Really depressing books

Sort of a side topic from another thread...I am curious which books people found the most depressing? Are there books on the list that are just devestatingly sad to read?

Wide Sargasso Sea was depressing because the reader knows the ending from the start (it's a prequel to Jane Eyre). So it's depressing to read the events as they unfold knowing how it's contributing to Antoinette/Bertha's fate.

A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry is probably the most depressing book I've ever read. It's extremely well written though, and deserves to be on the list.

Two different people told me it was "the best book they'd ever read," so I was quite excited to read it. Evidently my idea of a best book and theirs is not the same.

Anything where the main characters are going through existential crisis and/or a slow descent into madness I find depressing. Also, books with sympathetic characters going through tragedy. Also, books about death and dying.

Quite a few books that I have read fall into these above categories, but if I was going to give a top five list so far:

1. The Death of Ivan Ilyich (about death and dying)
2. The Grass Is Singing (slow descent into madness and murder)
3. Frankenstein (tragic characters and sad ending)
4. The Postman Always Rings Twice (tragic characters and sad ending)
5. Yes (Existential crisis and depression)

Also, for a Gothic, low grade, continual sadness, The Gormenghast books Titus Groan andGormenghast were fairly depressing to read.

-- M1001

I missed one (recent read): Of Mice and Men is a depressing story, but a very good story as well.

-- M1001

The Yellow Wallpaper was slightly depressing, in a sort of satirical manner. And it's very short too. very very short.

I found Underworld by Don DeLillo to be very depressing. I had to read several other books at the same time just to keep my sanguinity.

I think Underworld is perhaps one of a very few books I have abandoned due to complete lack of interest. I must have read half the book ( no mean feat!) but decided that there was more to life than cutting notches on a yardstick.

I wish we had threaded discussion boards, I get tired of putting the numbers in front of my responses.

#6: I agree, The Yellow Wallpaper was sad. One of those "slow descent into madness" stories. It was in my larger list of books. Great story though...not just depressing, but creepy as well.

The Story of Lucy Gault was both frustrating and depressing...

#10: digifish_books

Why frustrating?

>11 SJaneDoe: I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it yet... let's just say that the reaction and behaviour of some of the characters to their circumstances became frustrating to me. I quite liked William Trevor's writing style, though :)

I personally think authors who use other authors characters for their own stories should be shot. I especially hate it when they do this to a classic. Seeing as how it is impossible to be in the mind of a particular characters creator one cannot be sure of exactly how the said creator invisioned their character. That being said when you try to make a recreaction it is impossible to do complete justice to the original vision. Personally by reading Wide Sargasso Sea I may have gained a completely erronious(sp?) idea that has tained my view of Jane Eyre forever.

Hi readerbabe

You are spot on.

I actually read WSS before I read Jane Eyre, but never really connected both books as being parts of the one whole.

I suppose it depends on your perspective. I think of WSS as a 'what if' kind of book. Whilst I perceive Jane Eyre as the original.

A bit like the Bourne Trilogy being the authentic works with the Sequel written after the authors death being a novelty for enthusiasts.

#13: You might want to avoid Foe as well, since it is a retelling of Robinson Crusoe.

Also, I didn't particularly like it anyway.

-- M1001

#13 readerbabe1984 - How do you feel about Kathy Acker? She has been accused of plagarizing full texts. She did borrow The Scarlet Letter in Blood and Guts in High School (the only book I've read by her) but I'm not sure I understand the plagarism controversy. It seemed more like a retelling to me. Granted, it was unsettling (but that's not saying much considering the rest of the book.)

Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee is both depressing and good. Read it and ache.

Just finished A Fine Balance and I have to say it was one of the best written but saddest books I have ever read.

I doubt that most people would agree, but I found Breakfast of Champions to be pretty darn depressing.

#13 & 14 - I always look at books like Wide Sargasso Sea or Grendel or even Wicked and think of it as proof that authors create living, breathing characters. I admit that there have been some rather horrific excuses to co-opt characters (any teen flick claiming to be a remake of Twelfth Night or Taming of the Shrew), but for the most part, it's a chance to get to know a different side of a set of characters - even if it's a flawed portrait. Literature and life are intertwined - and the idea that the characters would cease as soon as I closed the pages of a book is a even more depressing idea to me.

Back on topic, I'm one to quickly admit that Of Mice and Men is definitely at the top of the list for me - it went beyond just making me sad, I actually cried.

I'd like to add Never Let Me Go to this list of depressing books. I just finished it and I'm going to have to start on something new right away to get that depressing taste out of my mouth.

Why do people find bleak desolate things like this one so appealing? Do they prefer to read about it in books and ignore it in real life? Are their lives not difficult enough and perhaps they feel guilty about it? Or is there some kind of pretentious snobbery thing going on?

I liked Jean Rhys because she made me think, I liked A Fine Balance because the characters were so well drawn and there were a few fine moments of humor and hope. I also like a few of the other ones included in this list but Never Let Me Go was just pure pointless desolation - unless I've missed something.

Enlighten me, please.

>21 aemilys: Ah well, you see Ishiguro simply revels in quietly heart-breaking plotlines. You might "enjoy" The Remains of the Day more, the characters are not clones. But I would advise you to steer clear of The Unconsoled :)

22 - thanks for the warning and I only wish it had been heartbreaking in a sort of mono no aware way but it just did not touch me at all - it was just depressing - not bittersweet, not touching, not melancholic - just depressing and painful.

I've really been thinking about this and perhaps the heart of the matter is that I just do not think that middle aged and older men are convincing as adolescent females - the last book I disliked so intensely was I Am Charlotte Simmons...

I just finished reading Nineteen Eighty-four, and I have to say it is one of the bleakest books I've ever read. I'm a fan of George Orwell--I appreciate his straight forward, no-nonsense writing style, and I think he's a brilliant individual with a lot to say. But yikes! This one was a bit much. Well written, interesting, but NOT A HAPPY STORY!

Time to go find my happy place . . .

24> Nickelini, when I was a teenager, I could only cope with reading Nineteen Eighty-four when I'd just been dumped. It was the only time I was cynical enough to cope with it....!

I agree with A Fine Balance. My girlfriend loved it but I gave up half-way through because of the unrelenting squalor. I like squalor, but there's too much of a good thing...

I agree with including Remains of the Day. How about the Time Travelers Wife?

The one who said death of ivan ilyich is right- the last pages of that book make me cry... in public.

I'd also suggest:
The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch by Ladislav Klima
The Maimed by Hermann Ungar
Reflections in a Golden Eye by McCullers

#28: I'd also suggest:
The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch by Ladislav Klima
The Maimed by Hermann Ungar
Reflections in a Golden Eye by McCullers

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I don't recognize any of those . . . have I missed them on the list, or are they in one of the international versions of 1001 Books . . . ?

Speaking of the international versions, has anyone seen one yet? How different is it from the original 1001 Books . . . ?

#27: How about the Time Travelers Wife?

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Now, this one I'm sure isn't on the 1001 List. I read it a couple of years ago and liked it, but I don't remember it being depressing. Remind me what was depressing about it. I don't remember very much about this book, actually.

The Time Traveler's Wife isn't on the list but (trying not to give anything away), the things the character discovers about his future as he travels back and forth can be quite depressing - especially re: his children.

#31: The Time Traveler's Wife isn't on the list but (trying not to give anything away), the things the character discovers about his future as he travels back and forth can be quite depressing - especially re: his children.
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I really don't remember that . . . I'll have to plan a reread of this one . . . after I've read through my humongous to-read pile and the 1001 list, that is.

Now back to discussing the 1001 books . . .

Warning: discussion of the yellow wallpaper. Some readers may see a (vague) spoiler in this. But the book is only 29 pages long, and available for free at the Gutenberg Project*, so every member of this group should have read it already.

I just noticed that two people thought that The Yellow Wallpaper was depressing. I find that very interesting. I found it exactly the opposite--I thought it was liberating. I mean, it wasn't so cheerful that I'd add it to the "uplifting books" thread, but I thought the protagonist vindicated herself in the end.

Isn't it interesting that how we read things differently from each other? Probably the main thing that I love about discussing literature.

* http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1952

Spoiler

#34 The protagonist doesn't vindicate herself in the end - she has gone insane. The awakening has a similar message. Which is that if women are not willing to fall into the role society wants them to be, then they aren't allowed to lead happy meaningful lives.

#34 - I'm curious as to why you think the protagonist vindicated herself.

By going insane, she escaped from the restraints and controls that her husband and society put on her. It's sort of the same ending as the movie Brazil (spoiler here too)--Sam is tortured to the point of insanity. Some people see this as a depressing end, but the movie shows that in his mind, he's in his happy place (sharing a cottage in the country with his true love). I don't see this as depressing, because there was no possibility of a positive outcome, and at least he thinks he's happy.

If one reads the Yellow Wallpaper with a depressing end, then I don't see how it can be a feminist text, because it means the patriarchy wins. I prefer not to give it that reading.

Now, Nineteen Eighty-four . . . that's one where I can not work out a positive ending. If there is any hope at all (he does still have memories, even though he denies them), it is so very faint.

Nickelini I see your point but to some of us Feminist just means an objective look at the reality of women in society - as it was in the time of the Yellow Wallpaper, as it still is and wherever it is. A female perspective, written from the point of view of a woman, the reality of womens lives at the time, etc...and if the society is unfavorable to women then well it will be a sad perspective for us.

Therefore, if patriarchy "wins" well then that's just what we have to deal with everyday, what our grandmothers dealt with and so it's sad and painful and in its truth it's feminist too.

I'm just not really sure that going insane is anyones idea of a positive, happy ending but I may be wrong (please no more happy housewives on prozac and valium...not).

Edited once again to say that I know there are about 1001 different views on what feminism is and this is just mine "the objective truth from a woman's standpoint"...whether it be tragic, funny, sad, silly, wise, human, cruel or caring...just a female point of view.

#38: I'm just not really sure that going insane is anyones idea of a positive, happy ending but I may be wrong (please no more happy housewives on prozac and valium...not).

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I hope I didn't give anyone the impression that I thought it was a *happy* ending. I just didn't think it was depressing. "Interesting." I think I'd call it "interesting."

Yes, interesting is a good way to explain the ending of The Yellow Wallpaper. I think it was slightly depressing, or at least that was the direction it may have taken if the story had continued.

Maybe the reason that The Yellow Wallpaper is such a great story is because it invokes a lot of different, and potentially ambiguous and conflicting emotions.

It is one of those stories that pulls the reader in close to the character -- an amazing feat, considering how short the story is -- and causes the reader to feel what the woman is feeling with dictating what those feelings should be. I found it depressing, but I think it was more creepy in the way it draws the reader into madness with the protagonist.

But "interesting" is a good descriptor, also :).

-- media1001

On the beach by Nevil Shute.
I have had my own reoccurring nightmare since I read this books in my earlier teens. I can vividly describe it and it makes it so much more real since I found out that I have lived most of my life in the town of the worst American Nuclear disaster, Simi Valley CA. Just do a Google search: "Simi Valley Nuclear meltdown" and see what I mean

The house of mirth. I love Edith Wharton, and this book is excellent, but even a dozen years after reading it, I remember sobbing through the last several pages. I was propped up in bed, and when I finished, I literally threw the book to the bottom of the bed. The agony!

I just read Never let me go last year, and the day after finishing it, I *still* felt my heart being squeezed when I thought of it!

Yes, I'm a sap.

#42- On the Beach is actually not on the list. Shute has only one book represented, and that is A Town Like Alice. I was kind of surprised by that as I thought that On the Beach was his most famous, but I may be wrong about that.