Novels about Unrequited Love

[Zootopia]

I am currently mourning something that could have been, feeling deeply lost and depressed. I 'd like to read of such misery. Does anyone have any recommendations?

[emily655321]

Anything by Chekhov, anything at all. They're short, there's millions of them, and it's all page after page of rejected chicks crying. Try "The Seagull."

"Hedda Gabler," too, by Ibsen. Angry rejected chick.

"Of Human Bondage" is about love that is absolutely miserable. But it doesn't get to it for a while, and it has a more or less happy ending.

"Anna Karenina" by Tolstoy. Anna fixes the broken love of two other people, but things turn out pretty sucky for her. (Oops, did I spoil something? :p)

There's an awful lot out there. Love that turns out wrong makes for much better literature than people in love. You might consider writing something of your own, poetry or stream of consciousness, to release some of your feelings. Pain breeds the best work.

[Isagel]

The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), ( DIE LEIDEN DES JUNGEN WERTHERS). It depictes Werther's hopeless affair with Lotte Buff, the fiancée of a colleague. Werther is the prototype of the Romantic hero, who suffers for love.

[ravana]

"Tamilla" by Ferdinand Dushen
Your heart will cry for her (Tamilla) miserable life bitterly from beginning to the end. I've never read such depressed, miserable book.

Em, your new avatar is excellent.

[emily655321]

Hehe Thank you very much, oh my sister. :D

[Koa]

I feel ya Zootopia, been in that misery for ages.

I'm sure I know lots of things to read about that... But I can't remember many.
There's an Italian short story by a guy called Giovanni Verga which is an absolute masterpiece of this theme, but I doubt it has ever been translated to English :( The title would sound as 'Story of a blackcap'. I'll look if I can find out if there's an English version, otherwise I'll tell you the story cos just the thought is quite mournful. There is also a movie about it.

[Diceman]

Hehe Thank you very much, oh my sister. :D
Shouldn't that be "oh my little droogy"? :D

On unrequited love:

Nobody has yet mentioned that depressing tome by Charlotte Bronte. Perhaps it was too obvious.

Also try "Stark" by Ben Elton for a lighthearted treatment of the subject - particularly early in the novel, before the "greenie" theme gets developed.

[2AddersFanged]

Hey there--

Try "Lolita" by Nabokov. Beautifully written, doomed, one-sided love. Can't get much more unrequited than this.

"Notre Dame de Paris" has the theme of unrequited love running all through it. Much suffering and angst in the book. Yay!

I second the recommendation for "Of Human Bondage"--Philip Carey puts himself through hell during his love affair with the odious Mildred.

[2AddersFanged]

Oh, also, try "Swann in Love" by Proust.

[bazarov]

Puskhin's Evgeny Onegin and Lermontov's Hero of Our Time are my suggestions, Ana Karenina is also excellent. Lolita???? What?!!!? :confused:

[superunknown]

Gabriel Garcia Marquez - "Love in the Time of Cholera"
Ernest Hemingway - "The Sun Also Rises"
Shakespeare - "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (though this is more humorous than depressing)
Vladimir Nabokov - "Lolita" (and yes, this is unrequited love. Sure, they have sex, but it's spiritually empty and Humbert realizes that she will never love him.)

[Cormeister37]

The Sun Also Rises is not unrequited love, if you're talking about the relationship of the two main characters. They do love each other, but things get in the way of it, such as Jake's war wound, circumstance, and their friends.

[superunknown]

Yes, but Jake is madly in love with her and does anything to please her, including setting her up with other people. Brett, meanwhile, has Jake wrapped around her little finger and uses his love for her to manipulate him into being her lapdog. Sure, she supposedly loves him, but she's too shallow to make anything of it. It's not that "things get in the way of it," it's that she doesn't even want to try to make it work and dismisses a relationship between them as being completely impossible because they can't have sex. If she truly loves him, how come she has no qualms whatsoever about going off with other guys?

[Cormeister37]

It is exactly that things get in the way. Brett must be sexually gratified, and Jake cannot give her that. That's why at the end she says "we could have had such a damned nice life together" (or something like that).

[Bysshe]

The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), ( DIE LEIDEN DES JUNGEN WERTHERS). It depictes Werther's hopeless affair with Lotte Buff, the fiancée of a colleague. Werther is the prototype of the Romantic hero, who suffers for love.

Ooh. Sorry for not having any original suggestions, but I'd like to back that up. The Sorrows of Young Werther is probably the ultimate book about unrequited love. I found it emotionally draining. It's not something you can keep re-reading. :(