I'm reading "Sophie's Choice." Does it get as depressing as "Lie Down .."

[DemoTex]

Does Styron's Sophie's Choice get as dark as his Lie Down in Darkness? No spoilers, please, but I might had better back off if this is a wrist-slasher like LDID. Christmas might not be a good time to get head-fucked .. this year.

So far it is kind of funny, with Sophie, Nathan, and Stingo at Coney Island and Stingo thinking he will get laid by the Jewish Princess on Thursday. Somehow, I feel a hammer is fixing to drop. Comments?

[Az]

1. Its kinda famous for being a heart wrencher

I haven't read it but what I know of it is that its pretty dark.

[Shakespeare]

2. Oh my.

Yes, a hammer drops, so to speak.

For more Styron downers (but very good), check out his long essay on his experience with depression, "Darkness Visible" someday.

[DemoTex]

4. "Darkness Visible" is used as a primer in clinical psychiatry and psychology.

I have only read Sttron's "Lie Down in Darkness," which was profoundly depressing to me when I read it years ago. It hit further home with a gruesome suicide of a first cousin, named Mary, in Marysville, Ca., (her morbid choice) that resulted in a body on ice for weeks and a gothic funeral (Faulkner-esque) in south Alabama from which her husband of two weeks (at the time of her death) was banned by a judge. Her 10-page suicide note, alone, is grist for a great dark tale.

"Confessions of Nat Turner" is on my bedside table.

[Book Lover]

3. Funny that you think it's funny

It gets cruel soon. You might want to stop.

[DemoTex]

7. I know Styron, and I know where he is going.

The early cruelty to Sophie was not funny (or the outbursts of Nathan toward Stingo). I know it is going to be a fucking, all-time bummer. Or, perhaps, a bumming all-time fucker.

But I've got to do it. My writing depends on it .. like Stingo's and Thomas Wolfe's. But, for some reason, I feel as if I need my near-60 year hand held through the rest of "Sophie's Choice."

Mac

[Book Lover]

8. If you as a writer need to continute drinking in this story, then you must

But you have been warned.

[DemoTex]

12. That, my friend, is an eye-opening shot across the bow.

But it is short of an intervention. I am on page 143, the beginning of chapter six. Like an alcoholic, I can take a few more pages (actually, I HAVE to take those pages or my hands will shake). I'll know when to stop. You handled it, right? I can handle it.

Here we go. Next chapter tonight.

Mac

[Book Lover]

13. It sounds like you are in all the way

Finish then. Read. Take it all in. I am looking forward to hearing what you have to say when you are finished.

[DemoTex]

14. In for a dime, in for a dollar.

But like you, I am a BOOK LOVER. Here we go! Into the abyss.

Mac

[DemoTex]

15. Thanks!

At least this path keeps from freaking out on Rumsfeld. Eh?

Mac

[mitchum]

5. It certainly does (n/t)

[begin_within]

6. Do you want me to just give you the "spoiler?"

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. It's really, really sad.

[DemoTex]

10. As sad as "Lie Down in Darkness"?

That was breathtakingly sad, and, if you have not read it, the premise for "Lie Down in Darkness" was posited by Stingo on the reflection of the death of his early love (buried in a NYC paupers grave, exhumed, sent by train to Norfolk). Within pages, a letter from Stingos dad alluded to the "Confessions of Nat Turner."

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. Haven't read "Lie Down in Darkness."

Sounds awfully depressing, though. I've pretty much sworn off sad books and movies lately in favor of mindlessly cheerful entertainment, since reality sucks enough.