Saddest/Most Depressing Novel You've Ever Read [Archive]

Logos

10-23-2007, 08:38 AM

I just finished Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres (http://www.juliascheeres.com/) (now a movie too) and it has got to be the most depressing/heartbreaking novel I have read, to-date :( It's a true story and covers the gamut of depressing topics: racism, child abuse, parents-who-don't-deserve-to-be-parents, religious zealotry, and on and on. All I can say is I'm really happy Julia has become a successful writer and overcome the horrors of her childhood.

AuntShecky

10-23-2007, 10:28 AM

"Sophie's Choice" by William Styron. It was so emotionally devastating that I still can't bring myself to watch the movie version, to this day.
Also, a short story with the similar theme: "The Shawl" by
Cynthia Ozick.
There is much to be said for catharsis, however; sometimes some good can be gained from painful emotional experiences

Etienne

10-23-2007, 12:30 PM

"The Idiot" Dostoevsky
"The Sorrows of the Young Werther" Goethe
"Iceland Fisherman" Pierre Loti

Lots of people will also tell you Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, but I didn't think it was that depressing, I think War and Peace could also be included here, but it contains so many other emotions at the same time.

LadyWentworth

10-23-2007, 02:33 PM

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

I literally cried at the end of that. Depressed me so much. There are others, but this was the worst for me. It is also quite thought-provoking. Very heartbreaking. If you want a tear-jerker, read this one!

JBI

10-23-2007, 09:18 PM

My Antonia, not exactly a sad book, though I was heavily depressed. Also some Zola work is always depressing, and Hardy as well.

Bakiryu

10-23-2007, 09:28 PM

Ender's Game actually gives a sort of nervous breakdown, I just lay on the floor crying.

Fullmoon wo Sagashaite is so sad and immortal Rain, then again Naruto makes me sad, Flowers for Algernon, the dreaded romance novels, most things by Anne Rice. And the Notebook (the book) is very sad also.

It's easy to make me sad I guess.

higley

10-23-2007, 10:58 PM

Flowers for Algernon was quite sad, as was My Brother Sam is Dead. But nothing got me like Where the Red Fern Grows.

grittylit

10-23-2007, 11:03 PM

ooh, this is embarassing but the fashion pack by Marion Hume... there was a very tragic event within the book, and i think this event coupled with exasperation of the situation and the sheer fact that i had just read 500 pages in one sitting made me bawl my eyes out... i would never admit this to a friend and im sorry if anyone else has read the book... haha... actually no i would rather people let me know if they had i want to know if they had a similar experience or not - it would make me feel so much better!

it was the part where the american editor died in the crash... devestating!!

this wasnt the saddest book, but this was one of the books that i have had more of an emotional reaction to... annother was Margaret Atwood - the silent assasin...

capek

10-24-2007, 01:09 AM

The Silent Angel by Heinrich Boll is a good one.

NimbleRabit

10-24-2007, 04:00 AM

Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo.

An anti-war novel about a man who's lost his arms, legs, sight, hearing, and is being kept alive by machines. Stream of consciousness writing.

bazarov

10-24-2007, 07:40 AM

Diary of Anna Frank - I didn't cried; I am a male! But I felt very sad.

Haroldskimpole

10-25-2007, 10:15 AM

AuntShecky

10-25-2007, 10:46 AM

There is a devastating ending to The Transit of Venus by
Shirley Hazzard. The unpleasant surprise may pack an emotional wallop; yet again, there is something to be said about the Greek idea of "catharsis" in tragedy. For instance, King Lear evokes tragic emotions in the audience, but somehow reading the play -- or especially watching a live performance done well -- is a life-affirming experience.

capek

10-25-2007, 12:18 PM

Oh, I can't believe I didn't think of Signs of Life by M. John Harrison. Definitely a depressing, yet beautiful, novel.

Dark Star

10-25-2007, 02:52 PM

I'll second the Sorrows of Young Werther recommendation.

Also, George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series as a whole; Martin is THE best character builder I have ever read, bar none, and is not afraid to kill off or harm favorite characters which leads to a lot of truly gut and heart-wrenching moments throughout the series. I've even heard a story about a fan who had to put the book in the freezer after his favorite character died because he couldn't bring himself to read more.... :lol:

I also found Wuthering Heights to be quite a moving work.

Wintermute

10-25-2007, 03:25 PM

I just finished Hotel New Hampsire by John Irving. I thought it was pretty damn depressing and funny at the same time. That's a rare combination! Another one by John Irving is Setting Free the Bears which tore me up at the end.

AdoreroDio

10-25-2007, 04:00 PM

Two tear jerkers I know of are more young adult novel so they aren't really hard reads but are very good books that are the only books to ever make me cry- Where the Red Fern Grows (this is a movie now, which I have never seen) and Bridge to Terribithia (also a movie now, which didn't do a good job of jerking tears)

Niamh

10-25-2007, 05:12 PM

I thought East of eden by Stienbeck was very sad. Spent about three hours crying at the end of that book. Even had my mam come into my room to see if i was okay.

Oniw17

10-25-2007, 05:21 PM

The end of The Good Earth(by Pearl S. Buck) was ****ed up...like really really ****ed up. I think that's the only book/movie I've ever actually cried(yes, I actually cried at the end of that book) reading/watching. Coincidentially, that's one of my favorite books ever.

Noisms

10-26-2007, 11:07 AM

Well, this thread is a barrel of laughs.

The most depressing book I've ever read is Amsterdam by Ian McEwan. I get depressed just thinking about that awful, turgid, stupid, annoying thing - and wondering how on earth it merited a Booker prize.

As far as sad books go, I'd agree about A Song of Ice and Fire. You get really involved in character after character, only to see them being killed off in increasingly gruesome ways. Fantasy literature will never be the same again.

Othello is Shakespeare's best tragedy, I think. Hamlet is too weird, Macbeth lacks truly sympathetic characters, King Lear is too melodramatic. But I find Othello genuinely gut-wrenching.

Olg

10-26-2007, 07:15 PM

Hi,
the most depressing book I've ever read is "Blinded". I do not rememner the author, some contemporary writer. But it was sooo depressing, I feld badly for a long time after reading it.
Cheers,
Olga

Daniel A. C.

10-26-2007, 11:04 PM

Behemoth

10-28-2007, 11:05 AM

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini would be a big one for me, as would The Sorrows of Young Werther. Although Ulysses also made me feel very depressed, that was for entirely different reasons.. ;)

lisahead

10-28-2007, 11:18 AM

The Master and Margarita- affected me SO MUCH!! Absolutely haunting

Werther

10-28-2007, 02:31 PM

BY GRAND CENTRAL STATION I SAT DOWN AND WEPT (-Elizabeth Smart). Like so many other books, I discovered this work through the iconic pop-star, 'Morrissey'. The song 'What She Said', from Morrissey's career with 'The Smiths', is based on Elizabeth Smart's book.

(....I would recommend an even sadder book than that mentioned above, but I'm still working on it.)

Bookworm Cris

10-28-2007, 02:47 PM

I thought East of eden by Stienbeck was very sad. Spent about three hours crying at the end of that book. Even had my mam come into my room to see if i was okay.

Yes, I loved this book and it really made me sad when a beloved character died, at the end of Book One (no spoilers...;) )

But the books that were the most depressing and sad were the ones about the Holocaust; I remember having read "QB VII", by Leon Uris when I was 11 or 12, and the descriptions of the concentration camp's tortures impressed me a lot; later I have read many other books about the subject, and all of them were depressive, but very enlightening; we must learn from history, not to repeat the same mistakes.

I remember some of these books very well, like "Exodus", "Holocaust", "The Odessa Files"; I have not read "Sophie's Choice", but the movie was very strong and depressive; maybe the book is deepest, but Meryl Streep's performance conveyed all the emotion and inner struggle of that mother; an terrible and unbearable situation, indeed.:(

mS_?

10-28-2007, 05:24 PM

I'll third The Sorrows of Young Werther, book made me sad for like a week.

Zybahn

10-29-2007, 03:14 PM

Of course the source of one person's sadness is for another a wealth of amusement. I disagree with some here (especially The Hotel New Hampshire), but agree with others (Jude the Obscure and The Good Earth; don't read while shaving).

As for Amsterdam, I wholeheartedly agree, Noisms. I love McEwan but that was likely his weakest book. Even he admitted he wrote it as an in-between novel, a break from writing something serious. Sad indeed.

I will add two short stories that continuously tighten the valves of my heart:
"In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried" by Amy Hempel (in her collection Reasons to Live), and Katherine Mansfield's "The Daughters of the Late Colonel," from The Garden Party and Other Stories.

Happy crying.

HailStorm

10-29-2007, 04:19 PM

I remember Stienbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" made me cry and now I'm reading
"The Time Traveler's Wife" Audrey Niffenegger. I'm almost finished but I know it isn't going to get any better. It's a clever book and there were times it made me laugh but, I'll finish it this evening, there's a new box of tissues at the ready.

Oh Zybahn thank you.... I do like "don't read while shaving" that made me laugh

thegreenthing

11-06-2007, 02:14 PM

ballb

11-06-2007, 03:41 PM

Germinal by Zola. Read it and cut your wrists to cheer yourself up.

Dark Muse

11-06-2007, 03:55 PM

One of the most heart wrenching novels I have read was The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, out of all the many books I have read, this one really stuck with me and really pulled at my heart strings, and I am not the kind of person often given to being affected in such ways.

Also I though Druids by Mrogan Llywelyn was pretty sad.

And The Feast of All Siants by Anne Rice

crazefest456

11-06-2007, 10:43 PM

Besides the Idiot, i find crime and punishment by Dostoyevsky quite depressing (on hte other hand he's generaly pretty depressing).
I think 1984 by Orwell is actually the most depressing book i've read. People were actually asking me if I was well, it realy hit me.

Yup, definitely Crime and Punishment for me... I bawled at the ending...
And 1984, after I finished reading (around 1 in the morning probably) I put my blanket over my head and just fell asleep--I mean, I was so emotionally exhausted because of that book, and then the last line, "I love Big Brother" was just the icing, to the proverbial cake.

Dark Muse

11-06-2007, 10:53 PM

Yup, definitely Crime and Punishment for me... I bawled at the ending...
And 1984, after I finished reading (around 1 in the morning probably) I put my blanket over my head and just fell asleep--I mean, I was so emotionally exhausted because of that book, and then the last line, "I love Big Brother" was just the icing, to the proverbial cake.

That was quite chilling, and indeed that was an emotional book and the ending was rather sad.

Another book that pulled at my heart strings a little bit was The House Of Mirth by Edith Wharton

LoveToFreeRead

11-06-2007, 11:27 PM

Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser. I remember riding the NYC subway unable to stop the tears.

This is a good thread. I love the sad and will try to read some of the books on this list starting with The Idiot.

Dark Muse

11-06-2007, 11:43 PM

I just thought of another one that I read sometime back and nearly forgot about, but it was really quite a good book I think.

The Dress Lodger By Sheri Holman.

B-Mental

11-07-2007, 12:02 AM

Recently read Cormac McCarthy's "The Road", and I must say that on the bleakness level, it blows all these other books out of the water.

It is dark, and all the more so because it is simply and straight-forwardly bleak, not fashionably dark, like a vampire novel or cyberpunk, etc. It is about the end of the world in a sense, and seems like this might be how it would actually happen.

The ending is quite touching.

Ok, The Road is bleak, but numbing and just plain old blah. I would never recommend it to anyone. I love the fact that Oprah recommended it...does she even read?

Depressing? Doctor Zhivago by Pasternak...Yuri has his idealism torn from him piece by torturous piece. One of the saddest books I've read.

crazefest456

11-07-2007, 01:34 AM

I loved the way The Road was written but I think McCarthy could've done better with the ending...It seemed less bleak and more cute because of the father and the son; I would start forgetting that it's post-apocalypse..

Fowles27

11-08-2007, 07:00 AM

Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser. I remember riding the NYC subway unable to stop the tears.

I'll second that. Dreiser was truly gifted in writing a depressing piece. His American Tragedy does justice to its title.
Besides Dreiser's works, I found Native Son by R. Wright to be a very saddening story.

rhapsodysinger

11-08-2007, 02:13 PM

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by carson mccullers.

ivette

11-10-2007, 11:53 AM

I admit that I almost cried at the end of Gone with the wind. :blush:
The Bell jar by Sylvia Plath and Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse were also quite depressing at some moments. :(

The end of Crime and Punishment was quite sad, but still not that much as some of you say.

liberal viewer

11-10-2007, 03:46 PM

Some of them:
The counterfeiters by Andre Gide
Light in August by Faulkner
Most of Emile Zola's novels
Despair by Coetzee
the list goes on and on!

stately,plump

11-10-2007, 05:30 PM

"Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Kundera is a tear-jerker, especially with all the death in it. "Sophie's Choice," too.

bazarov

11-10-2007, 05:46 PM

Sadako Wants To Live. Very sad.

rgdmalaysia

12-04-2007, 06:22 AM

While I ultimately find their description of the human condition as well as the forces (both man-made and other) that destroy it to be uplifting, I would say Emile Zola's novels.

It is often the most sympathetic charcters that have the worst things happen to them at the end.

L'Assomir, L'Terre, The Masterpiece, Germinal, and L'Bete Humaine are all examples of this.

Zola is a great, great, great writer though.

I AM JINX

12-04-2007, 09:30 AM

Most things I have read by Thomas Hardy was depressing. ;)
But it his books can put you to sleep, he uses way too many words, when sometimes one word would have exsplain it just as well. XP

puffin

12-05-2007, 06:42 AM

I immediately thought of 3 books and bizarrely they all involve birds…

Storm boy – Colin Thiele. It’s a kids book so while it is unbelievably sad, it does have a slight ray of hope at the end

The Snow Goose - Paul Gallico. Some manage to find some hope in the end, I don’t know where

A Kestrel for a Knave – Barry Hines. This book received the ultimate affirmation of depression- it was made into a film by Ken Loach (Kes).

wilbur lim

10-01-2008, 01:04 AM

vonjuntz

10-01-2008, 01:37 AM

Remains of the Day sad, tearfully sad and hits a mark agree that McEwan's amst. did not merit.

mercymyqueen

10-01-2008, 01:42 AM

This one isn't a classic, like I usually read, nor did it even make it onto my favorites list, but 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' was really profound; it's weeks later and I'm still dreaming about it.

If you want a quick read, the original fairy tales by HC Andersen can be found on here, and they're superb, and very tear-worthy. My personal favorites are The Little Match Girl, The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, The Brave Tin Soldier, Story of a Mother and The Happy Family.

Another really great short story is Barrie's 'The Inconsiderate Waiter' You can find it on here, too. It actually wrenches 2x the tears the second time around!

mercymyqueen

10-01-2008, 01:44 AM

mayneverhave

10-01-2008, 03:23 AM

A Farewell to Arms is probably the most directly depressing novel I have read. The Sound and the Fury also depresses me, but it requires a bit of imagination on my part.

Speaking of which, in keeping with Hardy - "Drummer Hodge" is also fascinatingly depressing.

wilbur lim

10-01-2008, 03:40 AM

Who's it by? there are apparently several books by that title
It is ultimately by Cecelia Ahern.

angeldance5

10-01-2008, 06:36 AM

a thousand splendid suns by khaled hosseini- definitely sad

also jude the obscure by thomas hardy

both big tearjerkers

:bawling:

togre

10-01-2008, 08:56 AM

Vanity Fair. So depressingly imperfect characters who keep sabotaging their own chances at happiness. I still can't think about it without getting angry at the characters, that's how sad/depressing it is.

blp

10-01-2008, 09:05 AM

The ones that spring to mind for me are

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
The Silent Cry by Kenzaburo Oe
The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal

Scheherazade

10-01-2008, 11:40 AM

The aforementioned miserable stories had been told by others,and I perceive they are literally miserable as I had read some before.
There is this book,named P.S I love you.
I wander if anyone read this book's introduction,the introduction had apparently grieved me and I have convulsive spasms.This book is chiefly about grief of losing a loved one.Interesting. Read this one only two weeks ago and thought it was one of the worst books I had ever read. It was full of cliches, banking highly on readers' feelings of sympathy and the characters were lacking depth. It was a very, very, very poor read for me!

kelby_lake

10-01-2008, 12:29 PM

The Idiot
The Good Soldier
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe

Jordon

10-01-2008, 03:03 PM

Cailin

10-01-2008, 03:15 PM

Interesting. Read this one only two weeks ago and thought it was one of the worst books I had ever read. It was full of cliches, banking highly on readers' feelings of sympathy and the characters were lacking depth. It was a very, very, very poor read for me!

I second that. If I were a cynical person, I might suggest that one of the reasons that book was ever published was because Cecilia Ahern is the daughter of our former Prime Minister (Taoiseach), Bertie Ahern. :lol:

My vote for biggest tearjerker is Jude the Obscure and most recently, Half of a Yellow Sun's poignancy brought tears to my eyes.

Janine

10-01-2008, 03:27 PM

Hardy books generally make me sad:

"Jude the Obscure" - several scenes are hard to take.
"The Woodlanders" - I always cry actual tears and for the film version.
"The Mayor of Casterbridge" - the ending simply tears me appart no matter how many times I revisit it. I cry at that point in the minseries and I recall crying while reading the novel. It is mostly the ending that upsets me so.

"Sophie's Choice" and "Remains of the Day" I have only seen in film versions, but both I find to be so totally depressing. The first depresses me the most, but the second makes me cry bucketfulls.

I love both these books but find them totally depressing:
"Wuthering Heights"
"The Scarlet Letter"

I read:
"Grapes of Wrath" in high school and felt that was pretty depressing also.

I agree with one poster who said that "Othello" is depressing. I think that ending also touches me more than the other plays, although I am a big "Hamlet" fan and I have to say that I find the whole of "King Lear" training and depressing. "MacBeth" is depressing to me as well. Of course, I have seen the film verion, done by Orson Wells, and it is a very dark and depressing film indeed and left me with that lasting impression. The play is pretty depressing though, with all the people being killed, even the children; you have to admit that is downright depressing and lacks any mirth.

applepie

10-01-2008, 06:38 PM

I would have to say "Geek Love". The entire story is quite depressing just from the subject manner and the tragedy of the character's existance. I actually stopped and started reading it several times before finishing it because it always made me so down while reading it.

Cellar Door

10-01-2008, 06:50 PM

A Tale of Two Cities... it came close to making me cry... I was affected.

A far second is A Thousand Splendid Suns (K. Hossieni) It was just depressing, made me angry, filled me with indignation, and I was deeply saddened. I think it is a must read out of most newer books.

Virgil

10-01-2008, 06:56 PM

Every time this thread pops up I'm always reminded of The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford. The opnning sentence is "This is the saddest story I have ever heard." This is a great novel by the way and has nothing to do with war or soldiers. I highly recommend it. Actually here's the openning paragraph:

THIS IS THE SADDEST STORY I have ever heard. We had known the
Ashburnhams for nine seasons of the town of Nauheim with an
extreme intimacy—or, rather with an acquaintanceship as loose
and easy and yet as close as a good glove’s with your hand. My wife
and I knew Captain and Mrs Ashburnham as well as it was possible
to know anybody, and yet, in another sense, we knew nothing at all
about them. This is, I believe, a state of things only possible with
English people of whom, till today, when I sit down to puzzle out
what I know of this sad affair, I knew nothing whatever. Six months
ago I had never been to England, and, certainly, I had never sounded
the depths of an English heart. I had known the shallows.
I don’t mean to say that we were not acquainted with many English
people. Living, as we perforce lived, in Europe, and being, as
we perforce were, leisured Americans, which is as much as to say
that we were un-American, we were thrown very much into the
society of the nicer English. Paris, you see, was our home. Somewhere
between Nice and Bordighera provided yearly winter quarters
for us, and Nauheim always received us from July to September.
You will gather from this statement that one of us had, as the
saying is, a “heart”, and, from the statement that my wife is dead,
that she was the sufferer.

Idril

10-01-2008, 07:26 PM

The only correct answer to this question is "Journey to the End of the Night" by L.F. Celine. Well, ok. It might not be the ONLY correct answer, but the fact that it hasn't been mentioned yet and we're on page four of the thread is nothing short of cardinal sin.

I just started that book. I'm only on page 50 or something so it hasn't been too bad, I mean, it's war and it's horribly bleak but I don't think I have been hit with the full force yet.

Virgil, I really loved that book, The Good Soldier and I've always thought I should get more books by that author.

DeadAsDreams

10-01-2008, 07:44 PM

The only correct answer to this question is "Journey to the End of the Night" by L.F. Celine. Well, ok. It might not be the ONLY correct answer, but the fact that it hasn't been mentioned yet and we're on page four of the thread is nothing short of cardinal sin.

A distant second would be "Miss Lonelyhearts" by Nathaniel West.

Yup.

Oh yes I agree, Journey to the End of the Night, is simply, crushing.

bounty

10-01-2008, 08:15 PM

someone surely has to say steinbeck's "of mice and men"!

there...i just did....

Sasipak

10-02-2008, 12:44 AM

I have just finished reading " The House of Mirth" by Edith Wharton. I think it is one of the sad movie which reflect the materialistic society during the roaring twenties. Lily Bart is considered one of the girl who is obsessed with the materialism but equally important is she is like a decorative object of men that time. Sadly, she has to face the failure when she must work like the labourer in the millinery although she used to despise those who are in the working class. Finally, she is dead because of overdosing because of the insomnia.
In my opinion,from the beginning to the end,Lily hardly finds happiness in her life. For example, she is orphan and adopted by her aunt who barely leaves her property, then she is disappointed in her love.
Everybody who has read this novel,what do you think about it ?
:yawnb:

Jordon

10-02-2008, 10:49 AM

I just started that book. I'm only on page 50 or something so it hasn't been too bad, I mean, it's war and it's horribly bleak but I don't think I have been hit with the full force yet.

The main thing about it is that it just never lets you up for air. four to five hundred pages of bad experiences with humanity, non stop, no rays of sunshine. As DeadAsDreams put it, the book is simply "crushing".

kelby_lake

10-02-2008, 12:27 PM

Janine

10-02-2008, 01:28 PM

"Night" by Eli Weisel - devastating, although hopeful in some respect.

Virgil

10-02-2008, 08:39 PM

I know, I just finished it. Great, isn't it? Seems more recent than 1910s.

Yes. I wish we could read it here on lit net as a book forum read.

capek

10-02-2008, 09:02 PM

Boll's The Silent Angel and Harrison's Signs of Life are respectively the two saddest and most depressing novels I've personally ever read.

Scheherazade

10-03-2008, 06:59 AM

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is one of the saddest books I have read.

Lord of the Flies is one of the most depressing (and I love it because of it!)

Niamh

10-03-2008, 07:24 AM

Interesting. Read this one only two weeks ago and thought it was one of the worst books I had ever read. It was full of cliches, banking highly on readers' feelings of sympathy and the characters were lacking depth. It was a very, very, very poor read for me!

couldnt agree with you more!

I second that. If I were a cynical person, I might suggest that one of the reasons that book was ever published was because Cecilia Ahern is the daughter of our former Prime Minister (Taoiseach), Bertie Ahern. :lol:

My thoughts exactly!!!

idiosynchrissy

10-03-2008, 04:21 PM

book_jones

10-03-2008, 05:25 PM

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. It's the kind of book that leaves you with no hope whatsoever. I read it about a year ago and it still makes me sad.

armenian

10-04-2008, 12:19 PM

Knut Hamsun's Hunger

hhc

10-04-2008, 03:43 PM

Blindness by Jose Saramago. Definitely. Just imagine you 're blind and everybody around you is as blind as you are. It tore me apart.

Janine

10-04-2008, 04:04 PM

I love most books and have rarely found one that I couldn't enjoy for some reason or another but I thought that We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates was just so depressing that I could barely continue to live after I read it.

Must be depressing book; I saw the movie and was totally depressed. I really did not care for the film at all.

"The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers....I believe I read this when I was younger - several of you have mentioned it. I think I liked it very much but it was quite a downer.

Tersely

10-08-2008, 01:36 AM

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini made me really depressed for awhile. If anyone got some bum deals in that book it would be everyone.

Pecksie

10-08-2008, 10:26 AM

"Belle du Seigneur" by Albert Cohen made me cry. And Graham Greene's "The End of the Affair", too. Both are very moving and harrowing love stories by wonderful writers.

annabellee

10-08-2008, 03:41 PM

crime and punishment...it touches my feelings inaway that kept me from finishing it..what can I do?

Jordon

10-09-2008, 02:07 PM

Knut Hamsun's Hunger

AMAZING book.

uh, that's all I really have to say.

nmmad

10-09-2008, 05:27 PM

It's the sense of waste, of lives blighted, of people needlessly tormented that causes me the gut-wrenching sadness, and it is true that Hardy is one of the best there -- *Tess of the D'Urbevilles* affected me more than *Jude the Obscure* because I wasn't so accustomed to the Hardian strain, but *The Return of the Native* seems even more capriciously and believably cruel in some ways.
*The Good Soldier* is one of my favorites, and this post reminds me that I must read it again. *The House of Mirth* is tragic waste at its worst. Even *Vile Bodies* or *A Handful of Dust* can do that though too.
I cried when younger at *The Last Battle* by C S Lewis and more recently I cried a bit when Dumbledore died, I must admit.
I teared up during my reading of *Atonement*, but have avoided the film so far.
Of all the tragedies one of the most compelling is the Iliad, I get very tearful as the death of Hector approaches (coming all the way), and incandescent at Achilles' treatment of his body. If not, just head on for Aeschylus, Sophocles or Euripides.

LitNetIsGreat

10-09-2008, 06:45 PM

Yes definitely Hardy, Tess or Jude for sure. For me Jude over Tess slightly perhaps because I am beginning to feel just like Jude these days.

Bitterfly

10-09-2008, 08:32 PM

Jude is definitely depressing, but the book that made me cry the most buckets was Alistair Mclean's HMS Ulysses. A nightmare!

chasestalling

10-11-2008, 10:45 AM

a tearjerker? try charles dickens' dombey's son. something depressing? joseph conrad's the heart of darkness.

Virginia Waldro

10-14-2008, 05:48 AM

I just finished The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky and I did not find it depressing at all. The book that made me most depressed because I did not really get the point of it was The Castle by Franz Kaffka. The Remains of the Day is poignant and I think beautifully and hauntingly sad.

kelby_lake

10-14-2008, 12:42 PM

There's a desparately sad play, but plays aren't allowed :(

PabloQ

10-14-2008, 01:53 PM

Agree with The House of Mirth. Not so sure about Sister Carrie.
I'd like to add Maggie: A Girl of the Streets as both sad and depressing
I found A Portrait of a Lady very sad as well as McTeague by Frank Norris. not necessarily tear jerkers but sad none the less.
The Jungle is depressing on so many levels.

Dark Muse

10-14-2008, 02:01 PM

Yes Maggie a Girl of the Streets was quite sad. I just recently finnished reading Three Lives by Stein, and all of those stories (there were 3 of them) were all very sad. And for me it felt as if each story became progressively more depressing.

Bitterfly

10-14-2008, 02:07 PM

There's a desparately sad play, but plays aren't allowed :(

Why not? Three Sisters by Tchekov was probably the saddest play I'd ever seen or read.

mollie

10-15-2008, 08:41 AM

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore is chokingly sad, and Christina Stead's Man who loved children is depressing beyond words. Both brilliantly written though.
The Catcher in the Rye always leaves me feeling a little depressed. But for me, in the field of sheer nihilistic, relentless misery, Joseph Heller's Something Happened takes some beating.

Lady Marian

10-16-2008, 08:39 PM

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

kelby_lake

10-17-2008, 12:29 PM

Why not? Three Sisters by Tchekov was probably the saddest play I'd ever seen or read.

The Hairy Ape by Eugene O'Neill. I haven't even read it but the synopsis made me almost cry. :bawling:

idiosynchrissy

10-17-2008, 11:43 PM

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt was a pretty big downer.

crystalmoonshin

11-14-2008, 08:15 AM

Er, may I share short story? It made me cry when I first read it when I was a kid and it still made me cry when I read it years after. It's "The Little Mermaid".

The saddest novel I've ever read would have to be "The Dream of The Red Mansions". I cried a lot, I was depressed for around three months because of this unforgettable tragedy. It still haunts me to this very day. Whenever I think of it, it makes me sad.

crystalmoonshin

11-14-2008, 08:18 AM

Janine

11-14-2008, 03:47 PM

Night ~ Elie Wiesel...fantastic book though...just depressing and sad....

Bitterfly

11-14-2008, 04:11 PM

Er, may I share short story? It made me cry when I first read it when I was a kid and it still made me cry when I read it years after. It's "The Little Mermaid".

It's another Anderson story that makes me cry: The little Matchstick Girl... and Oscar's Wilde's terribly sentimental "The Nightingale and the Rose": buckets. :bawling:

prendrelemick

11-14-2008, 04:13 PM

If I may distinguish between sad and depressing.
I still to this day cannot read about Tiny Tim in "A Christmas Carol" without blubbing. Thats sad!( In more ways than one.)

A Thousand Splendid Suns, on the other hand, is just depressing,

Kevets

11-14-2008, 05:11 PM

Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

There is a scene that I cannot describe out loud without crying. A young girl, perhaps 15, lifts up her gown and asks an old man if he would kiss her breasts. She does not want to die without having had a man kiss her breasts.

kelby_lake

11-15-2008, 12:21 PM

Er, may I share short story? It made me cry when I first read it when I was a kid and it still made me cry when I read it years after. It's "The Little Mermaid".

Does she get stabbing knife pains in her feet when she walks?

blp

11-16-2008, 10:49 AM

peg__jo

01-05-2009, 03:22 PM

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. It's the kind of book that leaves you with no hope whatsoever. I read it about a year ago and it still makes me sad.

For me too, that's the saddest book I've read. And especially because she was so young when she wrote it.

sixsmith

01-05-2009, 03:51 PM

Saddest has to be Patrick McCabe's 'Butcher Boy' while the most depressing is without doubt 'Tess of the Durbevilles'.

crjs1

01-05-2009, 05:19 PM

The ending of Steinbeck's 'East of Eden' nearly had me in tears, and also i remember a very dark book called 'Scar Culture' by Toni Davidson which i read about ten years ago when i was 15 which really upset me. Think i will re-read it.

JBI

01-05-2009, 05:50 PM

Does she get stabbing knife pains in her feet when she walks?

The Disney Version ended happily, whereas the Hans Christian Anderson one is sad, and even that is, according to some scholars, a softer version of a more depressing story.

Richier

01-05-2009, 07:31 PM

How about 'On the beach' By Neville Shute? A community getting ready for a radiation cloud to hit them, by giving their gardens a last tidy up and buying a suicide pill for each family member.

dfloyd

01-31-2009, 06:25 PM

How about Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

lupe

02-02-2009, 06:07 AM

The most recent hopeless and depressing book I read was "Os caminhos a Fome" of Jorge Amado. But it's also a fascinating account of misery and exploitation of some of the poorest people in Brazil in the beginning of the 20th century.

Somehow, I can't find how the novel was translated in English...

kelby_lake

02-02-2009, 06:45 AM

The Disney Version ended happily, whereas the Hans Christian Anderson one is sad, and even that is, according to some scholars, a softer version of a more depressing story.

Disney were going to do a darker version in the early 50's where she dies.

Wilde woman

02-02-2009, 06:58 AM

Doctor Zhivago
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Where the Red Fern Grows

And my personal favorite, Cyrano de Bergerac...good for laughs and cries. You might not like it's overblown, larger-than-life style, but if you do, the ending is absolutely tragic. I still cry when I read the last act.

Emil Miller

02-02-2009, 01:36 PM

One of the best German writers of the 19th century was Theodore Fontane and the end to his book Der Stechlin is devastating.
It concerns an old German family who own land in East Prussia and, towards the end of the novel, the Lord of the Manor takes pity on a poor little girl who has an unhappy life with her woodsman father who works on the estate. The old landowner tells her she is welcome to visit him whenever she is unhappy, even though the rest of the family want nothing to do with such a lowly being and do their best to ignore her. The landowner dotes on the child whenever she visits him and they become great friends. Then the old man dies and, as the stone is dropped into place in the family vault where has just been interred, the congregation hear a whimper at the door of the church and turn to see the ragged little urchin standing there and she says in her rough dialect "Now it's finished and I must go away" and she runs crying among the gravestones back to the woods.

I was completely crushed when I read it.

Dori

02-02-2009, 01:42 PM

Eugene Onegin, I think.

Hotaru

02-02-2009, 02:41 PM

The old man and the sea. The world should be made out of Santioago's

BloomingRose

02-02-2009, 04:43 PM

"The princess who believed in fairy tales"
I bought this book because I thought it was about some kind of character at the medieval times who believed everything was possible... or something like that...
But it ended up being some kind of self-help book o.O I finished reading it with so much effort! Has anyone read it too?? :S

faithalina

02-03-2009, 11:36 PM

Orwell's 1984 - sat stunned at the end.
Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbevilles - balled my eyes out in the university library where I finished it between classes
McEwan's Atonement - left me livid. Actually, his latest one On Chesil Beach is pretty bloody depressing too...
??'s Time Traveller's Wife...absolutely sobbing
Louis de Berniers Captain Corelli's Mandolin depresed and incensed me
Bronte's Jane Eyre - despite the 'happy' ending...

The absolute winner for me, though, is DBC Pierre's Ludmilla's Broken English. I loathed this book. Made me want to slit my wrists.

GX4146

02-04-2009, 12:05 AM

brideshead revisited is funny, but it depressed me after reading it

shud-shee

02-04-2009, 01:36 AM

Maybe Madame Bovary, for Flaubert is the most elaborate reality destroyer. In every passage something dies. I don't know how to explain it.

Spirula

02-04-2009, 07:59 PM

History - Elsa Morante.

It's been a while since I read it, but I remembering crying heavily when reading the last pages.
The story is set in Italy during WWII. We follow a half jewish woman and her little son.
The boy's unknown father is a german soldier who raped his mother. But despite of that the boy is still his mother's only light during the years we follow them
She is paranoid and highly anxious about her jewish background being found out. And that is as much of the main story as I remember. But it was a very good book!

phoenix151

02-11-2009, 06:15 PM

Where the Red Fern Grows is the only book that made me cry, although A Farewell To Arms came close.

The Pearl by Steinbeck was pretty sad too.

PoeticPassions

02-11-2009, 06:38 PM

Oh, and I'd like to add "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" by Victor Hugo although it has lots of witty lines and humorous scenes.

And also Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein". I even cried after watching the movie!

I agree with FRANKENSTEIN... that book is so depressing... I feel for the Monster on so many levels.. his alienation and agonizing loneliness. I wanted to scream the whole way through, "I'll be your friend!"

Also I have to say AMERICAN TRAGEDY made me cry sooo much (but I read it when i was 12 or 13)... and ANNA KARENINA, BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA...

also, just recently I finished a compilation of Miljenko Jergovic's short stories (he is a Bosnian writer), and his stories were so depressing and unbelievable sad... the two that just tore my heart are "Gurbet" and "Moj Najljepsi Johanesburg" (My most beautiful Johannesburg, in translation)

(I am not even going to go into non-fiction however, because that list would be way too long... the world is depressing and full of suffering)

thomas212

02-11-2009, 06:48 PM

Une vie de Maupassant was terrible.
A fine Balance by Mistry was rather hopeless,beautifull but hopeless.

pagebypage

02-12-2009, 05:13 PM

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt was a pretty big downer.

My choice also.

LiteratureGeekk

02-12-2009, 05:54 PM

It was so sad when Rhett leaves Scarlett; not meaning to get personal, but I am crying just writing this it is so sad. :bawling::bawling::bawling::bawling::bawling:

The Comedian

02-12-2009, 10:35 PM

Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night" made me want to jump off a bridge.

Fellow

02-13-2009, 05:22 PM

I'll have to put in the fourth vote for Goethe's the sorrows of young werther . I remember reading somewhere that it actually moved several people to commit suicide upon its publication. Also that Goethe regretted it's publication in later years because it was all too personal. I'm not positive on those facts, so feel free to correct or confirm as the worst type of rumor is a literary one.

Schokokeks

02-13-2009, 06:35 PM

Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbevilles

Oh yes, and Hardy's Jude the Obscure! Bleak all around. I felt like never touching anything with the name "Hardy" on it after those two, but then discovered that his poetry is actually a lot more enjoyable :nod:.

WICKES

02-14-2009, 10:27 AM

Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbevilles - balled my eyes out in the university library where I finished it between classes.

Yes, it has the most devastating line in the final paragraph:

"Justice was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess."

She is born into the world without having asked for it and is then tormented and exploited- utterly powerless and at the mercy of those around her. Hardy almost seems to be saying "life isn't meaningless and arbitrary, it's much worse than that- the universe is a fundamentally dreadful place which is set up to maximise evil and injustice, as if for the pleasure of an omnipotent sadist". There are times when I think Hardy (who was very much a product of 19th century Darwinian England, with its secret religious despair) may well have been right!

Voltaire's Candide is also pretty depressing. At first glance it's a witty, mocking satire, but like Tess it also reaches some pretty bleak conclusions: 'God' is about as interested in us as a great king is in the fate of the mice and rats on one of his treasure ships; everyone is unhappy for different reasons, human nature is fundamentally evil and the best course of 'action' is to not do anything- you'll only make things worse.

The two great dystopian novels 1984 and Brave New World also end on a despairing note, though they are more warnings against what might happen. With Tess and Candide the authors seem to be saying 'this is it- a horrible nightmare in a fundamentally evil Universe and that's just the way it is'. Many novels have sad endings, but in Tess and Candide there is a deeper and more basic despair at life itself.

Phauszzie

02-21-2009, 10:39 PM

No book has ever made me cry, but Where The Red Fern Grows, On the Beach, and Frankenstein were all very good slightly sad/depressing stories.
Overall, the best one I've read is How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn. It is such a great book, and it was very sad.

kevinthediltz

02-21-2009, 10:44 PM

The diary of Anne Frank.

Not exactly a novel but very sad.

Mariamosis

02-23-2009, 03:50 PM

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

defyingdestiny

04-19-2009, 03:08 AM

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

Don Quixote Jr

04-19-2009, 04:38 AM

[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

04-19-2009, 11:23 AM

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

04-19-2009, 04:21 PM

kilted exile

04-19-2009, 04:26 PM

also one of the funniest at times:

Slaughterhouse 5 by Vonnegut

Michael T

04-21-2009, 04:22 PM

onioneater

04-21-2009, 05:59 PM

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

04-21-2009, 06:10 PM

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

04-21-2009, 09:49 PM

"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

04-21-2009, 09:52 PM

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

Bloomsday

04-21-2009, 10:22 PM

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

Mortis Anarchy

04-21-2009, 11:58 PM

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

04-22-2009, 12:42 AM

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

biberkopf

04-22-2009, 02:52 AM

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

SynLeeJm

06-19-2009, 04:10 PM

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. :)

I think House of Mirth was very sad. "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison takes the cake for me. Not a book for everyone, it deals with child molestation and how it affects the mental psyche of a young girl. NOT for the faint of heart. It is one of those books that you may read once, have learned too much from, and then set aside because you're sickened by the evil in this world. If anyone wants to read it, be my guest. Be advised, it not for the faint of heart.

amarna

06-19-2009, 04:31 PM

Kenzabury Oe's The arrogance of the Dead. Definitely. It's an existentialist novel about a Japanese student who is working in an anatomic instiutute in order to earn money for an abortion. The job she has to do is nasty and useless, and finally she is not even payed for it, but the work was so hard she looses the foetus on her own. Do never read this book in November.

virginiawang

06-20-2009, 09:46 AM

Jozanny

06-20-2009, 10:36 AM

"The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison takes the cake for me. Not a book for everyone, it deals with child molestation and how it affects the mental psyche of a young girl. NOT for the faint of heart. It is one of those books that you may read once, have learned too much from, and then set aside because you're sickened by the evil in this world. If anyone wants to read it, be my guest. Be advised, it not for the faint of heart.

The Bluest Eye is one of Morrison's most brutal novels, I agree, but what allowed me to maintain my emotional distance from it, as a writer, was that is was a failed experiment, as Morrison attempts to explain, herself, in an afterword.

She attempted to view this family's tragedy and extreme poverty through very limited third person perspectives, until the very last few pages, and this kind of objectified exposition doesn't work, nearly denies the child her own fictional being. As a novel, it is very nearly a brilliant failure, but a failure none the less.

I was going to post on that I don't really have demarcations towards fictions that makes me saddest, or happiest, for that matter, although I may feel more gratification than not, with some stories, but then I thought of John Irving, whose day in the sun seems past. His worldviews in most of his agenda books:

The World According to Garp
The Cider House Rules
The Hotel New Hampshire
A Widow for One Year

These are sad because he is such a cynic, holding any kind of advocacy or polemic suspect, wherein he is nearly as cruel to his characters as they are to each other. Apart from any critical assessments I feel toward his work, his outlook seems pretty bleak even when he aims for sardonic humor.

qimissung

06-20-2009, 11:05 AM

The Bluest Eye was very depressing for me. I couldn't finish it. I had a friend once who went into a mild (I guess) depression after watching the movie Pixote, and I remember feeling somewhat scornful. Then it happened to me.

Jozanny

06-20-2009, 11:48 AM

It may depend on who we are gim. I mentioned Ellroy's White Jazz in the Spillane thread. I stopped reading it for my live book club about 15 pages in because it was too dehumanizing, however accurate Ellroy's post-WW2 Los Angeles may have been. I did not want to waltz with Ellroy for more at the time, but I can't say it made me sad. I am more or less moved by the quality of the writing, not how sad the story might be--that went out when I was a kid, with romances like Love Story, and yes, I cried for Oliver's loss.

But writers have to harden to be writers, and I've learned how not to let my emotions get in the way, unless it is King Kong, or variations on that. Using animals as monsters upsets me, although one excuses Melville for his genius.

qimissung

06-20-2009, 12:03 PM

But writers have to harden to be writers, and I've learned how not to let my emotions get in the way, unless it is King Kong, or variations on that. Using animals as monsters upsets me, although one excuses Melville for his genius.

True, Jozanny, and I think we have to harden as readers, too. I know I need to do that, but I keep postponing it.

Jozanny

06-20-2009, 12:31 PM

True, Jozanny, and I think we have to harden as readers, too. I know I need to do that, but I keep postponing it.

Sometimes it comes of itself as we find ourselves. I wouldn't rush.;)

Dr. Hill

06-20-2009, 12:42 PM

I shed a tear reading The Grapes of Wrath.

kelby_lake

06-20-2009, 01:56 PM

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

it is very depressing, i agree

Buh4Bee

06-20-2009, 02:47 PM

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, it has been on the NY Timesbestseller list. Does that qualify as good literature? Anyway, it was quite depressing even with a "happy" ending. Deals with the modern woman's issues of family verses work and divorce and independence. Many people like the book, but just left me feeling empty.

Stargazer86

06-20-2009, 03:05 PM

I don't know if it's the saddest I've ever read, but I just re-read The Pearl by John Steinbeck the other day. That is extremely depressing. Especially if you have a baby

PoeticPassions

06-25-2009, 02:28 PM

I just read The Kite Runner... I haven't cried this much over a book in as long as I can remember. It is unbelievably depressing. It hurts as you read it. I sit here now, and am not sure if I can really move on....

eyemaker

06-25-2009, 09:25 PM

March Hare

06-25-2009, 10:43 PM

The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy. Now I never read McCarthy unless I have a couple of days to be depressed afterward.

DanielBenoit

12-03-2009, 02:52 AM

Dostoyevsky and Zola really get to me, especially the former. I admittingly am a hard-head and rarely feel depressed or cry when reading melodramatic stories (though there are always exceptions). I do, on the other hand, find stories of utter bleakness to be terribly depressing. Not in the way that one would cry, but in which one would simply feel empty and devoid of meaning. Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and End Game are examples of this (especially the latter). Upon first reading them, I wasn't all that depressed and in fact was more overcome by the comedic wordplay of the former, than the existential themes it embodied. I read it again, and was haunted. End Game especially. There is just something so bleak about that single confined room. The unseen post-Apocolayptic landscape. The absurdly comic parents in trash-cans. Such a great, hilarious and depressing play.

(Btw the two quotes in my signature are from the two plays)

Modest Proposal

12-03-2009, 03:40 AM

Lads of E3

12-03-2009, 04:01 AM

The Catcher in the Rye. Easily.

Vladimir777

12-03-2009, 04:02 PM

Mystic River definitely. One of the most unrelentingly bleak books I've ever read. The movie is very sad as well (terrific acting!), but the book just adds more depth to Dave's character. Love it, though. I need to read more Lehane if his other books were like this.

dfloyd

12-03-2009, 04:53 PM

One can be moved by a sad novel such as Goodbye Mr. Chips, but not necessarily depressed. I would say that to be depressed by a story or novel, one would have to be in that state or close to it before reading something which depresses you. The normal person can be made sad, but not depressed by the written word.

ForKnowledge

12-03-2009, 05:00 PM

Poor Folk by fyodor dostoevsky
Desolation Row by Jack Kerouac

glover7

12-03-2009, 05:04 PM

The Confessions of Max Tivoli. I cried my eyes out by the end.

gbrekken

12-04-2009, 12:49 PM

juvenile short read: A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck

Mutatis-Mutandis

12-05-2009, 03:07 AM

Someone mentioned Ender's Game. Really? It's dark, but I never found it too depressing.

My vote goes to Of Mice and Men. I don't know what's sadder, the movie or the book.

Dinkleberry2010

12-05-2009, 07:28 PM

I think the saddest book I've read is Flowers For Algernon, but the most depressing book is 1984.

Mutatis-Mutandis

12-05-2009, 10:03 PM

1984 is a good one.

Garrick

01-09-2012, 01:20 PM

Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy) and The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen).

farnoosh

01-09-2012, 01:26 PM

Wethuring Heights by Bronte

Gregory Samsa

01-09-2012, 02:39 PM

Of Mice and Men - specilly the ending when George tells Lennie the story of the bright future together that they will never share...and then...

Paulclem

01-09-2012, 05:54 PM

Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy) and The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen).

Tess - most depressing character to whom things just happen.

The catcher in the Rye - depressing because it's just a load of teen anxt rubbish for which I had such high expectations. (I was a late teen when I read it).

KCurtis

01-09-2012, 08:42 PM

Notes From the Underground is a novel written by Fyodor Dostosevsky. I read the book for many times, and each time I read it, I felt really sad and wondered again and again why the main character, a sick man, did not accept the girl, who lighted up his life almost immediately at the moment he fell in love with her. By the end of the novel, this man turned the girl out of his house and returned to his corner of darkness forever. He would stay in gloom and loneliness forever.
I would suggest anyone who has a wish to experiece a truly sad story to read the novel, but patience is needed here because the sick man grumbled quite a lot in the story. However the way he addressed people in general from his corner did reveal true feelings and elicit profound response from the readers.
I agree- this was very sad, but it makes me want to read more of Dostoevsky- he is a wonderfully compassionate and smart writer. Notes from Underground was sad because of the ending. He chased after the girl, but it was too late when he changed his mind. Dostoevsky had a lot of insight into to mentally ill due to living next to a mental institution. He liked to visit the patients, and he treated them with respect. He also had a tragic life himself. I'd like to read something, but I won't read Crime and Punishment.

Des Essientes

01-09-2012, 11:28 PM

I must say Chinhua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart'. British imperialism was bad but you never know how bad until you read a novel like that. Did you all know that the British smashed President Barak Obama's grandfather's testicles with iron bars when they imprisoned him in Kenya? It's no wonder our president sent back the bust of the warpig Churchill that was defiling the White House. It was Churchill who authorized that brutality.

cassiopeiajp

01-10-2012, 03:13 AM

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.
It is a fiction related to some history on Nazi
The realism of their situation is very heartbreaking and sad
It is quite modernalised and i reccommend it very much
it is happy in some parts too ;))

WICKES

01-10-2012, 04:14 PM

The Road, by McCarthy. It has to be the single most depressing novel I have ever read. I also found it utterly pointless. I usually get something out of every good book I read, but I took nothing from this, except a burning hope that if an asteroid ever strikes earth it takes me with it.

Although Hardy has the bleaker world view, I would say Conrad is the more depressing. No matter how great the writer, their personality colours the prose. Conrad was not a happy man, and it shows. There is a dark, gloomy, clinically depressed presence looming over (or under or behind) his novels.

I also find Evelyn Waugh a bit depressing. His prose is sublime and he is very, very funny, yet there is a coldness, a lack of empathy and feeling, which borders on sadism.

As an antidote I would suggest P G Wodehouse.

I loved the way The Road was written but I think McCarthy could've done better with the ending...It seemed less bleak and more cute because of the father and the son; I would start forgetting that it's post-apocalypse..

I agree about the ending. It is also not in the least believeable: the son wanders straight into the arms of a kind and protective family. The reality, as any reader knows, is that he would have starved to death or fallen into the hands of one of the roaming gangs of cannibals.

Emil Miller

01-10-2012, 05:33 PM

The Road, by McCarthy. It has to be the single most depressing novel I have ever read. I also found it utterly pointless. I usually get something out of every good book I read, but I took nothing from this, except a burning hope that if an asteroid ever strikes earth it takes me with it.

Although Hardy has the bleaker world view, I would say Conrad is the more depressing. No matter how great the writer, their personality colours the prose. Conrad was not a happy man, and it shows. There is a dark, gloomy, clinically depressed presence looming over (or under or behind) his novels.

I also find Evelyn Waugh a bit depressing. His prose is sublime and he is very, very funny, yet there is a coldness, a lack of empathy and feeling, which borders on sadism.

As an antidote I would suggest P G Wodehouse.

There has been much discussion of The Road on this forum and I have come to the same conclusion. It seems a pointless story that I have no intention of reading. As for Waugh, he was terribly cut up about his wife leaving him for another man and this coloured his writing to the extent that he includes a similar event in 'A Handful of Dust' and 'Sword of Honour' but that he is the funniest writer in English literature is hardly to be doubted. If there are doubts then a reading of 'Scoop' will dispel them.

Sine_lege

01-11-2012, 09:19 AM

Of mice and men- Steinbeck

WICKES

01-11-2012, 09:50 AM

There has been much discussion of The Road on this forum and I have come to the same conclusion. It seems a pointless story that I have no intention of reading. As for Waugh, he was terribly cut up about his wife leaving him for another man and this coloured his writing to the extent that he includes a similar event in 'A Handful of Dust' and 'Sword of Honour' but that he is the funniest writer in English literature is hardly to be doubted. If there are doubts then a reading of 'Scoop' will dispel them.

I would not recommend it. He writes beautifully and it is a very believeable depiction of what life would be like should there ever be a collapse of civilization. But it is one of the few novels I have taken nothing from. With most good books (and it is very good) I will put a pencil mark around particular passages and then return to them. With The Road I didn't feel that urge at all. In fact I gave the book to a charity shop once I had done with it. It makes Hardy and Conrad seem life-affirming. I know people will say "but you've misunderstood it. It is supposed to be life-affirming. The little boy retains a humanity and compassion in spite of everything". Yes, the child is well-drawn and loveable. But the darkness overpowers everything. Ashes and darkness are all that linger in my mind. Bleak, bleak stuff.

I love Evelyn Waugh. In fact his prose seems pretty much close to perfection. I also think Decline and Fall is the funniest novel I have ever read. But I doubt his wife's infidelity is responsible for that streak of cold, sadistic inhumanity in his novels. Waugh was quite simply a nasty little man with virtually no empathy. He takes real pleasure in killing off his characters in horrific ways.

aliengirl

01-11-2012, 10:12 AM

I would not recommend it. He writes beautifully and it is a very believeable depiction of what life would be like should there ever be a collapse of civilization. But it is one of the few novels I have taken nothing from. With most good books (and it is very good) I will put a pencil mark around particular passages and then return to them. With The Road I didn't feel that urge at all. In fact I gave the book to a charity shop once I had done with it. It makes Hardy and Conrad seem life-affirming. I know people will say "but you've misunderstood it. It is supposed to be life-affirming. The little boy retains a humanity and compassion in spite of everything". Yes, the child is well-drawn and loveable. But the darkness overpowers everything. Ashes and darkness are all that linger in my mind. Bleak, bleak stuff.

This book is on my TBR list. But as you say it's bleak enough, I won't spend my money on it. Will borrow it from the library.

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak is a very sad read.

katow

12-01-2012, 01:16 PM

If this is a Man by Primo Levi. But also Notes from Underground and Death of Ivan Ilyich. All fantastic books, but all very sad.

Mason Pringle

12-01-2012, 06:56 PM

Any tragedy by Shakespeare (in particular King Lear). Toni Morrison's Sula. the Bell Jar by Plath.

Also - a book that needs a special mention - Candide by Voltaire - the plot is really, really, really sad yet he uses a somewhat comedic tone. Black comedy I suppose

And - i forgot to mention - ANY BOOK by William Styron - they will literally dampen even the most optimist person in the world

kelby_lake

12-01-2012, 08:02 PM

The Hunchback of Notre Dame! Why have normal deaths when you can have horrible sadistic ones? And why not call the final chapter the most deceptive title ever?

LaMaga

12-09-2012, 10:57 PM

I didn't cry but The Book Thief. A very sweet novel.

One that made me cry but I wouldn't necessarily call it depressing was a Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

I did bawl my eyes out years ago when I read The Bridges of Madison County. Also, Lullabies for Little Criminals.

One that is not a novel but I found to be super depressing and paranoid for months I had cancer was Gilda Radners It's always Something. Also on Borrowed Time, an AIDS memoir. Beautifully written but oh so depressing.

Joreads

12-09-2012, 11:06 PM

The Road, by McCarthy. It has to be the single most depressing novel I have ever read.

Could not agree more.

kev67

12-10-2012, 08:28 PM

The Road, by McCarthy. It has to be the single most depressing novel I have ever read. I also found it utterly pointless. I usually get something out of every good book I read, but I took nothing from this, except a burning hope that if an asteroid ever strikes earth it takes me with it.

Although Hardy has the bleaker world view, I would say Conrad is the more depressing. No matter how great the writer, their personality colours the prose. Conrad was not a happy man, and it shows. There is a dark, gloomy, clinically depressed presence looming over (or under or behind) his novels.

I also find Evelyn Waugh a bit depressing. His prose is sublime and he is very, very funny, yet there is a coldness, a lack of empathy and feeling, which borders on sadism.

As an antidote I would suggest P G Wodehouse.

I agree about the ending. It is also not in the least believeable: the son wanders straight into the arms of a kind and protective family. The reality, as any reader knows, is that he would have starved to death or fallen into the hands of one of the roaming gangs of cannibals.

I have read three Joseph Conrad books: The Secret Agent, Lord Jim and The Heart of Darkness. They were all miserable. The Heart of Darkness was actually a short story in a collection of three. The other two short stories were miserable too.

qimissung

12-10-2012, 11:53 PM

Actually, I liked "The Road." I understand what you all are saying about the ending, but I don't really have any problem with that. With a book that deals with such a bleak topic, you have to have a smidgen of hope to leaven it. After all, hope is what gets us out of bed in the morning.

quidoftullamore

07-20-2013, 03:26 PM

There's something ineffably sad about My Ántonia. Aside from the fact that Jim and Ántonia don't end up together, which is pretty obvious from beginning. There's just something in the book's undercurrent, something beneath its surface.

kev67

07-20-2013, 04:29 PM

The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad
Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The other two novellas that came with Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
Daisy Miller - Henry James
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami

bookowskee

07-21-2013, 12:58 AM

Here's a few:

Farewell to Arms - Hemingway
Maya - Jostein Gaardner
Breakfast of Champions - Vonnegut
A Happy Death - Camus

The works of Virginia Woolf. There's a certain brittleness inherent in the works of Virginia Woolf that calls for a little caution as if she's at the point of breaking into little pieces of glass. Her short fictions included.

Annamariah

07-21-2013, 03:32 AM

1984, Wuthering Heights, Tess of D'Urbervilles and Atonement are really depressing, but I don't remember crying. I was just disappointed and depressed. Time-Traveler's Wife and A Thousand Splendid Suns were really sad too. Hans Christian Andersen's stories like The Little Match Girl and The Little Mermaid are real tear-jerkers.

The one book which has made me cry the most for the past couple of years was Mockingjay, the last book of the Hunger Games trilogy. It's really sad, so much death and destruction.

I cry very easily when I read or watch movies, but I don't think that simply shedding a few tears makes a book particularly sad and/or depressing. For example, I cry every time I read Jane Eyre, but I still don't think it's all that depressing, because the ending is happy enough. It's more to do with the ending and the overall feeling. I don't mind crying a lot in the middle if there's at least a little bit of happiness at the end, but I don't like thoroughly miserable stories with no hope at all.

SFG75

07-27-2013, 09:12 PM

bookowskee

07-27-2013, 11:06 PM

I love Vonnegut, the wandering nature of his works gets to you, but they tie in together at the end of his works typically.

Yeah, me too. Just finished reading his bio, So It Goes and Kurt Vonnegut The Last Interview. You might want to check those if you still haven't.

Vonnegut's Mother Night, might qualify in this thread as well. Deciding to hang yourself in the end is, could be, depressing enough.

The Kid

08-22-2013, 07:45 PM

1. Diary of A Young Girl, by Anne Frank. This is mostly because I'm in love with Anne Frank, and I felt that if she was alive now I would be in love with her. I was about fourteen when I read it, so her age.

2. The Catcher in the Rye. My teacher made me read this book freshman year of high school. I contemplated suicide the entire time we studied it in class, which was about three weeks in length. I thought I was insane.

*Classic*Charm*

08-22-2013, 10:42 PM

Tess. Always Tess.

Vota

08-28-2013, 09:51 PM

I read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair last week. THAT was depressing. Despite the huge 180 near the end of the book, and the weak characters overall, I was thoroughly engaged and really felt for the main character of the story. Some of my feelings may have to do from also having worked hard manual labor, many times in dangerous or harsh conditions, though not to the extremes as presented in this book. I would heartily recommend the book even though it's a real downer.

NedSiegel

09-08-2013, 04:48 PM

Islands in the Stream by Hemingway. The death of the main character's children is not even the saddest part of the book.

RetsixArp

09-08-2013, 05:41 PM

I think the saddest book I've read is Flowers For Algernon, ...Read the original short story, written in diary form: it was indeed a tearjerker.

Taran Tula

03-06-2019, 07:29 AM

Jude the Obscure. My God, that was BLEAK!

Viffan

03-07-2019, 03:54 PM

I'm with you...'The House Of Mirth' & 'Sister Carrie' were very sad books (they are also two of my favorites.) 'American Pastoral' & 'Revolutionary Road' weren't a bundle of laughs either.

Ekimhtims

03-17-2019, 11:52 AM

Agreed, "Revolutionary Road" was quite sad. Had read that one right after reading John Barth's "The End of the Road." Gotta love abortions eh. Another good sad one is Joseph Heller's "Something Happened"...where abortion seems like it would have been preferable. It was Heller's second novel and was published 13 years after "Catch-22", a work I read two chapters of before putting down, finding it overpromoted, similar to "A Confederacy of Dunces", which I finished for some reason, though I felt like killing myself afterwards.

WICKES

04-04-2019, 09:38 AM

1984, Wuthering Heights, Tess of D'Urbervilles and Atonement are really depressing.

Agreed. Jude the Obscure is also incredibly bleak. Oddly, though, I don't find Hardy depressing. Maybe it's because, though he did have a bleak view of existence he was himself relatively cheerful. Other writers, like Conrad and Larkin, who suffered from depression, really get me down. It's as if the depression seeps into their work.

Dickens is a fairly cheerful writer, but there are desperately sad moments in his novels. When Joe the roadsweeper cleans up the grave of his friend, because it's all he can do for him, it really gets to me. Even thinking about that scene brings tears to my eyes. Then there is A Christmas Carol. Yes, it's sentimental, and yes Tiny Tim is nauseating, but I cannot get through any version of this, not even the Muppet one, without crying like a baby. I also find Pip's treatment of Joe in Great Expectations unbearable.

The Patrick Melrose novels, by Edward St Aubyn are very sad.

There is a poem by Blake, called The Chimney Sweep' which I can't read without crying. I have no idea why. It is literally the only poem to have that effect on me. The line "wash in a river and shine in the sun" gets me every time.

WICKES

04-04-2019, 09:40 AM

1984, Wuthering Heights, Tess of D'Urbervilles and Atonement are really depressing.

Agreed. Jude the Obscure is also incredibly bleak. Oddly, though, I don't find Hardy depressing. Maybe it's because, though he did have a bleak view of life, he was himself relatively cheerful. Other writers, like Conrad and Larkin, who suffered from depression, really get me down. It's as if the depression seeps into their work.

Dickens is a fairly cheerful writer, but there are desperately sad moments in his novels. When Joe the roadsweeper cleans up the grave of his friend in Bleak House, because it's all he can do for him, it really gets to me. Even thinking about that scene brings tears to my eyes. Then there is A Christmas Carol. Yes, it's sentimental, and yes Tiny Tim is nauseating, but I cannot get through any version of this, not even the Muppet version, without crying like a baby. I also find Pip's treatment of Joe in Great Expectations unbearable.

The Patrick Melrose novels, by Edward St Aubyn, are very sad.

There is a poem by Blake, called The Chimney Sweep' which I can't read without crying. I have no idea why. It is literally the only poem to have that effect on me. The line "wash in a river and shine in the sun" gets me every time.

The war poetry of men like Wilfred Owen and Keith Douglas are very sad, mainly because both were killed.

Todd Lakes

06-10-2019, 12:15 PM

For me, the most depressing novel was Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”. This is really a very emotional story.

Todd Lakes

06-10-2019, 12:15 PM

I read Anna Karenina in college. We had a task to write an essay about a work of Russian literature. I chose this particular novel because my sister advised me. I was very impressed after reading this book. I learned many life lessons from this book. Love and family relationships are the main issues in this book. Many say that books are just papers, but they are greatly mistaken. In the books you can see the emotions and experiences of the author. His world view on life situations. If you do not want to read the book, but you need to complete the assignment, then you can buy a college essay on the Paperial.com (https://paperial.com/buy-college-essays-online). But I highly recommend reading this book to understand what the author wanted to say. Love in this book is described as something highly moral. This unexplained feeling that people sometimes feel unwillingly. This is something that cannot be called a purchase or something that can be bought.

Jackson Richardson

06-10-2019, 03:44 PM

I have felt depressed reading the following (maybe it was just me at the time):

Charlotte Bronte Vilette

Erskine Childers The Riddle of the Sands

E W Hornung Raffles

A couple of people have mentioned The Idiot. It was the first great Russian classic I ever read, and I re-read it again this year. Awe inspiring, yes, but not depressing for me.

Funny you should mention those precise three because I found them deeply depressing as well. Mind you I was reading The Riddle of the Sands (set just before the outbreak of World War 1) just after 9/11 and it seemed horribly possible.

I haven't a clue why I found Raffles depressing but I did. I read Vilette at a time when I was anxious for other reasons.

I don't find The Idiot depressing at all. I'm a bit sorry for Anna Karenina but none what so ever for Vronsky.

Jackson Richardson

06-10-2019, 03:49 PM

And there is a big difference between depression and feeling sad or emotionally moved. I'd say depression means an inability not to feel and knowing misery as a result. I used to feel emotionally uplifted if I was moved to tears and that made me love the novel. I've cried reading all George Eliot's novels when I was younger. Now I find them worthy and leaving me cold.

Pompey Bum

06-10-2019, 05:41 PM

Someone above mentioned Ian McEwan's Atonement, which was the first title that occurred to me when I read the title of the thread. But Atonement is also one of the best modern novels I have read in maybe ten years, so my second thought was similar to JR's distinction between depressing books and sad or emotionally moving ones.

I would go even further: novels that depress rather than move are doing something wrong, usually aiming for the latter but not achieving it. I think of Chang-rae Lee's irritatingly depressing Native Speaker, which included a deus ex machina toddler death. Yuck--who needs that? Another Korean-American novel, Pachinko, is full of upsetting incidents, but it is (usually) genuinely moving because its tragedies great and small derive from human nature and paradoxes and smallness before history.

With that distinction in mind then (and at the cost of writing my first LitNet list in years), I found the following books (in no particular order) sad but moving:

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Human Stain by Philip Roth

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (I note that some do find this one depressing--it is at least mighty bleak).

I have reviewed Atonement, Pachinko, and Remains of the Day on the Book Review thread (if anyone is interested). I will probably add Never Let Me Go, The Human Stain, and a few others before long. I've written enough on LitNet about The Road, though