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/lit/ - Literature

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3714282 No.3714282 [Reply] [Original]

A lot of people complain that classic and great works of literature are boring. Often it is a sign of ignorance or petulance but sometimes it can be fair.

What are some of the big works in fiction you found boring?

Me:
>The Great Gatsby
>good prose but dull narrative and pretty on the surface symbolism. Doesn't award multiple readings.

>> No.3714288

The Gatsby is a tiny, simple, and eminently readable work.

Kill yourself.

>> No.3714294

I'm undecided whether Sartre's Nausea is super pretentious or just bad. Of Mice and Men should be a decent book, but in its clarity it's dull.

>> No.3714295

>Sense and Sensibilities

it's swimming through a dead ocean of rotting clauses

>LOLOLOL good gurl was evol at the end!!!1
Fuck you too, Austen. What a fucking waste of time.

also
>Great Gatsby
>Boring
Wat

>> No.3714296

The Great Gatsby*

>> No.3714299

The Grapes of Ennui

>> No.3714302

The grapes of a grown-ass man sucking on sum ladies titties

>> No.3714305

>>3714294

I felt Of Mice and Men was two thirds of the novel. Each chapter leading up the final was essentially part of the beginning, each introducing a new character.

Then it ended.

>> No.3714314

Wuthering Heights
Pride and Prejudice
The Portrait of a Lady
Clarissa

>> No.3714318

>>3714302
Are you implying grown-ass men shouldn't love to suck on titties?

>> No.3714319

The Stranger.

It has the best opening line in fiction, so good the rest of the book isn't really necessary.

>> No.3714335

Anna Karenina. Let us all be honest. . . The cheating whore had it coming.

>> No.3714342

>>3714305
Yeah - from what I recall I agree. I remember all this overdrawn exposition of Curley's sad wife and lots of obvious foreshadowing: mostly Lennie killing small things.

>> No.3714352

>>3714319
Wut? It's all right, I guess. but it's no great shakes.

>> No.3714356

War & Peace.

>> No.3714357

>>3714356
wat

die

>> No.3714364

>>3714357

I'm stunned and shamed by the full weight and eloquence of your argument.

>> No.3714372

>>3714282
>good prose but dull narrative and pretty on the surface symbolism

I think you missed the point. I'd highly recommend reading some critical essays on Gatsby man, or study it in college.

>> No.3714374

>>3714319
"We were somewhere near Barstow, in the desert..."

>> No.3714382

>>3714374
>near
>not around
step up, nigga

>> No.3714385

>>3714374
Also
>in
>not on the edge of

you done fucked this whole thing up. shit breh

>> No.3714390

>>3714374

>implying not "For a long time, I used to go to bed early."

>> No.3714411

>>3714374
a screaming comes across the sky. it has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.

or

lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. my sin, my soul.

>> No.3714448

The Lord of the Rings trilogy isn't exactly boring, but I think it's given more credit than it's due. Tolkien invented a fantastic, fleshed-out world, but the books themselves are full of sidetracking and heavy-handed exposition.

>> No.3714470

>>3714411
to wound the autumnal city.So howled out for the world to give him a name.

>> No.3714483

>>3714470
Is Dhalgren the Ulysses of science-fiction?

>> No.3714488

>>3714356
Nah I enjoyed the politics and drama.

>> No.3714489

>>3714319

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

Gotta admit, it's not as good in english. Still the best though.

>> No.3714528

Catcher in the Rye.

I don't understand the glorifying praise of an obnoxious teenager. They're all over the place.

>> No.3714529

>>3714282

Dude, what. Literally everybody in my high school literature class loved Gatsby. Even the special ed kids, the ghetto girls, the wannabes, the potheads.

>> No.3714535

>>3714372
http://salempress.com/store/samples/critical_insights/gatsby_reception.htm

Pretty decent article about the book.

>> No.3714544

>>3714489
That was such a good book.

>> No.3714575

>>3714528
I don't think you "got" it.

Great Expectations

>> No.3714598

A Tale of Two Cities.
It all seemed so contrived after you learn of Charles' execution.

>> No.3714606

>>3714598
Dickens is shit.

>> No.3714620

My history teacher once told me she tried to read The Name of the Rose and found it boring.

My boring she meant difficult, of course. But I lost what little respect I had had for her that day.

>> No.3714624

>The Great Gatsby
>dull

I agree with >>3714288

>> No.3714625

>>3714575
well isn't that a great expectation to read again.

>> No.3714679

>>3714620
this

I haven't read a classic yet that I've found boring.
I've liked some more than others, and thought a few were vastly over/underrated, but when people say boring I suspect what they actually mean is it was too difficult/dense for them to get through

>> No.3714686

The Castle. I liked the premise, and i loved Metamorphosis and The process, but God, i just can't read some pages of it without getting sleepy.

>> No.3714692

>>3714679
Exactly. If she said she'd found it difficult then I would perhaps understand, because The Name of the Rose is a difficult book, and its first 100 pages especially so.

Yet she displayed a kind of intellectual cowardice when she dismissed it as boring, and I just find that awful.

>> No.3714741

tess of the d'urbervilles had its moments, but it was a generally mundane experience.

>> No.3714750

>>3714282
I really like The Great Gatsby.
Not my favorite, but it is a pretty fucking good book.

For me...
>Catcher in the Rye
>it has some great symbolism, themes, etc... but the style of prose is unpleasant and having to listen to Holden's shit drives me crazy. I know I am meant to see how immature, ignorant, deflective and angsty he is, but I saw that in him within the first few pages. Reading it doesn't help me grow and I can't take anything from it that I didn't already have. The first time I read it I was 15 and I had been past that point of mental/emotional development for a good time by then.
>I admit the book is good, it just doesn't do anything for me.

>> No.3714757

>>3714294
Sartre was a fucking pleb. He was both pretentious and bad as a philosopher.
Of Mice and Men is a very good book.

>> No.3714763

>>3714319
I have to say I love this book for what it is.
It is a bit immature as a piece of philosophy, which tends to be pretty common with Camus' works.
I love Camus (especially as a writer of fiction), but he doesn't do it for me as a philosopher.

>> No.3714768

>>3714483
Yes it is.

>> No.3714770

>>3714528
You didn't get it, dude.
I hate that fucking book, but you are meant to see that Holden is almost always at fault.

>> No.3714773

>>3714598
So true. A Tale of Two Cities remains the only Dickens novel I have read and will likely remain that way for a while or forever.

>> No.3714808

Edgar Allan Poe's short stories as a whole.

>> No.3715006

>>3714299
really? The movie is awesome! Dat Tom Joad!

>> No.3715026

>>3714692
exciting and intellectually challenging. Also, sexual tension.

>> No.3715032

>>3714483
Book of the New Sun is as close as I've read.

>> No.3715046

Jane Eyre.

>> No.3715049

>>3714750
>The first time I read it I was 15 and I had been past that point of mental/emotional development for a good time by then.
you remind me of a guy in my senior year of HS, when we started philosophy.
"Philosophy? I was reading this when I was 13. Please..."

>> No.3715051

>>3714757
>Sartre was a fucking pleb. He was both pretentious and bad as a philosopher.
edgy.

>> No.3715058

Dosto's Crime and Punishment is hideously dull and about 200 pages longer than it should be. Besides that, its characterization and setting are both lacking. The only good part were some of the themes, and those got bogged down in so much hollow prose that I actually regret having wasted my time when I could've read Sparknotes instead.

>> No.3715060

>>3715051

edgy, but basically correct.

not him.

>> No.3715078

>>3714299
>using ennui incorrectly whilst acting pretentious

>> No.3715085

>>3715060
well if you're so far above Sartre, you could at least show that you know one thing about him. What is so "pleb" in Being and Nothingness, his main philosophical work?

>> No.3715087

>>3715085

Here is a link to me discussing the philosopher:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJS-A8FHWYI

>> No.3715089

>>3715058
>I actually regret having wasted my time when I could've read Sparknotes instead.

This, students, is the mark of an anti-intellectual. One who wants the most bang for their buck. One who'd waste all their time reading Twilight if only it was elite-cool to do so.

This is who you want to avoid becoming. This is who you want to avoid hanging out with.

>> No.3715093

>>3714757
lol implying sartre didn't set the precedent for a large amount of postmodern thought, especially foucault

>> No.3715102

>>3715087
>implying
post pics

>> No.3715108

>>3715089
My life (and thankfully yours also) is limited. I could've read The Grapes of Wrath in that time. I could've read multiple Faulkner novels. I could've read Tolstoy instead of Crime and Punishment, you trite shit.

>> No.3715109

>>3715102

I will not be posting photos of myself. The video linked might help to explain why:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RjLOxrloJ0

>> No.3715111

>>3715087
lol
>implying derrida has the authority to call anyone out

sartre was one of the first people to consider language in a meaningful way, anyone who tries to insult his work in philosophy is trying to be edgier than his already admittedly edgy fanbase

>> No.3715114

>>3715109
thats a video of you so we already know what you look like faggot

oh wait thats not you

go fuck yourself

>> No.3715115

>>3715111

>De Sade was one of the first people to consider sexual liberty in a meaningful way

>anyone who tries to insult his work in philosophy is trying to be edgier than his already admittedly edgy fanbase

>> No.3715120

>>3715114

It is granted you will never know if I am named Jacques Derrida or another.

>> No.3715121

i, for one, agree with OP. I'm not gonna be edgy and claim it's a bad book, but it just isn't substantial enough to really warrant the reverence it gets.

>> No.3715126
File: 6 KB, 272x265, aradiabooty2.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3715126

>>3715120
so dont try to say you are him if youre not willing to prove it nigger

>> No.3715127

>>3715126

You're dancing in freeplay as we speak. You will grow.

>> No.3715133

>>3715109
I met Derrida and know for a fact that he's dead now.

>> No.3715134

>>3715115
i don't think that's a fair analogy, the linguistic turn was an incredibly important shift in human thought, and sartre very immediately (And strongly, might i ad) predated it with the idea that human beings are shaped by their descriptions of themselves and the world.

de sade was just kinda edgy in a way that ended up being kinda relevant

>> No.3715144

Dude, a fagot here had the courage to appoint "War and Peace" (one of the greatest works of literary fiction ever made and a huge human fresco), but no one spoke the obvious response to OP's proposal: fucking "Finnegans Wake".

>> No.3715147

>>3715134

>i think that's a fair analogy, the ongoing sexual revolution is an incredibly important shift in human thought, and De Sade predated it (And strongly, might i ad) with the idea that human beings are shaped by their descriptions of themselves and the world.

>sartre was just kinda edgy in a way that ended up being entirely irrelevant

>> No.3715150

>>3715144

Finnegans is almost the exact opposite of boring.

Stop talking about books you haven't read.

>> No.3715153

>>3715133

And how would you know if I were dead after a single meeting?

>> No.3715155

>>3715144
Again,
I didn't understand it ≠ I found it boring

>> No.3715156

>>3715144
idk i just don't think of it as a normal book

i have it on my bedside table and i just read it and giggle/marvel at the puns/enjoy the surrealness of it now and then, and i have to say in that sense it's pretty interesting

>> No.3715163

>>3714679
>too difficult/dense
Keep telling yourself that. GRRM is more difficult and dense than most classics of literature. Before you reply, think long and hard on the difference between what is written on the page and the, in some cases, hundreds of years of literary "analysis" that has injected more and more "meaning" into these classics.

>> No.3715165

>>3715163

>"analysis" that has injected more and more "meaning" into these classics.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read up on what literary analysis, literary theory, and literary criticism are. PLEASE

>> No.3715170

>>3715147
wow you sure told me
and because you didn't express any ideas i can't disagree
i wish i were cool and smart like you :'(

>> No.3715174

>>3715165
especially via hamlet. it's really nuts how many different viewpoints it's been analyzed by

i read a really good american pragmatist reading of it today

>> No.3715178

>>3715165

Legitimately curious: what would you suggest reading to learn more about this?

>> No.3715179

>>3715163
>GRRM is more difficult and dense than most classics of literature

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

>> No.3715188

>>3715165
What they are supposed to be and what they are are two very different things. Or are you telling me that if I go over to google scholar and search "psychoanalysis" that I won't find it in any literature analysis written by anyone with an advanced degree in literature (mfa or higher) after the field of psychoanalysis was discredited and not in reference to either Jung or Freud?

>> No.3715201

Blood Meridian

Whats your problem with punctuation, Cormac? Shouldn't I at least be able to know when, like, people are talking?

>> No.3715205

>>3715087
Derrida is not discussing anything here. He just says "not a powerful philosopher".
All I know is that Being and Nothingness is a difficult reading (I didn't read it all). So most people who dismiss Sartre probably do because someone else, Derrida or Onfray etc, said he's not as good as people think.
Honestly, many themes in Being and Nothingness come from Hegel and Husserl (maybe Heidegger). It was ok in 1943 because nobody in France had read them before.
But I liked the theme of Being opposed to nothingness. It's a fresh perspective on Hegel's master and slave dialectics. Sartre considers conscience as man's ability to create nothingness, i.e. holes of possibility in a world that appears full to animals. For example, Sartre sees love as the desire to be loved, or recognized. To achieve this (recongnition), you have to show that you can open doors to the world, that you're a kind of gatekeeper. A conscience able to "néantiser" (nothing-ize?) the world, so that the chick will see you as a true Being, as full as the world, a gatekeeper to the world.
As for literature, I really liked No Exit, and its portrayal of death as the end of freedom, the end of our power to make others change their mind about us. I find it priceless how Sartre shows how much power a woman can have over you when she calls you a "coward". Especially if you're dead.
Now, I don't agree with his full belief in the free-will of Man.

>> No.3715206

>>3715178

http://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-300

>> No.3715211

>>3715188

Theory and praxis have a much more interesting theory in academia and culture than psychoanalysis

>> No.3715212

>>3715211

interesting history*

>> No.3715217

>>3715093
>implying that means anything
diogenes hated plato and schopenhauer hated hegel, just as anon hates sartre
I think he's a hack too, far too pretentious for me

>> No.3715218

>>3715205
>from Hegel and Husserl (maybe Heidegger

Hegel and Husserl and Heideger, oh my!
Hegel and Husserl and Heideger, oh my!
Hegel and Husserl and Heideger, oh my!
Hegel and Husserl and Heideger, oh my!
Hegel and Husserl and Heideger, oh my!

>> No.3715220

>>3715144
you probably hate naked lunch too

>> No.3715224

>>3715150
>>3715155
>>3715156

Alright. But with Joyce as a teacher you will hardly write books to be read and admired by all kinds of people.

Tolstoy and Shakespeare are loved by people with different levels of education, and not only by students of literature and writers.

I'm pretty sure you guys are students of english or a course related to literature. These are generally those who defend Joyce with tooth and nail.

And I've seen many here on /lit/ proud that "normal" people fail to progress in Joyce, or to understand Joyce: generaly the reason why you guys usually take pride in finishing the reading of the works of Joyce is just because it is complex and hardly admired outside of the intellectual circles.

Joyce is not a bad writer, but he is much more an patient man than a genius. Shakespeare would never have the patience of Joyce, the patience to spend many, many years weaving pages filled with obscure references and counterpoints, but he was still much greater than Joyce in verbal creativity. (and humanity: he had a much larger naturally towards people, unlike Joyce, who often seemed to be autistic)

>> No.3715227

>>3715170

I expressed exactly as many ideas as you did.

We're both cool as fuck, apparently.

>> No.3715230

>>3715201

This. A good book, but with some faggot style pseudo-techniques.

>> No.3715239

>>3715211
Even still. When you have that many people actively looking for meaning in a set of well, anything, someone will find it.

Hell, taking stuff like Billy Shakes seriously is like in 400 years holding up How I Met Your Mother seriously. God, I can only imagine the papers written on having a serial womanizer played by a homosexual as commentary on disallowing homosexual marriage in turn of the century popular culture and the impact on current sexual mores...

>> No.3715240

>>3715224
>take pride in finishing the reading (...)
see Bourdieu's Distinction, a social critique of the judgement of taste. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Distinction

>> No.3715251

>>3715217
>diogenes hated people born thousands of years after his death
U wot m8

>> No.3715256

>>3715251
m8 you're the one that deserves a wot
diogenes fucked with plato all the time, they were contemporaries

>> No.3715258

>>3715251
>WP : << He [Diogenes] became notorious for his philosophical stunts such as carrying a lamp in the daytime, claiming to be looking for an honest man. He embarrassed Plato, disputed his interpretation of Socrates and sabotaged his lectures. >>

>> No.3715283
File: 27 KB, 400x400, literary-theory-vsi.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3715283

>>3715178

A very kind anon uploaded the entire VSI series a few days ago
http://pastebin.com/gYLJYLFr

>> No.3715290

>>3715256
>>3715258
Oh shit I read it as "Diogenes hated Plato and Schopenhauer and Hegel

excuse my illiteracy

>> No.3715293
File: 48 KB, 491x655, derrida.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3715293

>>3715153

>> No.3715302

>>3715290
well, to be fair he probably would've
I think he might like schoppy though

>> No.3715306

>>3715293

You probably think Tupac, Elvis, Randy Savage and Dale Earnhardt are dead too.

Sheep.

>> No.3715313
File: 46 KB, 362x488, jj.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3715313

>>3715224
Even if you forget about Ulysses and FW,
Portrait of the Artist is one of the best books of all time and Joyce was a damn fine short-story writer too

Why can't you just give the man his due?

>> No.3715323

>>3715306
of course Tupac is alive.

>> No.3715330

I had great expectations for Great Expectations,

>> No.3715337

>>3715313
actually the portrait of the artist as a young man, where you see how pretentious he already was in HS, is precisely what discourages me from reading Ulysses. I read the 1st three pages of Ulysses at the book store the other day, and it was enough for me.

>> No.3715351

>>3714282
>What are some of the big works in fiction you found boring?
The absolute worst is Moby Dick. I nearly committed suicide at page 500. I read it till the end cause I thought there MUST be a reason why so many great minds keep referencing Moby Dick, put them in their all-time favorite lists, compare characters or history figures to Captain Ahab...
But there is just nothing. Fucking snobs.

>> No.3715355

>>3715313

He is a great writer, i do not deny his greatnes, his criativity and inventivnes: he is truly a master of the language.

I only think his fans are sometimes a litle arrogant. But the man himself is great.

>> No.3715371

>>3715351
> << The book initially received mixed reviews,
you bet...
>but Moby-Dick is now considered part of the Western canon,[3] and at the center of the canon of American novels. >> WP.

>> No.3715394

>>3715371
> << Many critics praised it for its unique style, interesting characters, and poetic language,[45] but others agreed with a critic with the highly regarded London Athenaeum, who described it as:

>"[A]n ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition. The style of his tale is in places disfigured by mad (rather than bad) English; and its catastrophe is hastily, weakly, and obscurely managed."[45] >>

>> No.3715430

>>3714575

OH JESUS THIS. This fucking book man. All the characters are assholes, Dickens's sentences drag on for pages and you have to reread them three times to glean the meaning from what he's saying, and it just goes on forever. I fucking hated it.

>> No.3715484

>>3715240
dunno if svg pictures are supported. (edit : not)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Espace_social_de_Bourdieu.svg
It's a pretty funny graph showing how people distinguish themselves from lower classes to show their economic capital and/or cultural capital.
it's in french, but it's graphic, and many words are easy, like piano, tennis, golf, bière... Echecs means chess, équitation is horse riding, patron means CEO/boss/manager, chasse = hunting, "vote à droite" = votes right-wing, commerçant = shopkeeper, cadre = executive.

>> No.3715491

>>3715430
>you have to reread them three times to glean the meaning from what he's saying

Lol, Dickens is a lot of things, but difficult to understand isn't one of them. I think you might just be dumb.

>> No.3715497

>>3715491

Not difficult to understand, difficult to follow because the sentences are all essentially run-on sentences. But I am on 4chan, so odds are good that I'm a dumb motherfucker.

>> No.3715522

>>3715497
They're just full of independent clauses, man. With the right punctuation they can be as long as they need to be. There are a lot of reasons to dislike Dickens (if you're so inclined), but he's one of the most accessible 'classic' authors.

Maybe try something like Oliver Twist or something and see if you like it better.

>> No.3715558

>>3715058
As an actual fan of the book, I need to agree that the last part is needlessly uncool (and I found this to be a common problem with all of his books, especially The Idiot). Dostoevsky had a tendency to cram stupid soap-opera level drama in most of his books, and it only worked in his later ones like Raw Youth and Brothers Karamazov (even there, it wasn't truly the best part of each novel).
But the first part with Rodia trying to motivate himself to do the deed, the actual killing, the tension of being followed, the paranoia, that fucking Porfiry ... it was fucking awesome. And I also liked his description of the city as a decadent and eternally poor place where dreams and hopes go to die.

>> No.3715566

>>3715205
>Onfray
Do people really take him seriously ? I mean you can argue about Derrida or Foucault, but Onfray is clearly a sad joke.

>> No.3715600

>>3715558
>But the first part with Rodia trying to motivate himself to do the deed, the actual killing, the tension of being followed, the paranoia, that fucking Porfiry ... it was fucking awesome. And I also liked his description of the city as a decadent and eternally poor place where dreams and hopes go to die.

For me, the tension was obnoxious. "Will he? Won't he? Oh no, he's been caught! Oh, but it was only a dream! Stress, destitution, bureaucracy!" And it just went on and on and on, and then with his mother and sister, those minor side characters. I thought bringing in Sonya or Svidrigailov would liven things up, but it just didn't happen.

And I enjoyed the philosophical passages, but they were few and far between. The rest was Raskolnikov brooding or walking around Petersburg like a vagrant. He probably walked 50 miles in the span of that novel.

>> No.3715610

>>3715205

>For example, Sartre sees love as the desire to be loved, or recognized. To achieve this (recongnition), you have to show that you can open doors to the world, that you're a kind of gatekeeper. A conscience able to "néantiser" (nothing-ize?) the world, so that the chick will see you as a true Being, as full as the world, a gatekeeper to the world.

(bear with me, i haven't read much but i love to think)

This sounds incredibly reductive to me. Is he talking about a strictly cognitive view of love? A psychological one? The drive to love and be loved has a lot to do with not only primal animal drives but the makeup of our psyche as well. He's also ignoring how much our ideas of love have to do with our nature as creatures messing about in various social circles. Much of human behavior, from what I understand, is a mixed bag of nature and nurture. I'm not sure where gates and holes of nothing come into it/

>> No.3715779

>>3715205
as someone who has read being and nothingness, this is almost entirely wrong. and it's not conscience. it's consciousness. if english isn't your first language, this is possibly forgivable, but not really :/

and you can't like his ontology with reference to the nothingness of his system (which you've grossly misunderstood) and not like his account of freedom. being and nothingness is an attempt at a phenomenological explanation of how freedom is established.

>>3715610
sartre gives a lot to the "situation" (culture, era, etc.) but you choose which "impulses" you're going to act upon. sartre is a proponent of a radical account of free will.

>> No.3718398

bump

>> No.3718573

>>3714372
If a book can't be enjoyed without a guide or critical essay it fails.

>> No.3718585

>>3715108
You are my fucking hero.

>> No.3718597

Reading Moby Dick is like hunting Moby Dick, a pointless waste of life.