Saddest/Most Depressing Novel You've Ever Read

[DanielBenoit]

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]

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.

I've read in a reliable source that their are over 200 KNOWN cases of youths killing themselves because of the affects of the novel.

[Lads of E3]

The Catcher in the Rye. Easily.

[Vladimir777]

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]

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]

Poor Folk by fyodor dostoevsky
Desolation Row by Jack Kerouac

[glover7]

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

[gbrekken]

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

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

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]

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

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

1984 is a good one.

[Garrick]

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

[farnoosh]

Wethuring Heights by Bronte

[Gregory Samsa]

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]

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).