B is for Bored

Yeesh. I can't decide if I dislike unpleasant books or boring books more. Of course, many books are both boring and unpleasant, so maybe I don't have to decide! These two, though, fit squarely in the just boring category (because for me "unpleasant" is a euphemism for books that I find skin-crawlingly icky like American Psycho and The Wasp Factory). Maybe I wasn't in the right head space for them, but they sort of made me want to claw my eyes out.

First up, we have The Enigma of Arrival, aka my first Naipul. Maybe I just don't get Naipaul. Maybe I just don't want to. Honestly, I tried to go into this not having any baggage about his jerk tendencies (and in reading this, I'd say also his delusions of grandeur, but again, maybe I just don't get his works).

That's all I want to say about that one. I know I didn't actually say anything about it, really, but trust me, there is nothing to say. Nothing.

Then I read Strait is the Gate. To give some context, when I was making a record of this on my list I use to keep track of the books that I've read, at first I spelled the title as straight, and I thought the book wasn't really on the list. I literally said out loud, "If I read this and didn't have to, I'll kill myself." Now, okay, yes I didn't actually mean that, but good gracious. This one was both boring and maddening.

Essentially, the plot is that the narrator lives in France in the 19th century. As a young boy, he grows up with his cousins and falls in love with the older female cousin. She's sort of like Elsie Dinsmore on steroids. Her younger sister is crushing on the narrator, so first she's like, don't marry me, marry her! I shall sacrifice myself. Then the younger sister (who is sort of awesome; I wish this had been a book about her) hooks up with someone else, so that's all good. But then she's like, if we get together we'll be happy, but we shouldn't want to be happy! We should want to be constantly working towards being happy, but never really get there. Let's be really holy instead. You should talk to God, not me. I shall sacrifice myself! And then she dies. The end.