What makes a film boring?

[Chull]

I really, really tried to like Tolkien. It took me three attempts to get through The Hobbit. When I finally finished it, I picked up LOTR. When I got half-way through the first book, (at Rivendel), some character was going on and on, naming this and that. I had no idea if he was talking about people, places or things, and realized I simply didn't care. Painful. I kind of enjoyed the films, though.

[Mr Sausage]

Finnegan's Wake is quite funny and interesting -- taken a page or two at a time. However, I can't imagine getting all the way through the book -- ever. But it has never bothered me that I can't.

Tout va bien producing ennui? Vive la difference. ;~}

Finnegans Wake is such wonderful music that I always find amusing the sheer amount of people who revile it on the grounds of tediousness or pointlessness. It's something I can enjoy on such simple auditory levels, kind of like Kubla Kahn. That said, my main obstacle to reading the thing through is that it'll take me at least as long as it took me to read In Search of Lost Time (and school was continually interrupting my reading of that one) because of the sheer amount of time you can devote to any one page. After a while, it becomes an arbitrary decision to move to the next one; and then once you've finished you have to start all over again.

Speaking of boring, one of my favourite Joycean jokes is the Eumaeus chapter of Ulysses, which I call the Boring Chapter, because Joyce stuffs the whole thing with purposefully banal English to such a point that you really begin to feel like you're sinking into a late-night drunken stupour. Joyce can be such a bastard.

[Michael Kerpan]

Except for the first couple of pages, I could never be sure if I had read any given page of Finnegan's Wake already or not. One always found new puns/jokes/allusions each time....

;~}

[Sanjuro]

I borrowed The Silmarillion from my school library many years ago, fortunately they never asked for it back because it took me a long time to get into it, I had several false starts, then waited 10 years or so.

Next time I picked it up it was fantastic, I loved it. So, I guess people's feelings of what's 'boring' can change over time.

[tryavna]

Finnegan's Wake is quite funny and interesting -- taken a page or two at a time. However, I can't imagine getting all the way through the book -- ever. But it has never bothered me that I can't.

Finnegans Wake is such wonderful music that I always find amusing the sheer amount of people who revile it on the grounds of tediousness or pointlessness. It's something I can enjoy on such simple auditory levels, kind of like Kubla Kahn. That said, my main obstacle to reading the thing through is that it'll take me at least as long as it took me to read In Search of Lost Time (and school was continually interrupting my reading of that one) because of the sheer amount of time you can devote to any one page. After a while, it becomes an arbitrary decision to move to the next one; and then once you've finished you have to start all over again.

I didn't mean to imply yesterday that I thought Finnegans Wake was necessarily boring (or tedious or pointless). Rather, I think it more easily fits into what Kekid was saying about already needing to be "in the know" when you start it. I.e., it's not really meant to be accessible -- though I think the rest of Joyce's work is.

For the record, Finnegans Wake is one of those novels I've simply resigned myself to never reading. Apart from a few old-school academics who specialized in "high" literary modernism, I've only known one person who's actually read it -- and is fairly conversant about it. And even he says that there were huge passages he couldn't remember at all immediately after having read them.

[zedz]

For the record, Finnegans Wake is one of those novels I've simply resigned myself to never reading. Apart from a few old-school academics who specialized in "high" literary modernism, I've only known one person who's actually read it -- and is fairly conversant about it. And even he says that there were huge passages he couldn't remember at all immediately after having read them.

At my period of maximum Joyce obsession I set myself this task and managed it by forcing myself to read ten pages a day, comprehension be damned. Reading aloud makes much more sense of everything, but is not recommended in public.

All went fine for a couple of weeks, but then unavoidable interruptions caused a few days' hiatus and the extremely flimsy thread of my understanding could not be retrieved. So it returned to my literary kevyip. I did get all the way through Burgess' condensation, but that's cheating. Anyway there are plenty of other great books I should read before I return to it with the extra armour of senile dementia.

[Mr Sausage]

I didn't mean to imply yesterday that I thought Finnegans Wake was necessarily boring (or tedious or pointless).

I hope I didn't come across as indicating you did. I wrote my post without anyone specific in mind. If I disagree at all, it's that I don't think you have to be "in the know" to read Finnegans Wake precisely because no one besides Joyce could possibly be in. Every other reader of the book starts out in more or less the same situation.

I will read the (whole) thing one of these days. This is not an idle pronouncement, either; I merely need the time.

All went fine for a couple of weeks, but then unavoidable interruptions caused a few days' hiatus and the extremely flimsy thread of my understanding could not be retrieved. So it returned to my literary kevyip. I did get all the way through Burgess' condensation, but that's cheating. Anyway there are plenty of other great books I should read before I return to it with the extra armour of senile dementia.

If you ever give it a second go, you might try the Skeleton's Key to Finnegans Wake, if not to help you page by page, at least to re-fresh your memory on the parts you've read (it gives pretty good summaries/paraphrases, although it gets a few details wrong according to modern scholarship). Also the early draft versions of the Wake make for interesting reading because Joyce wrote the book starting with a more or less comprehensible kernel, which would then accrue material until it became what it is today. Many of those early drafts can be followed on the level of plot (tho' not of narrative, since there isn't really one).

[HerrSchreck]

Proof that ignoring a thread comes at your own peril! Ah Joyce...

Burroughs wrote that Finnegans Wake "represents a trap into which experimental writing can fall when it becomes purely experimental."

I wholeheartedly agree. I think the whole matter would have been far more impressive had the thing been shrunken down at least to novella size or even better to a nice 35-50 pg short story. When a "difficult" novel, written in the reader's native tongue, never offers any relief (i e the reader cannot "read" in the traditional sense with any modicum of comprehension) even after the reader has gotten into the writers universe and becomes acclimated with the writers usages, density, use of jargon, argot, ellipses, etc... then the piece never becomes "agreeable" to the reader and the experience remains as unpleasant as research with no defineable (or at least stated) goal or benefit.. aside from moment to moment "comprehension".. which in itself tends not to be enough for most people. I tried it myself (Ulysses is tied for my favorite novel) time after time after time and finally relieved myself of the unpleasantness of acquiring the 'credential' of having read it. The payoff is just neither enriching or pleasant.

This is not to say that there aren't some out there who derive pleasure from the book. But I sorely wish Joyce would have employed his formidable wit and linguistic skills in a manner that produced a final project more comprehensible to the rest of the human race!

[tryavna]

If I disagree at all, it's that I don't think you have to be "in the know" to read Finnegans Wake precisely because no one besides Joyce could possibly be in. Every other reader of the book starts out in more or less the same situation.

I guess we do disagree there, because I just can't imagine somebody actually picking up the book and successfully making it all the way through without knowing in advance not just the book's reputation as being "difficult" but also at least a little about what Joyce was trying to do with his experimentation. Reading Ulysses, on the other hand, can be enriched by knowing all of the allusions, etc. in advance, but it can also be enjoyed on a purely narrative level. In that sense, the earlier novel is a bit like Eliot's Waste-Land, in my opinion.

My brief encounters with Finnegans Wake, however, reminds me of the first time I encountered Wallace Stevens' poetry in college. I honestly had no concept of what he was even attempting to do (let alone what some of the individual poems were "about"). Like then, I can only imagine learning to appreciate what Joyce is doing in FW with some sort of guidance. (Stevens has gotten a little easier as I've gotten older, but that course on Modernist Poetry certainly laid the groundwork, I think.)

[Mr Sausage]

I guess we do disagree there, because I just can't imagine somebody actually picking up the book and successfully making it all the way through without knowing in advance not just the book's reputation as being "difficult" but also at least a little about what Joyce was trying to do with his experimentation.

We agree more than you think. I highly doubt anyone would even start the book without knowledge of its reputation, what Joyce is doing or is reputed to have been doing. I guess my point is that no one, no matter how learned, begins the book by being "in the know," because no matter how much pre-information you have, there's no way you can actually start out on the book's wavelength. Everyone must grope their way toward understanding in the beginning; and I don't think there is anything you can know at the start to make it any less demanding.

My brief encounters with Finnegans Wake, however, reminds me of the first time I encountered Wallace Stevens' poetry in college. I honestly had no concept of what he was even attempting to do (let alone what some of the individual poems were "about"). Like then, I can only imagine learning to appreciate what Joyce is doing in FW with some sort of guidance. (Stevens has gotten a little easier as I've gotten older, but that course on Modernist Poetry certainly laid the groundwork, I think.)

I adore Stevens, but I remember being likewise bewildered at first (like I was when I started reading the late Yeats, or Hart Crane). But the same thing that's kept me coming back to the Wake is the same thing that kept me going back to Stevens: the wonderful music. At first I merely wallowed in its pure sound, but I found that the more I read Stevens (a great conversation on Sunday Morning with my American lit. Proff helped) the more I began to follow his rhetorical manner and understand the arguments of many of the poems with some clarity (not all: I still have trouble with The Auroras of Autumn). I'm sure this is true of most difficult poetry. I think that I was more prepared to be confounded by Finnegans Wake than I was by Stevens--tho' of the two, only Stevens now seems available to my understanding.

I don't know, maybe something to take away from this is that difficult literature, the stuff that really makes you work at it, can be more rewarding than those that offer easier pleasures. Whether or not this true of Finnegans Wake is rather up in the air for most.

[domino harvey]

What makes a thread about films boring? Talking about James Joyce instead of movies.

[HerrSchreck]

[HerrSchreck]

whoops okay. never mind.

[Mr Sausage]

What makes a thread about films boring? Talking about James Joyce instead of movies.

Nonsense.

[starmanof51]

What makes a thread about films boring? Talking about James Joyce instead of movies.

Nonsense.

Or alternately, sense.

[kekid]

What makes a thread about films boring? Talking about James Joyce instead of movies.

A few days ago I posted a few lines on this thread, the essence of which was that I find "deliberately obscure" works of art boring. This was a personal statement. There seems to be a general agreement that what one finds boring is dependent as much on the experiencer as the author. I gave a few examples of which artists I would put in this category. The mention of James Joyce in this context offended many members, and has resulted in a long exchange that you may find interesting or irrelevant depending on your perspective.

If we follow the arguments from various contributors, we could draw two general conclusions: (1) Some works, such as "Finnegans Wake", present extraordinary challenge to the reader, and for most readers are incomprehensible (at least without extensive aid). Where an individual reader draws this line is dependent on the reader. I find Ulysses difficult to read, and not enjoyable. Some people can relate to it better. The only thing I would object to is the undertone that the readers who find this work "obscure" and unenjoyable are, for that reason, less sensitive to arts. This argument would extend to other artists (such as Godard) in other art forms (such as cinema) as well. I have tried to explain why I find Godard "boring"; I do not argue that everyone should find him boring for that reason. Nor can I accept the suggestion from someone who does not that I should not. (2) The second debatable point is whether aversion to obscure works could be characterized as "boredom". This is a legitimate question. For me the response is boredom. I stop, and do not subject myself to the challenge of deciphering such works. (There are too many rewarding works waiting to be experienced for me to spend time on these works). Others may be simply annoyed by these works, and some may be driven to unravel the puzzle. I respect their different responses. I would like them to respect mine.

[domino harvey]

It was just a joke about how the thread had gone off topic

[moviscop]

I will tell you what makes a film, and a thread boring.

Information that doesn't pertain to the story and/or subject and accounts for the majority of the overall information.

[Tom Hagen]

When I first glanced over this thread, I momentarily thought that the dicussion was about this film.

As for Joyce, his later work resides in a category of artwork that includes Remembrance of Things Past and the films of Andy Warhol that I have always intended to get around to, but will likely continue to avoid for fear of the sheer tedium.

[Mr Sausage]

I will tell you what makes a film, and a thread boring.

Information that doesn't pertain to the story and/or subject and accounts for the majority of the overall information.

Tho' heaven knows why you think anyone cares.

There is always someone who wants to complain about a thread whose topic they otherwise find nothing to say about. Domino at least did it with a wink. But you're so deadpan serious about it. Really, on top of your shaky reasoning (that the interest or boredom in a piece of information has nothing to do with its merit), you pretend like we're marring an important and vital thread. We're not, it's not. If people are talking about Joyce, that's because no one really cares about the actual subject. The only reason I can see for your not just ignoring this thread in favour of the numberless other threads that might interest you is the need to keep up your six-posts-a-day quota.

[moviscop]

My word, settle down. I am not out to "murder" your thread. I was making a statement about films and using the "thread" comment as a joke considering how people are making fun of it so much.

Want your wink? Here is your fuckin' wink.

[Mr Sausage]

My god, settle down. I am not out to "murder" your thread. I was making a statement about films and using the "thread" comment as a joke considering how people are making fun of it so much.

I don't recall anyone besides Domino "making fun of it," nor can I figure out how one post becomes "so much," nor even how, if there were a lot, that would make what you said into a joke (which would in any case be a retread of what Domino already said). Indeed, I can't find any reason why you needed to tell us all we're being very boring; perhaps we are, but as you'll note, it's already been said, and we hardly need our faces rubbed in it.

Stop sucking my blood...

Excuse me, what?

EDIT: I see you've changed your post. No, I don't want "your fuckin wink," so kindly fuck off.

[moviscop]

Dude, you need to relax. I was making a joke about the thread in the same vein as what domino said. If you are taking my post as an insult, you should kindly reexamine yourself and your reasoning behind doing so. I didn't write it with any malicious intent, it was a joke.

I didn't even know what you were talking about when you made that post. I haven't read every post since the first page! So if you feel like I'm making some personal attack, then just erase it from your mind because it isn't so.

Oh, and the blood thing, your avatar is a vampire, that was a joke as well. Please except my apology if you were offended in any way by what I posted.

[sidehacker]

#-o

[sonicstooge]

I like James Joyce. That Ulysses was a pretty darn good read.