Saddest/Most Depressing Novel You've Ever Read

[SynLeeJm]

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]

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]

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.

[Jozanny]

"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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

I shed a tear reading The Grapes of Wrath.

[kelby_lake]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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....

ya, i agree. It's depressing, though i don't remember myself crying over the book.

[March Hare]

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