Great books that put you to sleep?

[maestrowork]

We know those books... great prose, great characters, wonderful story... but we can only pick at them, and if it's before bedtime... we fall sleep on them.

What are yours? And what do you think of them?

I've been reading Children of Men for a while now, picking at it on and off. But every time I read more than a few pages I fell asleep.

Another one is Corelli's Mandolin. Again, wonderful writing, but I fall asleep every time I try to read it.

[Darzian]

The Lord of the Rings.


I couldn't make it through the first time. Several years later, I became an avid fan. I just couldn't take it when I was 12.

[Dark Cyril]

A lot of the so called "classics" of American Literature. The Scarlet Letter is one of the greatest sleeping aids ever penned.

[scarletpeaches]

Most of the Atwood canon.

LotR. I can't take it and I'm 32.

[Dark Cyril]

Yeah, I should note that myself. I've made it through Fellowship a few times, but every time I get to Treebeard's introduction in The Two Towers I zonk right out.

[callalily61]

Carlyle's French Revolution. You wouldn't think that bloody revolution, intrigue, slaughter, and complete country upheaval could be boring, but the man manages to do just that. I keep it for the few nights a year that I have trouble sleeping. Half a page and I'l zonked.

[Darzian]

Yeah, I should note that myself. I've made it through Fellowship a few times, but every time I get to Treebeard's introduction in The Two Towers I zonk right out.

Hoom Boom Boom Boom Hoom............................

[blacbird]

Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse. Has made me never desire to read anything else by him, at least until the sun gets big and red and fries the earth.

caw

[mscelina]

Sandberg's biography of Lincoln--and also *I'm ashamed to admit this* Lord of the Flies. Don't ask me why; it just happens.

[ajkjd01]

I'm right there with you guys on LOTR. And, scarletpeaches, I'm 32 as well, and still haven't figured it out.

I can't get by Tom Whathisname in the forest in Fellowship. I've tried for five years. I don't get why that scene is there. To be honest, I don't even care anymore.

I don't get why everyone's such a fan of his writing. It's a great story....but it's lost in too many details. To the point that it's work to find the story in the details. And the tangents.

This flaw is what kept me out of fantasy for SOOOOOOO many years. And that's too bad, because I really do like fantastical stories.

And it's why I go to my critique group and sometimes wish I could gouge my eyeballs out with sharpened chopsticks....people writing epic fantasy justifying the minutiae of detail because "That's What Tolkien Did." I feel like they need little silver bracelets with TWTD engraved on them. Really. And then I get the argument that I don't know what I'm talking about because I don't write epic fantasy (Huh? Doesn't mean I'm not a reader). And that Tolkien (and to a lesser extent, Jordan) must have known what they were doing since their books are classics. When I tell them I like the epic fantasy that has been published recently because it avoids exactly that problem, I get told that they aren't classics, so it doesn't count. (Forehead slap, anyone)

End rant. I promise.

[Dark Cyril]

I like how Jordan has apparently already reached "classic status" despite it not even being two decades old yet.

As for Tolkien, the mistake he made is that he wrote the series as a history. There was a great story in there, he just couched it in so many small details here and there and so many Homeric tropes that it was overwhelmed (Jackson did a great job realizing the story and putting it on the screen, IMO).

[nevada]

Tom Bombadil does me in every time. Although usually it's the barrow weights or whatever that stop me dead in my tracks.

Blindness. That book made me wish i was blind so I wouldnt have to read it. I stopped soon after the wish. It just wasnt worth the agony.

[scarletpeaches]

Bloody Tom Bombadil. 180 friggin' pages. I'll never get that friggin' fortnight back.

GAH!!!

[TerzaRima]

Much of the James Joyce oeuvre. Sorry, Irish relatives. Ulysses was solipsistic.

[callalily61]

*sticks head up from behind the couch*

I love Tom Bombadil. He's my favorite Tolkien caracter. I've read the trilogy more than a dozen times.

*ducks and runs*

I'll add to my list: Gargantua and Pantagruel. I finished it because I kept thinking "I should like this--it's classic" but I had to keep pinching myself to keep awake.

[Darzian]

*sticks head up from behind the couch*

I love Tom Bombadil. He's my favorite Tolkien caracter. I've read the trilogy more than a dozen times.

*ducks and runs*

I'll add to my list: Gargantua and Pantagruel. I finished it because I kept thinking "I should like this--it's classic" but I had to keep pinching myself to keep awake.

Run indeed! I've read them more than a dozen times but Tom serves absolutely no purpose in the plot. I know that everything doesn't need to be related to the primary plot but he really seemed unnecessary.

[callalily61]

I always thought he served the very necessary purpose of injecting a little lightheartedness into Tolkien's Uber-Serious Epic (note the caps--I love LotR, but it knows it's an Epic).

[Alvah]

We know those books... great prose, great characters, wonderful story... but we can only pick at them, and if it's before bedtime... we fall sleep on them.



Thucydides --Peloponnesian Wars

[C.bronco]

Portrait of a Lady. I could not stay awake. It's a miracle I finished it, or I think I did.

[AmandaAcidic]

I've been doing that with Pride and Prejudice. Except I like it so much that I fight off sleep and end up awake will 4 when I have to work at 6. Haha

[selkn.asrai]

I can't think of any books offhand, but I know that the first three times I tried to watch Eddie Izzard, I fell asleep.

I've seen it now, many times. I don't know why I drifted off, coz I thought/think he's hilarious. Maybe coz his delivery was often just so mellow.

[scarletpeaches]

I fancy him.

Yes. Guylinered guys aren't enough. Now I'm into TV's.

[Darzian]

I forgot to mention 'The Belgariad.'

I don't know if it's a 'great' book but it's popular enough. Fortunately I didn't buy the books but borrowed them.

[Shaun M]

I read LOTR before the movies came out. But I misread the ending so the movie ending was a total shock to me.

I leaned over to my friend and said, "Did they change the ending for the movie? WTF..."

I thought Aragorn married Arwen (Stephen Tyler's Daughter). Which made her leaving for "Haven" all the more troubling for me.

Eowyn != Arwen.

Perhaps I should have been sleeping.

[josephwise]

Run indeed! I've read them more than a dozen times but Tom serves absolutely no purpose in the plot. I know that everything doesn't need to be related to the primary plot but he really seemed unnecessary.

For some readers, he's thematically crucial.

He also serves as a foil for two incredibly important characters: the ring, and Sauron.

It depends on what you want to get out of the books. The plot might be fine without him; but I don't think the story would be as good.



Me, I had trouble getting through Crime and Punishment. All of the patronymics, and such. But I DID finish it, and it's easily one of the best books I've read. Svidrigailov is my favorite villain of all time.

[BenPanced]

I can't think of any books offhand, but I know that the first three times I tried to watch Eddie Izzard, I fell asleep.

I've seen it now, many times. I don't know why I drifted off, coz I thought/think he's hilarious. Maybe coz his delivery was often just so mellow.
That happened to me when I was watching series 5 of Absolutely Fabulous with the commentary by Jennifer Saunders and John Plowman on. Not because it was so excruciatingly boring -- far from it, I learned some background information on the show as a whole -- but their voices were so calm, so reassuring, so delightfully British, I almost fell asleep about halfway through each episode. Unlike US TV series where the commentary is done HI! I'M A COMEDIAN SO I HAVE TO TALK OVER THE REST OF THE CAST BECAUSE YOU WON'T THINK I'M FUNNY, OTHERWISE!

Books that have put me to sleep but I've finished, anyway? If I'm falling asleep while reading, it means I'm tired and I need to get to bed. That's the only reason I can think of. I can tell I'm bored with a book by how many times I try to start reading it but fail to make it halfway through, much less even bothering to finish it.

[maestrowork]

And Doctor Zhivago. I'm still "working on it." I've tried to "work on it" since I was 10 or 11, when I started to get interested in English literature (although the original is in Russian, of course).

[nevada]

I read LOTR before the movies came out. But I misread the ending so the movie ending was a total shock to me.

I leaned over to my friend and said, "Did they change the ending for the movie? WTF..."

I thought Aragorn married Arwen (Stephen Tyler's Daughter). Which made her leaving for "Haven" all the more troubling for me.

Eowyn != Arwen.

Perhaps I should have been sleeping.

Aragorn does marry Arwen. She goes to leave but then has a vision of Aragorn and her child and she returns to Rivendell. Eowyn, after being injured while killing the Witchking, recouperates in the company of Faramir and they fall in love. Did you sleep through the last hour of The Return of The King?

[virtue_summer]

Ulysses by James Joyce. I couldn't get past the beginning. Then there are those books that I really do think are great now but that I just wasn't ready for the first time I read them. Case in point is A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I hated it in high school and couldn't get through it. Then something possessed me to pick it up again in college and start reading it again. Crazy thing is the second time around I had the opposite experience. I fell in love with it, became hooked, and lost hours of sleep every night trying to read just a few more pages.

[Gogoplata712]

The Great Gatsby and Lord of the Flies. I always thought that these books put me to sleep because they were required reading during high school but I have tired reading them on my own. I got the same result. I just can't get through them.

[donroc]

The Scarlet Letter, The Rise of Silas Lapham, Portrait of a Lady, Silas Marner, The Sound and the Fury, to name a few.

[jscribbles]

Crime and Punishment

I keep this on my bedside table to read before I fall asleep. I've been working on it for years, but my eyes always droop after reading it for a few minutes.

[childeroland]

Must try to make it through Guermantes Way and maybe the rest of Proust's novel some time.