Saddest/Most Depressing Novel You've Ever Read

[Mariamosis]

Upton Sinclair - The Jungle
Thomas Hardy - Jude the Obscure
Edith Wharton - Ethan Frome

[defyingdestiny]

Atonement by Ian McEwan. It is really depressing that you would want to just think that the presented antithesis is unreal

[Don Quixote Jr]

[QUOTE=mcilroga;465306]So, I've covered just about every other genre in the literature world lately, so I'd really appreciate any recommendations regarding sad/depressing novels that you've read... and I mean sad. I want a BIG tear-jerker... as much so as possible.

Any help would be... err, helpful.

I read 4 novels by Thomas Hardy while studying for a BA in English Lit & I certainly don't remember any of them being cheerful or uplifting...if my by now befuddled memory still serves me correctly Dr Gordon, the purveyor of these cheerless novels, claimed that The Mayor of Casterbridge was possibly (or was that probably or definitely?) the most depressing novel of the 19th century.
I've noticed several recommendations for Hardy's Jude the Obscure which strikes me as also quite appropriate, and you might enjoy (or at least be greatly depressed by) John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath
Cheers?

[JohnMelmoth]

I had a good cry at the end of Steinbeck's, Of Mice and Men but Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, and almost everything else he wrote, is pretty bleak and depressing. In The Secret Agent I sympathised with one of the characters only for him to be killed off in the cruelest of circumstances; and Conrad says at the end of the book, "It's a cruel world for poor people", or something similar, and I believe it.

[Frankie Anne]

I think "The House of Mirth" (already mentioned) was the most depressing for me. It is one of the few books that I have read the last chapter twice to fully absorb what happened.

Dresier's "Sister Carrie" was mentioned. He also wrote a lesser known book called "Jennie Gerhardt" that was pretty depressing, too.

I have "Jude the Obscure" on my list. I will move it further to the top of the pile after reading all the votes it got here. I'm always up for a Hardy downer.

[kilted exile]

also one of the funniest at times:

Slaughterhouse 5 by Vonnegut

[Michael T]

If you REALLY want tears you HAVE to read this novel. I recommend you make the effort to find it.

Nevel Shute 'Requiem for a Wren'

Also, if you want more, try his 'A Town Like Alice' and (as mentioned in an earlier post) 'On the Beach'

[onioneater]

I have to go with JUDE THE OBSCURE. I read 6 novels by Hardy for the same college class, and this one is the most depressing of the six depressing novels! However, I did enjoy the book and I like Hardy as a writer.

[Emil Miller]

If you REALLY want tears you HAVE to read this novel. I recommend you make the effort to find it.

Nevel Shute 'Requiem for a Wren'

Also, if you want more, try his 'A Town Like Alice' and (as mentioned in an earlier post) 'On the Beach'

Thank you for mentioning Neville Shute whom, incidentally, I have never read but know to have been one of the most acclaimed, in a non-sensational way, English authors. The problem, as far as this forum is concerned,is that it tends, quite naturally, to concentrate on the "classics" or ( because it is an American website) the great novels of the USA.
I feel that Shute's novels are unlikely to be appreciated by non-English members of the forum because his stories relate, specifically to the English experience ( yes I do know something about him even though I haven't read him ) he occupies the same ground as writers such as Eric Linklater and Eric Ambler i.e. excellent writers who are not for the egg-heads but provide intelligent writing for those who are in tune with their subject matter.

[Uberzensch]

"The Jungle" was pretty sad. Such things do happen someplaces in the world, though maybe not in contemporary America.

I don't know... It seems that some of this still happens. The shady dealings with buying the house make me think of people who got crazy bad mortgages that they didn't really understand.

Back to the topic, I do think The Jungle is one of the most depressing books.

[jaiunprobleme]

the most depressing book to me would be Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.

[Bloomsday]

the only book that's ever really want me want to cry is The Remains Of The Day

[Mortis Anarchy]

Atonement by Ian McEwan. It is really depressing that you would want to just think that the presented antithesis is unreal

I cried. No joke. And I don't cry very easily either.

Brideshead Revisited--Great story and depressing as well.

[zanna]

What about "To Kill a Mockingbird" ?
And "Phoenix Rising" -- I wanted to throw that book at the wall, I was so ticked! Sadness. =(

[biberkopf]

Orwell's 1984 depressed me a great deal when I read it back in high school.