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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsMost depressing book you've ever read?
Where the Red Fern Grows.
No contest.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... nothing EVER happened.
bif
(22,697 posts)It was so depressing I quit reading it halfway through.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,681 posts)It's depressing all the way through.
Brother Buzz
(36,421 posts)shcrane71
(1,721 posts)airplane ride. Steinbeck was great.
shcrane71
(1,721 posts)Also the most scary book I've ever read.
dana_b
(11,546 posts)funny how it is also my favorite book.
sammytko
(2,480 posts)sammytko
(2,480 posts)But she is a favorite. Do not like to watch the movies, because I have the stories "just so" in my head.
Danmel
(4,913 posts)I minored in English at Hofstra University in the late 70s. One say when i was in the cafeteria, i ran into one of my former English professors, Dr. Chalfont. He saw "house of mirth" in my hand and asked me what I thought of it. I told him that I thought it was.a slow go. He said, it is a.brilliant book for about 5 pages. The rest is torture!
Gotta agree.
Non-fiction is pretty depressibg too. Think the worst for me were Hitlers Willing Executioners & the Great Deluge,.by Doug Brinkley about Katrina.
Phoonzang
(2,899 posts)Yes...I know it's sci-fi.
kaiden
(1,314 posts)I cried at the end of the book. Very powerful.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)Spike89
(1,569 posts)dogknob
(2,431 posts)Silver Swan
(1,110 posts)I read it 45 years ago, and it left me feeling hopeless for days.
(Kosinski also wrote Being There on which the film of that name was based.)
PassingFair
(22,434 posts)Have you read "The Book Thief"?
Silver Swan
(1,110 posts)And after reading about it on Wikipedia, I don't know if I would want to! I try to limit myself to non-depressing things now.
Canis Mala
(91 posts)progressoid
(49,988 posts)I could only do a chapter at a time.
likesmountains 52
(4,098 posts)anything like that...haunts me still almost 40 years later.
Burma Jones
(11,760 posts)Staph
(6,251 posts)It tells the story of a chemical company gazillionaire who knows that he will soon be sued for the cancers caused by his company's carelessness in disposing of the chemicals that it produces. So the owner proceeds to buy himself a state Supreme Court justice, so that any verdict for the dead and dying will be overturned.
The book is a total downer. But worse yet, it's a close parallel (or perhaps a retelling) of a real situation in West Virginia, where coal baron Don Blankenship (of Massey Coal, the owners of many non-union coal mines, including the Upper Big Branch mine, where 29 miners were killed in 2010) contributed $3 million in 2004 to elect his own West Virginia Supreme Court Justice, Brent Benjamin. Three years later, Benjamin was the deciding vote to overturn a $50 million jury verdict against Massey.
When I read the book, I kept waiting for the happy ending. I kept waiting for justice for the townsfolk who had their lives ruined by this uncaring corporation. I'm still waiting.
LNM
(1,078 posts)Terribly depressing.
canoeist52
(2,282 posts)applegrove
(118,636 posts)the book but have yet to.
blue neen
(12,319 posts)"Sophie's Choice" actually changed the way I looked at life, opened my mind to so much more.
It is and was profoundly a sad story of how horrible human beings can really be.
Tuesday Afternoon
(56,912 posts)Child called it was also very sad.
there is a difference between sad and depressing, I think.
ohiosmith
(24,262 posts)Main guy gets killed.
EastTennesseeDem
(2,675 posts)Sheesh!
ohiosmith
(24,262 posts)Chan790
(20,176 posts)The last book written by Douglas Adams in the Hitchhiker's Guide series. I'm not going to spoiler it, but reading it made me feel like I'd wasted the previous month reading the entire series.
PassingFair
(22,434 posts)I'm STILL not over it.
banned from Kos
(4,017 posts)It was very depressing for sure.
Kate Winslet was wonderful.
PassingFair
(22,434 posts)This five minute edited version might help you get past it...
"Done because we are too menny."
ChazII
(6,204 posts)could qualify for me. I had to read 4 of his books for an English lit. class. Jude and Tess were the most depressing for me.
crim son
(27,464 posts)I was very surprised to find Hardy capable of levity!
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)because I know in general terms what happens to the children, and don't think I'd be able to deal with it.
pokerfan
(27,677 posts)truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Three D reality version called "Modern Life."
We must always be fighting an enemy, we must always be giving up our rights for some other, "greater' purpose.
And seemingly, there is no real way out.
snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)Thanks for posting it.
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)I don't think I've ever managed to get through that at one time. He perfectly captures the effects of a certain kind of alcoholism that runs through Irish culture.
mzteris
(16,232 posts)First book I cried over. (I was 12.) Haunts me to this day.
yankeepants
(1,979 posts)dimbear
(6,271 posts)bummer
applegrove
(118,636 posts)av8rdave
(10,573 posts)FloridaJudy
(9,465 posts)I mean - holy crap! - why bother? The planet's dead: no more plants or animals. The guy should have just done himself and the boy a favor and shot themselves in the head before starvation or cannibals got them.
It was just so fucking hopeless.
applegrove
(118,636 posts)FloridaJudy
(9,465 posts)And some of it's pretty bleak, with dystopian or post apocalyptic visions. But almost all of it holds out a little hope at least: things may be gawdawful, and humanity has sunk to a new low, but eventually humans - or some other sentient lifeform - will crawl back out of the ooze again, even if it takes a few thousand years. "Canticle for Leibowitz" is a classic example.
But "The Road" is a complete downer. With all other life gone, humans won't last more than a few more generations before they run out of food, and life will be very unpleasant for the dwindling survivors.
Even in the ruins of Chernobyl, life continues. It may be a weird looking kind of life, but already plants, insects and animals are taking over the town. Evolution happens. Except in "The Road".
applegrove
(118,636 posts)a subsistance/hobby farmer and all the family's institutional survival knowledge she took with her when she died at 103" back in 2002.
Joe Bacon
(5,165 posts)Truly the most depressing book I ever read...
Massacure
(7,521 posts)Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)with a close second being The Grapes of Wrath.
Neoma
(10,039 posts)She made the book depressing to show how depressing being depressed is... It was depressing.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)ugh
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Poor Lenny!!!
mythology
(9,527 posts)is Frankenstein. Now if you'll excuse me the villagers are getting close with their pitchforks and torches.
cyberswede
(26,117 posts)by Neville Shute
I was reading it on my way home from classes on the bus back in college, and bawled like a baby in front of everybody. I'm afraid to watch the movie.
Broken_Hero
(59,305 posts)XemaSab
(60,212 posts)Shankapotomus
(4,840 posts)The bad guys win in the end.
greendog
(3,127 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)though it is depressing.
HopeHoops
(47,675 posts)raccoon
(31,110 posts)Mendocino
(7,488 posts)DeltaLitProf
(769 posts)You've got childhood alcoholism. Parental abandonment. Deep poverty. Hunger. Child abuse by raving religious fanatics. Rich racist whites. And there's the thought that if a certain party got complete control back that we could very easily go back to these being the norm for many millions of children in the US.
blue neen
(12,319 posts)Geez, that was horrible to read. It was an assignment for a class so there was no getting out of it.
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)Got me down, more than some more obviously depressing books.
Also, in a different way, Hugh Scott's 'Why Weeps the Brogan?' It's a post-nuclear-holocaust story, supposedly for young adults, but pretty strong meat for anyone, especially the ending.
Doc Holliday
(719 posts)A true story about the mutiny on the whaling ship Globe, back in the early 1800s when the whaling industry was the Big Oil of their day. The story is told in diary-style from the point of view of young George Comstock of Nantucket, age seventeen, who was going to sea for the first time. His older brother Sam, who led the mutiny, was a helmsman on the Globe. The book gives insight into a lot of aspects of the Quaker faith, and is practically a short class on whaling. It is also a moving reflection on the confusion humans feel when people they love and admire commit despicable acts.
There are other books about the Globe mutiny, but I think that this one is the best. It's one of those books that you get a little bit more out of every time you re-read it.
MicaelS
(8,747 posts)Both end with the total extermination of the human race due to Thermonuclear War.
ceile
(8,692 posts)Or anything by Thomas Hardy...
crim son
(27,464 posts)It depresses me just thinking about it.
MH1
(17,600 posts)and it gets more depressing every day these days.
YankeyMCC
(8,401 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)...I will exile my thoughts if they think of you again, and I will rip my lips out if they say your name once more. Now if you do exist, I will tell you my final word in life or in death, I tell you goodbye.
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/h/hamsun/knut/h23h/
MadrasT
(7,237 posts)by William R. Forstchen
It's about the aftermath of an EMP attack on the U.S.
Scary.
TrogL
(32,822 posts)Especially Enid Blyton
sinkingfeeling
(51,448 posts)geardaddy
(24,926 posts)by Robert Cormier
or The Catcher in the Rye
Summer Hathaway
(2,770 posts)"Sophie's Choice" would be a close second.
Upton
(9,709 posts)Summer Hathaway
(2,770 posts)You're so right. Not the first time I've made that mistake, Upton!
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)It was written after The Road Less Traveled, it was supposed to be a look at evil.
I read it years ago, I remember it still, in a depressing haunting way, esp. one of the stories/vignettes, with a shudder.
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)It still rips me up.
RedCloud
(9,230 posts)A close second was:
No More Leftovers by M.T. Potts
Inspired
(3,957 posts)That makes me cry just thinking about it.
sakabatou
(42,152 posts)mvd
(65,173 posts)Sad outlook on the future, but we could get there (just later than the author had it) if the Repuke party gains more power.
jannyk
(4,810 posts)Are two books I have reread a few times over the years and they still have the same effect.
raccoon
(31,110 posts)optimistic in that the society and culture changed for the succeeding generations born after the Great Disaster,
but they seemed to be fairly happy in their lives.
REP
(21,691 posts)Good book. Very sad, like all of his work (The Man WHo Fell to Earth is very sad, too; The Hustler isn't upbeat).
jannyk
(4,810 posts)I picked it up by accident at a used book stall. That was years ago and I've read it 4 or 5 times since then. It's an excellent, but depressing, read.
JCMach1
(27,556 posts)Adsos Letter
(19,459 posts)Upton Sinclair.
pitohui
(20,564 posts)i must like depressing books because i've read most listed here and most are really good reads
i have to say i remember nothing now of "where the red fern grows" and there are a few other meh left no impression books
there are also truly fine books like sophie's choice or jude the obscure
there are the pop books like grisham's the appeal which tear the heart not because of fine writing but because it is obvious that it is based on a true legal case that he knows about (someone gives more details in this very thread)
however, as far as depression pornography, something written just to make people feel bad and which has no merit in its genre or anything new/creative to offer, the winner for the SHITTIEST feel-bad book of all time that i have read is "the road"
as another poster says, this is bullshit, no plant or animal has survived, there is no attempt at an ST/logical/scientific reason why this happened, it is just hateful wallowing in misery to no purpose
i have read many sad novels such as "on the beach" or "a canticle for leibowitz" but they weren't just trying to make your day shitty with no purpose, "the road" truly stands alone in the category of what i call "apocalypse pornography"
i like me some sad books but that one isn't sad, it just SUCKS
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)Frank Cannon
(7,570 posts)Can't believe no one has mentioned it so far.
I recommend it to right-wingers whenever I can. Many laughs to be had that way.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)I have read a lot of the books mentioned in this thread ("The Road", "The Painted Bird", "Tess" etc.) I have done my own delving into the unconscious, casual, banal cruelty of human nature. But nothing on earth has undone me like this book.
[div class="excerpt" style="border:solid 1px #000000"]Last month a man left a tombstone on my doorstep.
The slab was more than a foot long, nearly a foot wide, and as thick as a corpse's forearm. It arrived in a big brown box, as if someone had sent a stereo amp or some neatly packaged antique. When I opened the box, I saw the slab, black as a shroud, all nine-and-a-half mournful pounds of it.
It was inscribed: INFERNO, in faint red letters. And then, below the title: JAMES NACHTWEY, in ominous black.
The book is divided into nine lengthy chapters (one per country) that Nachtwey calls "narrative and cinematic." They are meant to echo nothing less than Dante's Nine Circles of Hell. (Quotes from Dante Alighieri, in fact, open the book.) Each chapter is a sequence of spreads, cankerous and wordless, meticulously printed in a rich cloak of black and gray on pliant white. Each photograph is framed by a severe band of black. Together, the spreads constitute a series of horror-panels. Like woodcuts in some modern-day Book of the Dead, many are as solemn as medieval religious paintings. Yet heaven is nowhere present in them. If anything, they evoke the busy, peopled netherworlds of Bruegel and Bosch instead, as if the isolated corners of their canvases had been distilled to their sinister essence: Hades pure and uncut, in stark black and white. "It's a visualization of the kind of hell on earth that can be created by human beings for human beings," Nachtwey said in a recent interview with French television correspondent Laura Haim of Canal Plus. "I felt devastated and angry against the atrocities that created such cruelty."
One glimpses Nietzsche in Nachtwey. One hears the whisper of the deranged Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now, Francis Coppola's masterful Vietnam epic. Inferno pulls its readers into the jungle hut with Kurtz to hear him describe his twisted logic in finding something sublime in a pile of limbs (severed from children who had recently received polio shots): "They had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile, a pile of little arms. . . .And I realized like I was shot. . .with a diamond bullet right through my forehead, and I thought, my God, the genius of that, the will to do that." Inferno bears the stench of such menace and virtually aches with the sorrow of the victims of such acts.
I've had a a copy of it on my bookshelf for the last ten years. I still can't get through more than a dozen images before the tears well up and despair floods me like a tsunami.
The very worst thing about it is that you know it's real - every single soul-destroying image happened right in front of this man and was recorded simply as it was.
Some of the images are available on the net. If you go looking for them, you go forewarned.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)because every word of it is true.
OffWithTheirHeads
(10,337 posts)By Alexander Solginetzin and yes I know I didn't spell it correctly.
Jesus, I read it over 30 years ago and it still depresses me and I never even finished it. After a few days of reading, I was so depressed I just had to stop. How humans can be so evil is just beyond my capacity for comprehension.