most depressing

[cfgs]

Which is the most depressing book, almost suicide inducing, you have read? Also dark.

[Saladin]

The Sorrows of Young Werther

[Dark Muse]

Though I am not yet finnished with it, right now I would have to say The Jungle is about the most bleak and depressing thing I have read.

Also Three Lives by Gertrude Stein I found to be quite depressing

[Pecksie]

My most depressing recent read is probably 'Triomf' by Marlene van Niekerk, about a 'white trash' family in a South African township.

[mayneverhave]

King Lear

[JBI]

Anything by Hardy or Zola, though L'Assommoir for Zola, and probably Tess for Hardy.

[Tallon]

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. Every male character was in some way evil and all the women's lives were tragic, good writing but it was depressing to pick up.

[armenian]

Knut Hamsun - Hunger, it takes dostoevskys humiliation from notes, to a whole other level.

Osamu Dozai - No Longer Human, was a downer to. suicide was a big theme in the book

Dostoevsky - Notes from Underground, the original and best written.

[Jozanny]

Which is the most depressing book, almost suicide inducing, you have read? Also dark.

I know I am quibbling, but what do you mean by depressing? As a mental health term, depression is regularly misused in the popular lexicon. Depression is an illness, where the mood is extreme, and I do not think literary works even with a stark, or bleak vision, induce major depressive states. Certain works may be sobering for certain readers, but a depressive mood is triggered by other things.

Mark Twain is pretty bleak about the human race, and Huckleberry Finn is considered, when closely read, to make a fairly cynical assessment of the human condition. I have not reread it in a long time. Cloud Atlas is also powerfully stark, though the book amazes my intelligence.

[mayneverhave]

Dostoevsky - Notes from Underground, the original and best written.

See, I may be in the minority here, but I couldn't help but feel Dostoevsky had some fun with his narrator in Notes. The character possessed a kind of insane genius, but I didn't find it particularly moving or moody.

Among Dostoevsky's novels I would choose The Brothers Karamazov in terms of pathos over Crime and Punishment or Notes. I tend to associate moving/pessimistic things with winter landscapes, and the stifling heat of C&P obviously didn't evoke those feelings for me.

[Tallon]

I know I am quibbling, but what do you mean by depressing? As a mental health term, depression is regularly misused in the popular lexicon. Depression is an illness, where the mood is extreme, and I do not think literary works even with a stark, or bleak vision, induce major depressive states. Certain works may be sobering for certain readers, but a depressive mood is triggered by other things.

Mark Twain is pretty bleak about the human race, and Huckleberry Finn is considered, when closely read, to make a fairly cynical assessment of the human condition. I have not reread it in a long time. Cloud Atlas is also powerfully stark, though the book amazes my intelligence.

I think that 'depressing' has pretty much taken on a non-medical usage now.
Just as "oh that drives me mental" doesn't mean literally drove me mentally ill. Language is constantly changing and i'm happy to go along with it.

[Jozanny]

I think that 'depressing' has pretty much taken on a non-medical usage now.
Just as "oh that drives me mental" doesn't mean literally drove me mentally ill. Language is constantly changing and i'm happy to go along with it.

Talk about a generation gap. I think the phrase is charming Tallon, but this is the first time I've heard it. I'm insecure about using it though, since aging with cerebral palsy IS making me mental:D

But back on topic, most dark works I enjoy I tend to find comforting, Doris Lessing included. I am a huge Lessing fan--do you think GN is as strong as her later material? Or is that asking too much?

[bazarov]

Agree on Werther and Zola( Germinal :bawling: ), totally disagree on Dostoevsky; there is a difference between depressing and maybe sad.
You can also try Yesenin's poetry.

[Jozanny]

On Zola--

I have not read all of his oeuvre, but of what I have read, he doesn't seem to have much faith in our capacity for correction--but maybe this is particular to French world-weary cynicism?

[Tallon]

Talk about a generation gap. I think the phrase is charming Tallon, but this is the first time I've heard it. I'm insecure about using it though, since aging with cerebral palsy IS making me mental:D

But back on topic, most dark works I enjoy I tend to find comforting, Doris Lessing included. I am a huge Lessing fan--do you think GN is as strong as her later material? Or is that asking too much?

I haven't read any of her other works. I do plan to read some of her science fiction, she is a very smart lady and shares my views on the literary merits of science fiction.

[kandaurov]

I guess my vote goes to Álvaro de Campos' poem, which doesn't have a title but I would name "Suicide: why haven't you tried it yet?"

http://www.secrel.com.br/jpoesia/facam16.html (in Portuguese)
http://milkfromthedish.blogspot.com/2007/06/untitled-poem-by-fernando-pessoa-as.html (in English)

[Veva]

I would say that after reading A long way down by Nick Hornby I felt very depressed though it is meant to me tragicomic... ;)

[mayneverhave]

I would say that after reading A long way down by Nick Hornby I felt very depressed though it is meant to me tragicomic... ;)

Interesting you bring up tragicomedy. Often I find the tragicomic to be ultimately more depressing than something that is straight tragic.

I mean Waiting for Godot or something by Kafka. The idea (especially in Godot) that things are inescapable and ever repeating is far more frightening than the idea that even if love is fleeting, so is hatred and destruction. Hamlet may detest life, but at least his ends. For Didi and Gogo, however, there is no end.

[NEEMAN]

Don't know if I've read anything I've found personally depressing, but I have to say that Jude The Obscure hit me pretty hard.

[Veva]

Waiting for Godot...
Thanks for reminding me of that ... definitely true..

[kelby_lake]

The Time Traveller's Wife was so depressing I couldn't finish it.

[Schokokeks]

I have to say that Jude The Obscure hit me pretty hard.
I second that :nod:.

Another bleak one for me was Whatever (Extension du domaine de la lutte in the original French) by Michel Houellebecq. Never dared to read anything by him again...

[lupe]

I second that :nod:.

Another bleak one for me was Whatever (Extension du domaine de la lutte in the original French) by Michel Houellebecq. Never dared to read anything by him again...

I encourage you to read Atomised (The elementary particles), from Houellebecq, which is a pointing and astonishing book. There is an old thread about the author, if you want more opinions...

[Lust Hogg]

The gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn... Hard times by Dickens

[Silas Thorne]

I guess my vote goes to Álvaro de Campos' poem, which doesn't have a title but I would name "Suicide: why haven't you tried it yet?"

http://www.secrel.com.br/jpoesia/facam16.html (in Portuguese)
http://milkfromthedish.blogspot.com/2007/06/untitled-poem-by-fernando-pessoa-as.html (in English)

Yes, I definitely wouldn't ask a friend who felt depressed to read this one. It would be the end of him or her.

[chuckles#2]

I encourage you to read Atomised (The elementary particles), from Houellebecq, which is a pointing and astonishing book. There is an old thread about the author, if you want more opinions...

I haven't been able to find the thread, if you could give me the link?

[kandaurov]

Indeed, Silas, and when you think that Álvaro de Campos is an heteronym of the most widely read poet in Portugal (Fernando Pessoa), you start wondering what effect this poem may have in our demographics...!

[Allannah]

Er, all Jacqueline Wilson books make me want to slit my wrists, frankly.

But. I get your meaning! I'd have to say...well, most of the Holocaust accounts I read when I was ten have made me pretty much immune to what people generally consider sad...but The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Book Thief were sad....although the authors always feel they have to inject humour or that annoying thing called Hope to make readers happy, which, like, contradicts the whole sad thing...I don't know, actually; I have to read more sad books! (:
Oh, and Crime and Punishment. That was somewhat depressing- especially with the thing about "you can kill if for a reason".

[ballb]

Tess of the D`urbervilles - Hardy

Germinal - Zola

Nicholas Nickleby - Dickens

[weltanschauung]

King Lear


absolutely. and then you can always have kurozawa's ran as a mental picture.
kierkegaard's diaries are very depressing, and then saramago's blindness.... and poe's narratives of arthur gordon pym
ugh.

[weltanschauung]

I guess my vote goes to Álvaro de Campos' poem, which doesn't have a title but I would name "Suicide: why haven't you tried it yet?"

http://www.secrel.com.br/jpoesia/facam16.html (in Portuguese)
http://milkfromthedish.blogspot.com/2007/06/untitled-poem-by-fernando-pessoa-as.html (in English)

livro do desassossego is extremely depressing also, but in a "vou te matar, fdp" way.

[kandaurov]

Haha, greetings, compatriota! You know what I'm ashamed as a Portuguese citizen for not yet having read O Livro do Desassossego. Will work over that flaw over the Summer, if Thor doesn't smite me for my heresy by then. My favourite Pessoa is Alberto Caeiro, by the way. Also depressing in his own way, but very inspiring too.

[Mopey Droney]

Jude the Obscure. Good god.

[DeadAsDreams]

Journey To The End of The Night By Louis Ferdinand Celine

[Pewnut]

I don't know why but I was thoroughly depressed by Kerouac’s “On the Road”. I guess there’s something about “drifting” through life all alone which kind of depresses and (at the same time) scares me.

And Thomas Hardy, most definitely.

[toology514]

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

[mtpspur]

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

[weltanschauung]

if Thor doesn't smite me for my heresy by then..

todos os seus conhecidos têm sido campeões em tudo?
todos eles príncipes na vida?

[kandaurov]

No, Thor has been kind to me, you see, I haven't had to go through the disgrace of seeing my friends prosper ;)

Had to look those lines up, by the way. A great poem it is, thanks for the heads-up!

[Cat_Brenners]

The Animal Farm. Don't remember who it is by but it was a long time ago and I could not sleep for nights lol.
Cat

[faithalina]

I found Orwell's 1984 thoroughly depressing, but loved every minute of it.

Also, Ludmilla's Broken English by DBC Pierre...hated it...couldn't finish it, despite several attempts.

[Mockingbird_z]

The Charterhouse of Parma, perhaps is one of the most depressing books I have read...
1984 by Orwell

[ben.!]

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was pretty depressing from what I can remember.

[Silas Thorne]

and similar to Ivan Denisovitch, 'Grass Soup' by Zhang Xianliang.