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Another thing that bugs me about Tolkien is his bizarre sentence structure. Take, for example:
"The elves sent out a party to meet the forces of Morgoth in the Vale, and were met by the forces of Morgoth. They were betrayed, and there were Balrogs."
Note the overuse of pronouns...
There is only one pronoun in those two sentences.
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I love, love, love Lovecraft (and Poe) and various other slow-as-molasses writers who take 60 pages to beat you over the head with a point you got on page 2.
I greatly enjoyed a lot of the Wheel of Time's cinematic travelogue, despite expressing frustration that it was taking the author 10,000 pages to present the story premise, 'Guys and dames gotta work together on this one.'
I found the Silmarillion to be a fun read, and that's basically reading a history book about an imaginary world!
But As I Lay Dying, by Faulkner? I want to dig the man up, raise him from the dead and beat him back to death with that darn book. A fish might be involved, somehow, and perhaps an auger.
Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos inspires similar feelings in me, only the bludgeoning-to-death would be with cute fuzzy plush talking penguins from the Happy Feet toy collection.
And while I don't hate it, per se, The Da Vinci Code was about as deep and controversial as a freaking Scooby-Doo young readers mystery. Rosicrucian-style groups, and, y'know, half of the 'divine right of kings' rulers of Europe believed in the concept of a bloodline descended from Jesus (and that they were part of it, including good old King James). That stuff's been around for *centuries,* and somehow Dan Brown just discovered it? WhatEVER.
My 2cp...
Contemporary somnambulants:
I've tried reading Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco several times, and I've never been able to finish. On the first page there were three words I had to look up (and I think I've got a pretty good vocabulary). One of the words wasn't even in my dictionary, and I had to find one of those thick, encyclopedic ones to find the definition. And this was on the first page.
Strange I always considered this book as an excellent, passionating read. But I remember some university professor of mine warning us about the fact that Eco has this habit of "making the first 50 pages of his book unbearable to get read of non-committed readers". If that's true or not I cannot say; but I kept repeating this to myself and it helped me through the first few chapters, and after that I must say that I was fully charmed...
Still one of the best fiction books I read.
Somehow Foucault's Pendulum is like Da Vinci Code, but without the silly theories and with harder facts to back it up.
In classic litterature, the French have several prize-winners. Proust comes to mind immediatly (l'Education Sentimentale) quickly followed by some Balzac (la petite Fadette) and Zola (I've never finished "Dr Pascal" out of sleeping each time I opened it).
"L'education sentimentale" is actually by Flaubert, not Proust. And it is an amazingly compelling book! So much betrayal reversal of fortunes, etc. Could be a Logue adventure...
But I agree that Proust, Balzac and Zola probably should earn a price for "literature that can bring you back on Prozac".
Bocklin
Classics: Plato's Republic. Plato is now my least favorite philosopher.
Dracula. A good idea, sunk by coma-inducing execution. On the plus side, about 50,000 better Dracula books have come out since then.
Modern: On the Beach by Nevil Shute (?). The melodrama and character self-pity were overwhelming, and when I got toward the end and the characters started drawing philosophical conclusions... as a human, I don't appreciate being told that my species is too stupid to live.
I have to put in another vote for Laurell K. Hamilton's more recent stuff. For those (like me) who don't like what the Anita Blake series degenerated into, do yourself a favor and avoid the Merry Gentry books, which start as porn.
Most painful book I've seen this year: Dragon Fire by William Cohen, former Secretary of Defense. If I wrote a book about covert action and international intrigue, I would probably assume that the reader has seen a pistol before, instead of describing how the slide is pulled back to chamber a round.
...that Eco has this habit of "making the first 50 pages of his book unbearable to get read of non-committed readers".
I meant "to get rid of".
Talking of reading...
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Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games
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Classic: Les Miserables - Unabridged. Who the #%^@%$ cares about Parisian sewers???
Contemporary: Wheel of Time - 3rd & 4th books (can't remember the titles) - probably the others, but I stopped reading then once I realized the plot wasn't going anywhere.
<braces for backlash from Jordan fans>
Strange I always considered this book as an excellent, passionating read. But I remember some university professor of mine warning us about the fact that Eco has this habit of "making the first 50 pages of his book unbearable to get read of non-committed readers". If that's true or not I cannot say; but I kept repeating this to myself and it helped me through the first few chapters, and after that I must say that I was fully charmed...
Still one of the best fiction books I read.
Somehow Foucault's Pendulum is like Da Vinci Code, but without the silly theories and with harder facts to back it up.
I cannot quite remember how Foucault's Pendulum started but indeed, if you make it halfway to the book you can't let it from your hands, such a gripping story it becomes...
Da Vinci Code was entertaining book, and asks number of good questions (though hardly surprising for anyone with any background on the matter), unfortunately it also gives rubbish answers to those questions. And Brown really needs a strong editor, I was tempted to fill out marginals with comments, disagreements and so on...(on this account Angels&Demons is even worse...for those who wish to read that book, try to figure out timeline for that book whcih does not involve moving faster than light)
Wuthering Heights.
It took me two months to read that stupid book.
Groannn....
I can't think of anyone who likes both Shakespeare and Tolkien. From personal experience it seems like you either hate Tolkien and love Shakespeare or love Tolkien and can't tolerate Shakespeare (like me).I guess I shouldn't mention that I like both, then... ;-)
Fair enough.
No one I have personally met likes both.|
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I can't think of anyone who likes both Shakespeare and Tolkien. From personal experience it seems like you either hate Tolkien and love Shakespeare or love Tolkien and can't tolerate Shakespeare (like me).I guess I shouldn't mention that I like both, then... ;-)
Fair enough.
No one I have personally met likes both.
I like Tolkien. A lot. And I like most Shakespeare. Hamlet and Taming of the Shrew in particular.
I can't think of anyone who likes both Shakespeare and Tolkien. From personal experience it seems like you either hate Tolkien and love Shakespeare or love Tolkien and can't tolerate Shakespeare (like me).I guess I shouldn't mention that I like both, then... ;-)
Fair enough.
No one I have personally met likes both.
What about me then? :)
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What about me then? :)I can't think of anyone who likes both Shakespeare and Tolkien. From personal experience it seems like you either hate Tolkien and love Shakespeare or love Tolkien and can't tolerate Shakespeare (like me).I guess I shouldn't mention that I like both, then... ;-)
Fair enough.
No one I have personally met likes both.
Me too!!
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Dante's stuff. Oh lordy. Remember, Star Trek: the Motion Picture, where the last hour was them flying through the energy cloud surrounding V'Ger, with all sorts of colorful effects and strummy music, but nothing really happening? That's Dante. All of it. Endless looking at stuff, never actually doing anything. Yawn.
It's like all of the boring parts of the Aeniad stretched out into three books, and with a vastly less interesting protagonist. I'd sooner be subjected to a two hour Ben Stein travelmentary on central Kansas that read Dante again.
You know what, I can't think of a fiction book off the top of my head that i found utterly boring. There are a few that didn't catch my interest, but i wouldn't call them boring per se. They were fantasy novels, and I had burned out on fantasy at the time.
The most boring book I ever read was Schenkerian Analysis, which is a book about a type of musical theory analysis by the same name. Very dry (we're talking Saraha) and devoid of life. I'll have to rack my brain for a fiction and classic that I felt were boring enough. But the standard I use is the aforementioned book, and it's just to high of standard to have any other book reasonably compete.
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I have to say that I love Frank Herbert's work and can read Dune in one sitting. Never boring. Wheel of Time started good, in my opinion, but when I needed a notebook to keep characters straight, it dropped quick. BTW, what is the deal with all the complaining women. If you want a strong female character you don't write them like these broads.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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Most Boring Classic: Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton -- although The Pearl and the Old Man and the Sea are serious challengers.
Most Boring Modern: I never managed to get into the Shanara books but for the most part I've been good about picking books I like.
Okay. What is the most boring classic and the most boring normal book you've ever read? They may be the same. I'm compiling a list to try and read before the end of high school, and was hoping to get all you're input.
The most boring book I have ever read was "Glacial Lake Missoula and its Humongous Floods" by David Alt.
I have to agree with the people who said LotR. I was doing fine til I got to the Tom Bombadil stuff and that just threw the whole tempo off for me.
For classics... anything by Jane Austin. So much emphasis on catching a man. Very dull gossipy books.
Classics: Plato's Republic. Plato is now my least favorite philosopher.
Dracula. A good idea, sunk by coma-inducing execution. On the plus side, about 50,000 better Dracula books have come out since then.
Wow. I loved Plato's dialogues. If you keep in mind the Socrates is being sarcastic as hell half the time in order to make the blow-hards look like idiots, they become a lot more enjoyable. I was fascinated with Stoker's Dracula as well; not so much for the story, but for the glimpse of daily life in London at the time. On the other hand, I've never been able to get through an Ann Rice book.
On the Beach just blew chunks; I have to agree with you on that one.
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And whoever knocked Natty Bumppo: you must not be from upstate NY!
I live in upstate NY, and, to me (Eagle Scout, Venture guide, lived in the woods most of my life), the guy seemed like he really didn't know what he was doing. And, reading "Cooper's Literary Offences" certainly cemented the idea in my mind. Cooper was a sailor, and should have stuck to naval fiction.
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There is only one pronoun in those two sentences.Another thing that bugs me about Tolkien is his bizarre sentence structure. Take, for example:
"The elves sent out a party to meet the forces of Morgoth in the Vale, and were met by the forces of Morgoth. They were betrayed, and there were Balrogs."
Note the overuse of pronouns...
Bad example.
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I can't think of anyone who likes both Shakespeare and Tolkien. From personal experience it seems like you either hate Tolkien and love Shakespeare or love Tolkien and can't tolerate Shakespeare (like me).I guess I shouldn't mention that I like both, then... ;-)
Fair enough.
No one I have personally met likes both.
Does respecting both professionally count?
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Guns, Germs, and Steel taught me the value of an early morning sparknotes session after falling asleep. That book was the most boring thing I've read, and I'd wager that record will stand.
Just FYI for anyone who is planning on reading this particular book:
It has recently come out that Jared Diamond fudged large portions of his data.
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Someone on an earlier page was none too fond of China Mieville's "Perdido Street Station".
While I don't deny the fact that it was not of a style easily accessible to the lay reader, it was, in my opinion, a very deep and well-thought-out book. I can understand why one would not like Mieville's work (the anarcho-communist leanings, the graphic sex and violence, the multisyllabic words, etc...), but still would not go so far as to compare them to "Terry Gilliam-inspired fan fiction".
Okay. What is the most boring classic and the most boring normal book you've ever read? They may be the same. I'm compiling a list to try and read before the end of high school, and was hoping to get all you're input.
Can't really add anything in the "classics" category*, but the only book I just couldn't finish happens to be "Shadowdale", first book of the "Avatar Trilogy" based in Forgotten Realms. =P
*except for "As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner, but I really didn't give it a chance.
I like Tolkien. A lot. And I like most Shakespeare. Hamlet and Taming of the Shrew in particular.
Believe it or not, but I've never read the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy or any of Tolkien's work. You couldn't have paid me enough growing up, and even now I'm a big nonfiction fan.
Anyway, I digress...
My big gripe with the LotR movies is that I can't understand a lick of what the characters are saying when referring to proper nouns. Just sounds like mumbo-jumbo to me. Heck, I'd be hard pressed to name the main characters, much less the locations and other place names!
I know, know... just go easy on me :)
What about me then? :)I can't think of anyone who likes both Shakespeare and Tolkien. From personal experience it seems like you either hate Tolkien and love Shakespeare or love Tolkien and can't tolerate Shakespeare (like me).I guess I shouldn't mention that I like both, then... ;-)
Fair enough.
No one I have personally met likes both.Me too!!
I like both Tolkien and Shakespeare as well.
I like both Tolkien and Shakespeare as well.What about me then? :)I can't think of anyone who likes both Shakespeare and Tolkien. From personal experience it seems like you either hate Tolkien and love Shakespeare or love Tolkien and can't tolerate Shakespeare (like me).I guess I shouldn't mention that I like both, then... ;-)
Fair enough.
No one I have personally met likes both.Me too!!
Same here.
As for boring books:
Literature (which is what I assume the OP meant by "classic"): Age of Innocence
Pop fiction: The DaVinci Code