/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15652870]

Here's a question that might generate interesting discussion: what is the most boring story that you have ever found genuinely interesting and engaging?

Obviously I'm talking about a realistic/literary story, as opposed to something like fantasy or science fiction. But it's more than that. I'm wondering how many people have ever been entertained by a realistic story that is very mundane--that doesn't have dramatic plot twists like adultery, children out of wedlock, an emotional divorce, a major character death. A book or a short story whose entire plot is extremely mundane and low-key, but you nonetheless deeply enjoyed it.

And if you have such a story, what's its name?

[Anonymous No.15652881]

>>15652870
The Good Earth

[Anonymous No.15652893]

Isn’t this supposedly like that?

[Anonymous No.15652920]

Not a book in the stricter sense, but Jiro Taniguchi's The Walking Man is quite enjoyable and has no "plot" (conflict) whatsoever.

[Anonymous No.15652925]

>>15652870
Lots of Maupassant is like this, though he is also known for twists

[Anonymous No.15652932]

>>15652870
not sure about a book but there was this anime shin sekai yori or something like that which was boring af but still kinda neat

[Anonymous No.15652961]

>>15652870

It's harder with a novel, obviously, but very easy with a short story or a poem. Chekhov, Cheever, Carver for short stories. Larkin for poems.

Examples from Carver:

>Fat
A fat man comes into a diner and orders a big meal and eats it. That's about it. Told by the waitress.

>Viewfinder
A man visits the narrator's house offering to sell him a picture of his house.

>What's In Alaska?
A couple visits another couple's house and they all get stoned and eat snacks.

There are obviously some novels where very little startling happens - often that's more-or-less the point. A few random examples:

>Northanger Abbey (Jane Austen)
The point being the young heroine reads a lot of gothic novels and thinks life is like that, and it isn't.

>Keep the Aspidistra Flying (Orwell)
The narrator wants to be a poet and sulkily rejects the world, but eventually comes to terms with just living like a normal human being.

>The Remains of the Day (Ishiguro)
A butler doesn't really do anything much. He thinks being a good butler is the be-all and end-all. Finally, almost too late, he realizes there might be more to life.

[Anonymous No.15652968]

Moscow and Moscowites by Gilyarovsky. The book is basically a collection of sketches that are supposed to depict everyday life in the turn-of-the-century Moscow with a nearly documentary accuracy, but since it does involve fictional characters I guess it's still a work of fictional literature. Not sure if it's translated into English though.

[Anonymous No.15652975]

I read Roots as a "young adult". The book is pretty boring, and complete fiction for like 95% of it (it purports to be entirely factual). However, I find it fascinating in its cultural impact as it completely rewrote the entirety America's understanding of slavery. As an example, because of Roots the process of actually acquiring a slave went from
>Muslim Africans kidnap other Africans
>sell them to other Muslim Africans
>who sell them to Jews
>who ship them to the US
>who sell them other Jews
>who sell them to Christian plantation owners
>who use them in various positions as a means undercutting White southern labor
to
>white men from America in pith helmets, armed with big butterfly nets, sail across the ocean, kidnap polytheistic Africans, get back on the boats with them, bring them to the US, and then force them to pick cotton

It's fascinating to me because it creates this completely ahistorical mythology, devoid of any context and nuance.

[Anonymous No.15652983]

Schoolgirl by Osamu Dazai is one of my favorite stories and it's extremely mundane. Just a day in the life of a teenage girl and all her stray fancies and worries throughout the day.

[Anonymous No.15653132]

>>15652968

Why don't girls have Usagi's hairstyle IRL?

[Anonymous No.15653273]

>>15653132
maybe they do in Japan
and thanks for your profound reply

[Anonymous No.15653290]

>>15653132
because 3D is shit

[Anonymous No.15653336]

>>15652870
Yasunari Kawabata's The Sound of the Mountain is very slice of life and "boring". It has elements of adultery and unrequited love but its not done in a melodramatic way. Very good book.

[Anonymous No.15653458]

>>15652870
>>15652968
>>15653273
Sailor Moon generates such great reaction images. There's something so soulful and wholesome about them all, it makes them universal rather than feeling particularly /a/-related.

[Anonymous No.15653480]

>>15652870
The Sun Also Rises

[Anonymous No.15654152]

>>15653458
that's because they are le moe girls but since they set the trend rather than followed it they feel special

[Anonymous No.15654168]

>>15652870
Probably either Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks or The Magic Mountain

[Anonymous No.15654192]

>>15653458
That's because it was animated by a studio at the height of their game back in the early 90s. The remake is pure soulless in comparison, despite being more true to the source material. At the end of the day, Sailor Moon was a so-so manga turned into pure kino by a hugely talented team of animators.

[Anonymous No.15654209]

>>15652920
Have you read A Distant Neighborhood? I think it's his best work.

[Anonymous No.15654258]

>>15652870
The soul is not a smithy is the perfect answer

[Anonymous No.15654671]

Notes from the Underground desu

[Anonymous No.15654688]

>>15652870
Quite a lot of Hemingway's short stories are like this, especially the ones where he's just talking with someone or just pottering around in the wilderness.

[Anonymous No.15654692]

>>15654688
meant to say especially the Nick ones. Don't know wot happened there.