaps one of the most important books ever written, given its history. But it was not written to be an exciting page-turner of a book. It was written to be extremely mundane, grim and depressing. The end of course is shattering, and the book works on every level. So, I hope saying that it is the most boring book I’ve ever read is not a negative, because in this one instance, being boring was a positive quality. I recognize for you it was a page turner though 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![cwthree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/143 "2013-04-23T15:39:10Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > > [@Baker](#): > > > > Isn’t Pamela the one where the heroine is raped by the bad guy and then goes into a decline and dies of shame? > > Nope. I checked and was mistaken. Is _Clarissa_ the book you were thinking of? ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/144 "2013-04-23T16:07:09Z")
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis, An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, and Giants in the Earth by Ole Edvart Rolvaag. God, those all sucked! I rather liked Red Badge of Courage, Crime and Punishment, Dickens’ novels & Shakespeare’s plays when I read them in school, and Wuthering Heights and Heart of Darkness which I read must later. ---
**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 23, 2013, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/145 "2013-04-23T16:12:00Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > When I was in high school we read Shakespeare and it was taught in the most boring way imaginable.. We read tragedies, and never got to see them performed even. I hated Shakespeare, and didn’t know then he truly was a great playwright. > > Then for whatever reason I watch “Measure for Measure”, on PBS, and was stunned. I didn’t know Shakespeare could be _funny_! Dirty jokes, illicit sex, cross dressing! This is the play they should use to hook students on Shakespeare, or maybe Twelfth Night. Later on I learned the beauty of the histories and tragedies as well, but I almost didn’t. I had this experience a couple of weeks ago–never liked Shakespeare, found reading him interminably boring in high school and never experienced any since then… …until I sat down for _three hours_ and watched “Hamlet” on my computer. And _liked_ it! It’s amazing what three things can do to jazz up boring old Shakespeare: 1. Modern dress 2. Patrick Stewart 3. David Tennant in the title role (definitely the #1 draw for me) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/146 "2013-04-23T16:41:20Z")
The 10th grade me found “The Scarlet Letter” unbearably boring. I wonder if I’d appreciate it more now, but I’ll probably never find out because there are always going to be other books I’ll want to read first… > [@terentii](#): > > Chernyshevskii’s _ **What is to Be Done?** _ is also a tedious, tedious read. Isn’t that the book that electrified people in pre-revolutionary Russia? It’s interesting how times and tastes can change so much… > [@Frylock](#): > > A couple of people have mentioned Lord of the Flies, which I am honestly surprised by. I remember being really caught up in that book. Same here. That’s practically an adventure story! > [@shiftless](#): > > 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. Agreed, and especially true today. If your average kid seldom reads any more books than what they have to for English class, they’d be better served by being assigned some of the more accessible books out there. ---
**Author:** ![Agent\_Foxtrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Agent\_Foxtrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Foxtrot)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/147 "2013-04-23T16:45:59Z")
Another vote for _The Scarlet Letter_. Hawthorne needed to just get to the damn point. Runner-up: _The Great Gatsby_. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/148 "2013-04-23T17:45:16Z")
> [@Infovore](#): > > It’s amazing what three things can do to jazz up boring old Shakespeare: > > 1. Modern dress > 2. Patrick Stewart > 3. David Tennant in the title role (definitely the #1 draw for me) 😃 1. Sun-drenched Tuscany and Kenneth Branaugh and Emma Thompson in their prime. ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/149 "2013-04-23T18:30:29Z")
A major bore with no redeeming qualities by supposedly one of English’s greatest writers: P **ortrait of the Artist as a Young Man** ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/150 "2013-04-23T18:35:35Z")
Anything by Dickens. Anything. The most boring book I’ve ever _assigned_ was _Dhalgren_. It was the novel selected for Academic Decathlon the year they did science fiction. Of all the SF novels ever written, they had to select the most unreadable. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/151 "2013-04-23T19:23:08Z")
**Silas Marner**. It might have simply been the delivery of my teacher, who was probably as bored with the material as I was, or it could have been the book was horrible. What I am sure about is, I wanted that book dead. So when I finished the final exam, I picked up my paperback copy, walked up to the teacher’s desk, handed in my exam, and proceeded to tear the book apart, literally, page by page. He actually looked a little hurt. “Was it that bad?” “God, yes. Bleargh!” I was okay with, tolerated, or enjoyed everything else I had to read in high school, but for some reason, I hated Silas Marner. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/152 "2013-04-23T20:24:43Z")
Something occurs to me. I’ve had to read a fair number of these Gawd awful “classics” mentioned in high school and college. And for almost all of them, I don’t think I could give more than a sentence or two description of what the damn thing was about (and for some that might even be pushing it). Perhaps some sort of literary PTSD? ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/153 "2013-04-24T00:48:20Z")
Hardy’s _The Mayor of Casterbridge_ was just an unrelenting misery fest (of course with Hardy, that doesn’t narrow the field). DH Lawrence gets no love from me. We had to do his poems as well as his novels, and all I recall is a weird obsession with figs as symbols of female genitalia. The whole transgressive erotica thing is now hopelessly trapped in its time, as is pretty much the fate of all self-consciously transgressive work. Life’s too short to read Joyce’s _Finnegans Wake_. It’s too clever-clever to be actually readable. Having to roll every syllable around in the mouth makes the process impossible. And knowing of Joyce’s odd sexual proclivities just adds to the bad taste left in the mouth. But I loved _Gatsby_. Prompted me to read all of Fitzgerald I could get my hands on. Maybe for me it was the foreign Americanness of it that gripped me, and perhaps that is why those who don’t see it through foreign eyes find it dull. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/154 "2013-04-24T03:33:53Z")
> [@Noel\_Prosequi](#): > > But I loved _Gatsby_. Prompted me to read all of Fitzgerald I could get my hands on. Maybe for me it was the foreign Americanness of it that gripped me, and perhaps that is why those who don’t see it through foreign eyes find it dull. The part I remember most is him going on about all his beautiful shirts. I see that scene is given its due in the new movie. ---
**Author:** ![SandyHook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/155 "2013-04-24T04:37:53Z")
> [@Ponch8](#): > > _Wuthering Heights._ Fuck the Bronte sisters. Another Wuthering Heights vote. Probably the worst book I’ve ever read that I actually got all the way through. I actually enjoyed Ethan Fromme. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/156 "2013-04-24T04:43:11Z")
Obviously, everyone has blocked out the memory of the dullest, most impenetrable book ever written: Virginia Woolf’s “To The Lighthouse.” ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/157 "2013-04-24T05:00:19Z")
Well, one positive out this shittiest of shittest things you’ve ever read thread is that I’ve seen a fair number I haven’t read and now probably never will. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/158 "2013-04-24T05:06:15Z")
It would be a lot easier to list the class reading I liked; Pilgrim’s Progress, Red Badge of Courage, and A Death In The Family were the only ones I actually went back to reread. By far the worst was the Hemingway short story “Big Two Hearted River”. The story goes in excrutiating detail about a fishing trip: descriptions of lures, threading lines, etc. When we read it in high school, everybody asked “what’s this about?” The teacher said it was about the lead character’s memories of war. Huh? I don’t even think the story said the lead character was a veteran, and nothing about a fishing trip relates in any remote way to war. Nothing in the story gives you any clue about the “meaning”. That is why so many kids hate literature classes. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/159 "2013-04-24T07:38:29Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Perhaps some sort of literary PTSD? _snicker_ ---
**Author:** ![UncaStuart](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uncastuart/32/404_2.png) [@UncaStuart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncaStuart)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/160 "2013-04-24T15:57:10Z")
> [@cwthree](#): > > Is _Clarissa_ the book you were thinking of? _Clarissa_ was the one that I was coming in to mention. Gah! [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=7) [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=9)