Great books that disappointed you

I will most likely get smacked for mine. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again and Lord of the Rings were too boring. I could not wrap my head around what J.R.R. was writing. I didn't get beyond the first chapter in either.

Pride and Prejudice was equally as boring. It read like a diary without the juicy details, imo. I still don't see why Mr. Darcy was so sigh worthy. Though I did struggle through Mayfair, which really turned me off Jane Austin.

 

The Grapes of Wrath, the book with bipolar disorder. An intercalary chapter would be good, but the chapters between were drawn out and tedious.

 

Awww...

I'm surprised that _Catchers in the Rye_ seems to be so disappointing to many here. I blubbered like a baby at the end of that book! This is completely my own interpretation, but I felt the book illuminated how it is mankinds' innate predisposition to love one another, and then throughout childhood and youth we learn why we should not love one another. Yes, the main character is completely unlovable, but try to view him through his little sister's eyes.

Oh well.

But then again, I always found Shakespeare to be absolutely unbearable, so possibly my taste is somewhat suspect.

 

The Hobbit bored me so much I put it down halfway through and never went back. Ditto for Dune, though seeing the (older) film before reading it may have contributed to that. Terry Goodkind's fantasy series, or at least the first book in it, as I didn't get any further than that. It struck me as a book featuring 2D characters moving around in a 2D world.

 

I totally agree with you Kuemper. Even though I finished it I found LoTR quite boring to be honost.

 

You make me cry.

I'm jumping on the Hitchhiker's bandwagon - my brother-in-law swears by it, and has read it about ten thousand times. I read it, and while I chuckled a few spots, as a whole, it was fairly inane. I'll probably include Dune with this - it's good, but I don't see it as quite the masterpiece it's heralded to be.

 

I have to agree with the nay-sayers on "Hitchhiker's Guide" and "Dune". Perhaps I expected too much from my friends' recommendations, but they just didn't spark. And I think "Stranger in a Strange Land" just plain falls apart in the second half; the beginning of Heinlein's decline. A problem that also afflict Farmer's Riverworld novels: brilliant beginning, limp ending. Tolkien's writing at its worst is stilted, and some scenes are embarassingly overwritten, but only a few, and the magnificence of his conception saves him, at least for me.

 

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, or to be more precise Northern Lights - the first part. I managed to slug through the first book, and then had to give up. It was sooo boring, it took me nearly three months to read because I could only read about a page at a time. What is the appeal?

 

Don Quixote.

Yes, this makes me an idiot. Right? But I'm totally willing to admit that I was an idiot back then when I was seventeen.

But since I read the Thousand and One Nights as a kid, I found that Don Quixote wasn't as good as my recollections of those stories, although it had a little bit the same kind of way of storytelling.

IMO, Don Quixote is over-interpreted. Any book would be a masterpiece of great cultural significance, if it would be interpreted so much as it has been.

It might be a great book, but I know I'll never read it again. Shame on me.

EDIT: I found nothing amusing, or of great value in the way Don Quixote gets beaten over and over, because he's a little nutty. Failing to see other meanings here, or what?

 

I found Don Quixote to have a few sporadic good chapters among a truck load of boredom. The second book was actually worse than the first one that way.

 

Yeah - Don Quixote. I have it sitting on my bookshelf with a boomark halfway through it where I finally gave up in boredom.

Other than that, I'm quite happy with the 'great' books I've read.

 

Hmmm...probably Harry Potter *shudder* I still can't believe I actually read it (especially since I hate it), but everyone was going on about it so I decided I'd have a read and see if it was any good or not.

 

Nothing wrong with a bit of Barry Trotter!

 

Ah wait! That reminds me - I hated Bored of the Rings. It was just lame gag after lame gag - nothing clever or witty or even really very funny.

 

Terry Brooks and his Shannara Legend thingy...all my friends said it ruled, but it never got to me...just to straightforward and outright bad descritions just bored the hell out of me...the first book I've ever not finished.

 

I couldn't agree more, Rekesalat. Those Shannara books were rubbish, given how popular they are supposed to be.

 

I... third that.

 

I've always had problems with the Shannara series. I managed to get through - and even to a certain extent enjoy the first book, but 3 chapters into the second and I was dazed and confused.

Just out of curiosity, has anyone else here found that after going back to a series you previously enjoyed, you found the flavour gone, and storyline tough to get through (much like an old piece of gum)
I'd been a big fan of David Eddings since Year 8 when a friend introduced me - I followed it through the Belgariad, the Mallorian, The Chronicals, The Elenium and the Tamuli, but after going back to them, I couldnt help but notice the re-used plotlines, characters and general childishness scattered throughout. I could digress, but I'm sure I've seen more than one thread dedicated to this

Anyway, just a point of interest. Anybody?

 

Sure, Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit springs to mind...the plot just moves so slowly ... bAAAAHHH

I loved them at first, but the second readthrough got a little boring...(speaking heresy, I know...)but I can't say I'm going to read them again in the near future