Which novels have moved you to tears ?

[Diggory Venn]

(Apologies if this has been done before).

Have you been moved to tears by a particular passage in any of the novels that you have read ?

I certainly have. Through the sheer strength of characterization I can get really involved in a novel, so much so that I have literally been moved to tears in some instances (usually deaths). Here are some examples that stick in my memory, (in no particular order). I will not go into details for fear of "Spoiling" ;

Oliver Twist (1838)
Tess of the D`Urbervilles (1891)
Jane Eyre (1847)
The Warden (1855)
Jude The Obscure (1895)
Sylvia`s Lovers (1863)

[Pompey Bum]

A Tale of Two Cities

Out of curiosity, TL, which scene in Oliver Twist made you cry?

[Jackson Richardson]

When I was younger, every novel by George Eliot apart from Romola. Last time I read Silas Marner I was in tears most of the time. But I'm getting old and hard hearted. Last time I read Middlemarch I read Mrs Bulstrode changing her dress to comfort her husband in his disgrace with the one word "Nicholas" dry eyed. That certainly wasn't the case when I was younger.

Tears have been in my eyes for Dickens for the deaths of A Frederick Dorrit and B Little Jo in Bleak House.

It's interesting all the examples cited so far have been from the C19.

[Jackson Richardson]

When I was younger, every novel by George Eliot apart from Romola..

That includes Felix Holt.

[Diggory Venn]

Hi PB, (SPOILER ALERT !)

It was when Oliver escaped from the undertakers to go to London and he had to say a tearful goodbye to his (ill ?) friend Dick whom he knew from their time together in the workhouse. Also Remember Sykes battering Nancy to death and Bullseye was desperately scratching at the door to get in and help her, or was he trying to get OUT of the room ? (I had a Bull Terrier at the time of reading).

Sorry for poor memory !

Jonathan, 19thC - it`s all I ever read..

[MorpheusSandman]

Quite a few, but the one I distinctly remember was Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich because I was crying so much I couldn't see the page anymore!

[cacian]

Quite a few, but the one I distinctly remember was Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich because I was crying so much I couldn't see the page anymore!

wow really? how old were you?

[MorpheusSandman]

Early 20s; I don't remember exactly.

[kev67]

Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Norwegian Wood and Watership Down. There are probably others. Nevertheless, I sometimes feel I am having my buttons pushed. If that is the case then I consider it a cheat.

[Pompey Bum]

Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Norwegian Wood and Watership Down. There are probably others. Nevertheless, I sometimes feel I am having my buttons pushed. If that is the case then I consider it a cheat.

Oh yes, at the very end if Watership Down as well.

[Pompey Bum]

Hi PB, (SPOILER ALERT !)

It was when Oliver escaped from the undertakers to go to London and he had to say a tearful goodbye to his (ill ?) friend Dick whom he knew from their time together in the workhouse.

Another Spoiler Alert!

Yes, I think it was Dick. Then after all his adventures in London, he tries to find his pal again at the very end; but he's already died. Dickens audience usually expected happy endings, so I'm always impressed when an author tries to show something different. In this case, what? Some things that have been taken can never be restored?

[Emil Miller]

Tragic stories about animals are usually written to tug the heartstrings of children but also occasionally those of adults. I don't recall reading them as a child so I couldn't comment on their effect but among adult literature some writing that has caused tears to fall are the last page of Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann and a passage from Der Stechlin by Theodor Fontane in a scene of devastating sadness.
Emile Zola's ironically titled La Joie de vivre was also very sad as was his L'assommoir.
Another book that moved me was Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence in the passage where Dr Coutras finds the body of Charles Strickland, who has died of leprosy, surrounded by the painting with which he has covered the walls of his hut. I didn't understand what motivated the artistic temperament before I read it but I do now.

[Whifflingpin]

"The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" interlude in "Wind in the Willows" - It's not just sad things that trigger emotion.

[Pompey Bum]

Tragic stories about animals are usually written to tug the heartstrings of children but also occasionally those of adults.

Well, I'll tell you how it was for me, Emil. I was living in a remote area of Gabon, a heavily for forested country is central Africa, my roommate had gone away to the distant capital, and I had read late into the African night. It was not a tragic or even maudlin story (more like an epic fantasy adventure--about rabbits!) In the final pages, the protagonist, who is depicted as eventually having grown old and respected--perhaps a bit too old--is speaking rather distractedly to someone he takes to be a younger rabbit who wants something, without really looking at him. Finally the younger rabbit says something like: "Don't you know who I am?" The main character looks and immediately recognizes him as a figure from their mythology--more or less Death. "Yes Lord," he responds, "I know you." As they go off together, there is a line in the narration that says (I think--it's been 30 years): "Hazel did not think he would need his body anymore, so he threw it in a ditch." That, perhaps because of my strong and unfashionable dualistic beliefs, affected me emotionally. At first (as usual) I blinked back the tears, but I have a clear memory of saying to myself: You know, I am in this room alone, within hundreds of miles of rainforest, and thousands of miles from home. If I want to cry over this book, then dammit, I'm just going to sit here and cry. So I did. :)

I can contrast this to when I was 13 and came to the end of A Tale of Two Cities (which some have criticized as being a bit maudlin--not me, though) and was stunned that a book had the power to reduce me to tears. Prior to that, I had mostly read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and though I had not expected it (and was puzzled and devastated), I handled the incident at the Reichenbach Falls like the man I had somehow convinced myself I was at the time.

I don't remember crying over other books, but perhaps I've merely forgotten.

[Emil Miller]

Well, I'll tell you how it was for me, Emil. I was living in a remote area of Gabon, a heavily for forested country is central Africa, my roommate had gone away to the distant capital, and I had read late into the African night. It was not a tragic or even maudlin story (more like an epic fantasy adventure--about rabbits!) In the final pages, the protagonist, who is depicted as eventually having grown old and respected--perhaps a bit too old--is speaking rather distractedly to someone he takes to be a younger rabbit who wants something, without really looking at him. Finally the younger rabbit says something like: "Don't you know who I am?" The main character looks and immediately recognizes him as a figure from their mythology--more or less Death. "Yes Lord," he responds, "I know you." As they go off together, there is a line in the narration that says (I think--it's been 30 years): "Hazel did not think he would need his body anymore, so he threw it in a ditch." That, perhaps because of my strong and unfashionable dualistic beliefs, affected me emotionally. At first (as usual) I blinked back the tears, but I have a clear memory of saying to myself: You know, I am in this room alone, within hundreds of miles of rainforest, and thousands of miles from home. If I want to cry over this book, then dammit, I'm just going to sit here and cry. So I did. :)

I can contrast this to when I was 13 and came to the end of A Tale of Two Cities (which some have criticized as being a bit maudlin--not me, though) and was stunned that a book had the power to reduce me to tears. Prior to that, I had mostly read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and though I had not expected it (and was puzzled and devastated), I handled the incident at the Reichenbach Falls like the man I had somehow convinced myself I was at the time.

I don't remember crying over other books, but perhaps I've merely forgotten.

Animals can arouse the the same affection as humans and when they die it can be tragic. I was completely crushed when my cat Milly died after seven years of friendship. Watching her go down and being unable to stop the decline was heart breaking. At the time, I was learning to play Bach's prelude to A Well Tempered Clavier in which there is a passage that is quite dark in its tone and whenever I play it I still think of Milly.

[easy75]

For me the only time I can remember tearing up was reading the last chapter of the book, "The Things They Carried" By Tim O'Brien. At the time it moved me in a bunch of different ways.
Incidentally I didn't cry reading Watership Down, but for some reason I got a little teary at the end of the animated movie. Must have been the music. Go figure, lol.

[ennison]

Watership Down! Read the book. No effect. Saw the film. Yawn. But the curry now that moved me.

[Eiseabhal]

Was it a vindaloo Ennison?

[Jackson Richardson]

"The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" interlude in "Wind in the Willows" - It's not just sad things that trigger emotion.

Wow. It was a favourite book of my mother's. When she had terminal cancer I used to visit her in the care home and read Wind in the Willows to her. After I'd read that chapter we were both weeping. I lent over her to kiss her goodbye for the day and my tears fell on her.

She said how much that had moved her when she was small, but she didn't understand why. I thought I knew why. It tells us that deep down in existence there is a love for us that religiously minded people like me call the love of God, and parents with their own neurosis fail to communicate. She never associated it with the respectable and superficial religion she was brought up with or the attitude of one of her parents. Three months later she was dead but at last I'd shared something of cosmic significance with her that would not have been possible other than in her extremity.

[ennison]

That's interesting and worthwhile Jonathan. When my mother was old and failing I read to her also. Mainly Gaelic psalms and the New Testament in Gaelic but also lots of Dickens