Great Books That Put You To Sleep

[WerenCole]

Hemingway can be a little dry, yes, we can take that for a matter or course or taste, but his stories are usually engaging enough to merit a good read. My problem with the man has to do with the fact that I have absolutely no interest in matadors. Of the great authors of the last century, Hemingway is one of the only ones devoid of a place on my book shelf, I just couldn't squeeze him in between my extensive collection of Mark Twain and Steinbeck. Even Faulkner has a place (one) on my book shelf, and I really don't like him, which is odd coming from a Mark Twain scholar.

It is funny that the Divine Comedy was mentioned as it is the book that is sitting right next to my computer currently, and yes I have the version with the original italian text on one side and the translation on the other.

Chaucer is fun, don't diss Chaucer. He is a must read for anyone who takes higher literature seriously because he contributed so much towards the evolution of the tale and modern english.

Brett Easton Ellis is the worst author of the last fifty years who has had any success (I just had to throw this in, I loathe his work, really, really do. . .)

Perhaps this is coming from my love of Twain, but the Leather Stocking tales of James Fenimore Cooper are perhaps the most snooze worthy set of books I have ever encountered. That does not mean they aren't worth reading, I just can't get through them the way I devour every thing else. I even read Ellis's work quickly, but the reason for that was to make the pain as short lived as possible.

Check out James Fenimore Cooper's list of literary offenses by Twain sometime, it's good stuff. (There are actually two essays, but the second is a little harder to come by)

[My-Immortal]

Originally Posted by expatbrat

Immortal – it is 1pm lunch time here in Thailand… remember that 19 out of 20 people in this world are NOT American and everyone on the web is not necessarily on your time zone.



Karen

True - but everyone needs to sleep sometime and perhaps some people just needed to 'nap' to ease their crankiness rather than 'sleep'.

Take care all - even those 19 out of 20 NON Americans out there. LOL

[MrAlex'sMommy]

A lot of books were difficult for me to get through when I was younger. I re-read them a few years after my initial attempt, and found they were much more engaging. For me, a lot of it has to do with where I am mentally and emotionally when I'm reading.

Some of the "boring" books which later turned out to be not so bad include:
Their Eyes Were Watching God (one of my all-time favorites now)
The Great Gatsby (this one is still just "okay" for me)
The Grapes of Wrath/Harvest Gypsies (I love them together!)


As far as books I consider good, but still make me fall asleep, I'm trying to read La Dame aux Camélias in the original French. Dear Lord, though, it makes me tired everytime I try. It's terrific, but I can only manage about 20 pages before I'm out!

Just for fun, here are the "classics" I thought were just terrible:
A Brave New World (I think it's time to read this one again)
Demian (IMHO - what a mess!)
The Old Man and the Sea. . .read aloud by Charlton Heston (AHHHHHHH!!!)

It's all in fun. I'm sorry if I've bashed anyone's favorite reads. If you want to bash mine, have a go at Anna Karenina, The Handmaid's Tale, or 1984.

Ack! As soon as I posted this, I recalled the one book that took me FOREVER to read -- the ONE book I would NEVER read again if I could help it:

The Prince (Machiavelli)

Good stuff, just too boring for my tastes.

[(grasshopper)]

The first book I ever read by James Michener was Space. It was so good I took it everywhere I went and read it during any bit of free time (even standing in line at the supermarket). I read several more of his books and loved them all. Then I came across a copy of Caribbean.
I expected it to be about beach resorts, fancy hotels, yachts and lifestyles of the rich and famous. Then, half-way through it, I realized we weren't ever going to get there. Suddenly I lost all interest in the book. I struggled through to the end, though.

But I can definitely say that the last half of that book was putting me to sleep pretty regularly.

[lostintheweb]

Even though I love Dickens (yeah, he wrote huge amounts, but that was because he got paid by the word), I have to admit that Bleak House works better than Ambien for me

[JBI]

Any Bronte literature; honestly, those women are so damn depressing. How can I even begin to feel sympathy for Heathcliff or for Jane Eyre?

Generally classic literature makes up about 80% of my reading base, the other 20% being modern literary books, and the odd mainstream/genre book every now and again. With some of them you must realize that they were writing for different reasons, with different styles to appeal to different tastes.

I would put 99% of fantasy on my list of books I can't read, if only I could consider them great books. Tolkien's boring work however, is on this list. Sitting right next to C.S. Lewis, though I did finish them both, I can't be bothered with that sort of junk. Tolkien is way too boring, and Lewis is way to god damn religious.

And P.S., for those who put stuff by James Joyce, I wouldn't consider him to be someone who's work you read for pleasure. I think of him as someone meant to be studied, and meant to demonstrate how someone can handle literature. Though I must tell you, the fireworks scene from Ulysses was one of the best things I have ever read.

[Gary]

I feel guilty for saying that I find most of the above, and many more classics, instantaneous sleep inducers. I often wonder who determined most of these books to be great works, when they are so boring.

Different strokes for different folks, but I read for entertainment and I question what state of mind the reader is seeking while reading these books?

[EriRae]

Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses. When I wasn't sleeping thru the Spanish, I was cursing loud enough that people could hear me across the lake (read it on vacation, no less...worst vacation ever, not all McCarthy's fault).

Also slept through most of Henry James's The Ambassadors. And, though I loved it, had to read Faulkner's Go Down Moses twice because I snoozed through most of it the first time.

The only snorefest I've never finished: Dracula. I want to, I really do, but so many have done it better since...

For me, Gary, it's not that I'm looking for a state of mind, more that I want to learn whatever it is that people learn from great books. Make myself a better writer, maybe learn how not to write, etc. Sometimes, I get Scarlet's mentality: no book or boring author is going to beat me, dammit, I am going to finish it.

[Mom'sWrite]

Of the classics, I'd say that Frankenstein was most coma-inducing. I have to say that it was only the Cliff Notes that pulled my booty out of the fire on that one.

As for modern literary fiction Like Water for Chocolate and Umberto Eco's anything made me go positively narcoleptic

[Linda Adams]

Jane Eyre. I tried to read it, but I had to force myself to pick up the book each time. I kept going to read other more interesting books instead--think I must have read five other books in the middle of Jane Eyre before I finally gave up. Couldn't even tell you what the book was about.

[wayndom]

DANIEL MARTIN, by John Fowles. Fowles gleefully admits (in another work) that he writes only to impress the intelligentsia of academia, and it's only by accident that some of his works (The Collector, The Magus, The French Lieutenants Woman) have become bestsellers. Daniel Martin proves his claim. The most boring book I ever made it all the way through. I actually enjoyed it (else I wouldn't have finished it), but only after I was able to alter my expectations...

UNDER VENUS, by Peter Straub. I'm a tremendous fan of Straub's, and always recommend GHOST STORY as the single best horror novel I've ever read. Under Venus, however, is one of those books a writer gets to see published only after he's had several NYT bestsellers. No one would have published it had it come from an unknown. In the entire "novel," NOTHING EVER HAPPENS. Antagonistic characters meet, talk, go their separate ways... Finally, the central character gets back on a plane and flies back to Paris, his Christmas visit to his home town over. Absolutely nothing of consequence happened during his visit. Had he not come, all the same things would've happened without him. Snooooooooore...

Anything by Tom Tryon, the former actor who wrote THE OTHER and THE SECRET OF HARVEST HOME. Driest prose I've ever seen. Guaranteed to cure insomnia.

[wayndom]

Originally Posted by Gary

I feel guilty for saying that I find most of the above, and many more classics, instantaneous sleep inducers. I often wonder who determined most of these books to be great works, when they are so boring.

As I recall in high school english class, writers from earlier centuries wrote for the upper classes, who had time on their hands to read. Because they had a LOT of time on their hands, writers were encouraged to write "windy."

Modern writers are writing to you and me, and we don't have all the time in the world to wonder what color frock Julianne will wear to tea, so they get to the point.

That's why I haven't included "classics." And to answer your question, books become classics simply by maintaining interest and thus continuing to be read as time goes by. Oddly, most classics weren't bestsellers in their time, and most bestsellers are quickly forgotten after they drop off the list.

[shakeysix]

english lit is my major. i have been assigned that book 2or 3 times. i have never made it through. i suspect few of my teachers had, either, or they would have come up with harder exams. '100 years of solitude' is another yawner. i have had to read it in english and spanish. i prefer the spanish because i can look up every other word in the english spanish dictionary to break up the monotony of 65 characters with the same freaking first name. the snows of k. and 'the old man and the sea" are so impossibly macho that they just piss me off. the brontes make me cringe to be female. and if i die and wake up in a room lined with james fennimore cooper or george eliot i will know i am in hell. --s6

[Tallymark]

I'm sad to say it, but Lord of the Rings has an incredibly soporific effect on me. And I loved The Hobbit, and have tried so hard to finish LoTR, but it knocks me out cold. SO MUCH DESCRIPTION.

Shakespeare puts me to sleep, along with the Oedipus cycle (how can you make murder and incest boring? Jeez.), The Great Gatsby, and To Kill a Mockingbird (though, I will confess on this last one that I was perhaps too young to understand it properly at the time). And story where nothing seems to be happening, or where I get tangled up in trying to understand the language, and my eyes just glaze over. I'll get the the end of the page and can't remember anything I've just read. Oh, and anything by Robert Jordan (the entire Wheel of Time series)...cannot stay awake.

And yet, I loved Pride & Prejudice and A Tale of Two Cities.

[shakeysix]

[quote=Tallymark;1508714]I'm sad to say it, but Lord of the Rings has an incredibly soporific effect on me. And I loved The Hobbit, and have tried so hard to finish LoTR, but it knocks me out cold. SO MUCH DESCRIPTION.

and i could not stand the whining endless dialog between frodo and sam and all that sleeping on each other's bosoms. before i finally threw it down i was rooting for gollum. at least he did his whining in the open--s6

[Shady Lane]

I love love love Great Gatsby, but my mind wanders to death if I read more than ten pages at once.

[Devil Ledbetter]

Wuthering Heights. Naptime!

[Bo Sullivan]

War and Peace.

[sanssouci]

Don Quixote - am I the only person who didn't find this book funny in the least? (It had my lit class in stitches)

[Shady Lane]

Oh, and Of Mice and Men puts me to sleep, if I'm not too busy cursing Steinbeck's mother for carrying him to term.

[shakeysix]

high school friends of mine competed in forensics one season with a reading from 'of mice and men'. they raked in the medals with it but could make it so screamingly funny that we would wet ourselves on the bus while riding to the meets. kind of a cross between elmer fudd and marvin the martian. or pinky and the brain. i had to teach it a couple of times and never could get through "will there be ketchup, george?" without giggling. --s6

yeah!every book can make me sleep,maybe students can feel what I say

_________________
tomorrow is another day
dvd to iphone

[Hillgate]

I find Garrison Keillor soporific

[Saundra Julian]

Everything James Mitchner wrote!

[shakeysix]

there is a whole thread here on james michener. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-s6