Saddest/Most Depressing Novel You've Ever Read

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.

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

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

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!

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.

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Originally Posted by crystalmoonshin

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!

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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)

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

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Originally Posted by idiosynchrissy

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

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My choice also.

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:

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

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.

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Originally Posted by faithalina

Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbevilles

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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:.

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Originally Posted by faithalina

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

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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.

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.

The diary of Anne Frank.

Not exactly a novel but very sad.