Most depressing book?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

I read "My Childhood" by Gorky when I was in college. I think it took me at least 2 years to shake off the horror and depression.

[WCGreen]

1. Lately, The Constant Gardener......

[truedelphi]

119. I've only watched the movie.

And yes, I can see where reading that plot would be depressing.

[GreenArrow]

2. I'd go with a Russian too

Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground.

[Kiouni]

4. seconded

[Sequoia]

16. "Crime and Punishment" by same.

Not top on the list, but those Russian sure know how to top sadness.

[PreacherCasey]

34. 'The Idiot' ranks up there as well...

I loved the novel, though there was a great build up to a depressing/disturbing conclusion.

[DemoTex]

105. "The Good Soldier" by Ford Madox Ford

The first sentence: "This is the saddest story I have ever heard."

Yep.

[Captain Hilts]

121. I tried to read Life and Fate. Whoa! Rough stuff. nt

[NoodleBoy]

3. starship troopers

not only made me depressed, but very untrusting of humanity.

[Clintonista2]

90. I agree, that novel was... strange.

The movie was/is one of my guilty pleasures, but it is NOTHING like the book.

[Misskittycat]

5. Novels set in the Holocaust.

For instance, Mila 18 by Leon Uris

[Sequoia]

17. True stories of that time too, "Children of the Flames"

will give you nightmares galore.

[Sequoia]

116. You got that right!!! Horrid, just horrid what that monster did.

I think about it from time to time...that teenager who was the gem of the village he took special delight in destroying and the twins.

[deadmessengers]

6. 1984

Mostly because almost everything in the book is happening now. Orwell was just about 22 years too early with his prediction, that's all.

[Ezlivin]

25. I love Big Brother

That book devastated me. When Winston Smith was betrayed I was aghast; I really wanted him to live free of Big Brother.

[non sociopath skin]

59. Yes - though when I re-read 1984 (which I do regularly), I remind myself ...

... that like the Ghost of Christmas To Come, Orwell was presenting a warning, not sketching out the inevitable.

And that, like Scrooge, it's up to us what we do with it ...

The Skin

[spiderpig]

71. The one book I reread regularly

Never ages, never irrelevant. As a matter of fact, more timely than ever.

[fairfaxvadem]

7. Always the Russians.

Notes From Underground, definitely.

But the Gulag Archipelago still bothers me to this day. That was some twisted stuff to have to read. The Black Marias picking you up in the middle of the night, and the single lightbulb on 24 hours in the prison cell, and the psychotic trials. It's been years since I've read it and I can still remember whole parts of that damn book.

[roguevalley]

8. a autobiography called "It" I believe, about a child raised in horrific

child abuse by a crazy mom who only called him it.

[Richardo]

10. "A Child Called 'It'" by Dave Pelzer

I have not read it, but I know that's the one you mean.

[devilgrrl]

101. I just found this interesting article regarding that book...

Dysfunction For Dollars

By PAT JORDAN
Published: July 28, 2002

"It's not about the books," he says. "My fans are buying the DNA of Dave." Dave Pelzer is sitting in the lobby of the Hilton in Daytona Beach, Fla., watching college girls in bikinis run by. He's a vaguely good-looking man, vaguely nerdy, with a squinting, almost spinsterish smile. "I was shy with girls," he says. "At 21, I had this girl in my room. I poured her a glass of wine, turned around, and she was taking her shirt off. I said, 'I guess it's all right to kiss you.'"

Pelzer, 41, the author of three autobiographical books and one self-help book, is on his spring speaking and book-signing tour. Daytona is one of the bigger cities on his route; most of his stops are in smaller towns. After a speech in the morning in Daytona Beach, then a book signing later that day, he will leave at 1 a.m., drive two hours to Orlando Airport, catch a 6 a.m. flight to Butte, Mont., and then fly to North Platte, Neb.

"I did 'Oprah' in January," he says. "My books got a little bounce, but Oprah's not enough to make the New York Times best-seller list." Pelzer is a man who is fairly obsessed with the New York Times best-seller list. His first three books have been on The Times's nonfiction paperback list for a combined total of 448 weeks, which is unprecedented in the paper's record-keeping. The books are protected there, like squalling eaglets that refuse to leave the nest, primarily by bulk sales. These are large single purchases of hundreds or thousands of copies of a book from bookstores or online booksellers. They can significantly inflate an author's sales and are denoted by daggers on the Times list. Late last year, all of Pelzer's books fell off the list; then in late January his first three books miraculously reappeared in almost the identical spots they had held for years.

Pelzer is relentless in peddling his books. He speaks more than 270 days a year, and after many of his talks he sells copies of his books to the crowd assembled there. To watch him work is to be put in mind of those itinerant preachers of the early part of last century. They traveled the dusty back roads of America, put up their revival tents in an open field and then laid on hands and healed, or swindled, their believers. In Pelzer's case, how much he is healing or how much he is swindling is unclear and depends in large part on whether or not you believe the horrific story he has so profitably told and retold and continues, day after day, to tell.

"A Child Called 'It,'" Pelzer's first and biggest book, was published by Health Communications Inc., a publisher of self-help books in Deerfield Beach, Fla. Pelzer claims he got no advance and received net royalties of only 3 to 7 percent, but his contract at H.C.I. showed that he got 15 to 20 percent of the net sale of each book. "David's always complaining we don't appreciate him," says the company's publisher, Peter Vegso. "David's a professional victim. I haven't a clue if his abuse stories are true, but we kept his book in stock when it wasn't selling. Then Dave got on Montel Williams, and there was an instant demand."

"A Child Called 'It,'" a curious book told through the eyes of Pelzer as a small child, age 4 to 12, has spent 215 weeks and counting on the best-seller list. Over the course of 160 pages, Pelzer tells how his mother, Catherine, burns David's arm over the kitchen stove, smears a feces-stained diaper in his face, makes him vomit and then eat it, stabs him in the stomach, starves him for 10 days, makes him drink ammonia and separates him from his four brothers, who never witness his abuse.

more: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9404E4DE1538F93BA15754C0A9649C8B63

[HopeFor2006]

9. The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood

[GenDem]

23. Agree, this is depressing,

but read it. It's a futuristic tale where the fundies take over...very frightening

[Kelly Hayes-Raitt]

114. Yes, depressing -- but worth reading!

!

[harlinnchi]

11. "The Grapes of Wrath"

The Joad's were the most unfortunate (but determined) folks I've read about in a story,

[hedgehog]

12. What did you think of the final scene

where the duaghter who has lost her baby nurses the sick man at her bosom. It was a little over-the-top for me and vey jarring since the rest of the book was so realistic.

[harlinchi]

92. The one scene of hope in the book was at the end!

At the at point I was almost overwhelmed by the constant stream of negativity. (Geez! I sound like Sutherland's character in 'Kelly's Heroes'!) It did seem like the only area where someone was saved!

[whathehell]

115. Gross...and quite unneccessary, since she could have "expressed" the milk

into a container and avoided the contact.

Gratuitous female "sacrifice" I think...Male authors seem to like the idea of females sacrificing something...Their honor, self-respect, whatever..usually in the interests of "others".

[NYC]

13. House of the Dead by Dostoyevsky.

Perhaps King Leopold's Ghost.

[Tony Soprano]

14. Running with Scissors

n/t

[Kelly Hayes-Raitt]

113. Hysterical!

I thought this was one of the best-written books I've read lately....

[Sequoia]

15. "Desire Under the Elms". by Eugene O'Neil

A play I read in college and that awful part about the baby that made me throw the book against the wall. Left it there for a day before I could resume reading it.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. "Catch-22". Read it many times. Each time the blackness of the humor is blacker.

Anybody that thinks it's a funny war story hasn't read it often enough.

[Richardo]

19. It's black humor - but humor nonetheless, and the ending is full of hope.

That being said, the Chapter "The Eternal City" is one of the most evocative, horrifying and, yes, depressing pieces of literature I've ever read.

It's my favorite novel ever.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. I just reread it for the umpteenth time.

I first read it while I was in the Marine Crotch and laughed my ass off.

Over the years, it has become darker and more difficult to laugh.

This last time, the bit that stuck with me was the idea by the generals to bomb the Italian village to block the road. Too much like what's going on in too many places today where life is ignored in favor of some goal like having a nice bomb pattern for the aerial photographs.

It's all just too fucking true.

But, like you, I always find the ending hopeful.

Not my favorite novel of all time, ("War and Peace" is just in it's own catagory - like Beethoven's 9th Symphony or Picasso's "Guernica"), but it's political influence on me, and many of my generation is still felt.

[Richardo]

21. I agree - since 9-11 the characters sound just like the Bushies:

See my thread of 9/2003: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=206684

[Phredicles]

65. If you want depressing Heller, try "Something Happened".

No black humor, just blackness.

[last_texas_dem]

93. Agreed

I've read criticism of that book being too repetitive, but somehow the repetition of the problems and concerns in the main character's mind were what made it such a powerfully depressing book, to me. It wasn't the best thing for me to read at a time in my life when I was already feeling pretty down in the dumps, but I'd still recommend anyone curious to give it a shot. You'll know fairly early on whether it's a book you'll want to continue reading or not. "Something" eventually does "happen"... it just takes reading almost all of the book before it does.

(I still haven't read Catch-22 but it is high on my list as one to check out in the near future.)

[InternalDialogue]

22. Sophie's Choice just wrecked me.

After the friendship, courtship, and hope mixed into the first several hundred pages—BAM!

Maybe that doesn't count as strictly depressing, though. But you end up that way...

[SmokingJacket]

50. yep, the horror of that book has stuck with me for a decade now...

got even worse when I had kids... if you read the book you'll know why.

A great book, though, have to say!

[DemoTex]

104. "Sophie's Choice" & "Lie Down in Darkness" .. both by William Styron

Both killer depressing ..

[OnionPatch]

108. Sophie's Choice may be the most depressing one I've read as well.

I just finished reading Night by Elie Wiesel, which is giving it a good run for the money in that category.

[GenDem]

24. Peace Like a River - Leif Enger

Just finished it. Pretty depressing story, but lyrically written. Anyone else read this one?

[Flying Dream Blues]

62. Oh, I loved that book! Something about the voice of the

narrator was just completely captivating and heartbreaking at the same time.

[jane_pippin]

26. Jude the Obscure

Read it in winter for maximum despair.

[DixieBlue]

27. There is not a spot of sunshine in that entire novel...

My copy was one of those mass market classic releases and the cover was silver/grey with a washed out painting in browns and greys. I should've known to run. I like the book but haven't been able to re-read it. It's just so hopeless.

[jane_pippin]

28. I actually love the book, but I'll need to wait a while too

before reading it again. Possibly a decade. :D

That poor little book cover--that's so sad that I just have to laugh at it. I think my copy has a photo of a cathedral, which is also depressing, but not like that.

[LisaM]

37. LOL -

we read it for our book club and of course we were all depressed by it, but also a little bit annoyed at the main characters. We concluded that they were the type who would never have fit in, not in any time, or any place. They were simply unlikeable. We decided that society ostracized them not for their ideals, but for their obnoxious personalities.

[iamjoy]

76. I Saw The Movie - Jude

that was pretty depressing - I don't know how closely it followed the book.
I saw the movie because I like Kate Winslett.

[WCGreen]

125. I just finished reading the book...

I wanted to jump in the book and slap Sue around for being such a douche bag. And Jude, get some freakin' balls...

[Mz Pip]

29. A Thousand Acres

The Macbeth of the 20th century. I was depressed for a week after I finished that book.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[Orrex]

39. King Lear, wasn't it?

Anyway, I agree--it's a great and depressing piece of writing. Damn you, Jane Smiley!

[smoogatz]

53. Lear, yes.

Three daughters, dividing up the kingdom, etc.

[Jade Fox]

49. Beat me to it.... n/t

[Marie26]

64. Seconded

That was the first, and last, novel I read by Jane Smiley.

[Shadowen]

30. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin

It felt so final I actually thought it was the final book after my first read-through, even with all the loose ends.

[KitSileya]

31. I Malavoglia by Giovanni Verga

It's about a family of fishermen whose very name means 'the unlucky ones'. It was written at the height of naturalism, and it beats even Amalie Skram for sheer depression. Anything that can go wrong for the members of this family, goes wrong. I had to read it in college - I've studied literature in 3 different languages at college level, and I did French in high school, but that book has everything beat.

[Matilda]

32. Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Maybe unbearably sad is a better description than depressing. At the end I was cursing Tess for
being stupid, and crying my eyes out over her fate. I think it's a Hardy thing - none of his novels
could possibly be described as even remotely happy.

Also Bleak House by Dickens - in all his books, you don't remember who got married and lived happily
ever after, it's those who suffered and died who stay with you. Bleak House has to be one of the
saddest - poor Jo had the deck stacked against him from birth, like so many poor children of the
time, but the wealthy Lady Dedlock was just as trapped in the system, losing both her great love and
her child because of society's rigid rules of behaviour and complete intolerance of any deviation
from them.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

124. Tess of the D'Urbervilles is the next Masterpiece Theater program

Watch for it on PBS. (Of course, Matilda, I realize that you're in Australia, but U.S.-based DUers should know about it.)

[japple]

33. Robert Morgan's GAP CREEK is the darkest and

most depressing book I've ever read.

[DixieBlue]

38. Oh, I forgot about that one ...

That might be darker than Jude the Obscure.

I was like, "Can't you give this woman a break all ready?"

I don't think I'll ever re-read that one.

[Zorro]

35. On the Beach

by Nevil Shute.

[spiderpig]

73. Read it.

Saw both movies. Listened to the audiobook.

Is there any more depressing scenario in the world?

I grew up in the nuclear holocaust/armageddon/doomsday era of the 60s, so I guess I have a morbid fascination with the topic.

The difference is, when I was younger, the emphasis was on "fascination". Now it's on "morbid".

Hope we've learned something in the intervening decades, but - sorry to say - I doubt it.

[ejbrush]

36. Richard Russo's "The Risk Pool"

It depressed the hell out of me, at any rate. Perhaps it was empathy for the protaganist, but I ended up weepy at the end. I dunno.

[pitohui]

40. "a friend of the earth" by t. c. boyle

jesus christ, it's worse than "jude the obscure"

"oryx and crake" by margaret atwood is almost as bad

all good books, altho of the 3, i think the boyle book is actually the weakest (i like him better at the shorter length) but crap yes they are all books to read on a gloomy rainy day when you want to wallow in your existential despair

[raccoon]

66. "Oryx and Crake" was depressing, but I thought there was some

hope for the Children of Crake there at the end...until some homo sapiens turned up.

[philosophie_en_rose]

41. Night by Elie Wiesel

It was touching, as well.

[OnionPatch]

107. I finished it a few days ago.

I can't stop thinking about it now. I can tell it's going to be one of those books that stays with me forever.

[AthiestLeader]

127. I completely agree

[sueh]

42. Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle"

I kept hoping life would get better for the family, but instead it got worse and worse. Total bummer.

[spiderpig]

72. Required reading in Jr High

(back when there was a Jr High)

never forgot it...images imprinted on my brainpan. Man!!!

[spiderpig]

74. Have to add this...

made me a vegetarian!

[Fire Walk With Me]

43. "on the beach", "brother termite", etc.

[catbert836]

44. Journey to the End of the Night- Celine

Although I'm sure part of its depressiveness and nihilism was due to its anti-Semitic, Nazi-sympathizing author.

Brilliant book, though...

[Davros]

45. "Blindness" by Jose Saramengo

Brilliant book but very sad. Still, how the people are treated when they succumb to this condition shows how humans can still discriminate.

http://www.amazon.com/Blindness-Harvest-Book-Jose-Saramago/dp/0156007754/sr=8-1/qid=1167230711/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-6537742-6659144?ie=UTF8&s=books

[Sequoia]

100. That was a very scary book. Gave me the chills.

But it was excellent too.

[sandnsea]

46. Angela's Ashes

I read it because of the writing style, Frank McCourt is just a pure joy. But the story, oh my god, I had to put it down several times because I just couldn't take another second of these people's agony.

[hedgehog]

60. I think it's a toss-up between Angela's Ashes and Ironweed.

I couldn't bear to read either one.

[Patiod]

67. Ironweed

depressed me for weeks.

[PA Democrat]

47. I'll add "A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry and "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro

Many other good nominations already offered. On the Beach, A Child Called It, Crime and Punishment, Sophie's Choice, Children of the Flames.

[YankeyMCC]

48. Crime and Punishment

[saltpoint]

81. Agree. A bone-crushing depression for this one. I'm still trying to

get over it. Incredibly dark work.

[gratefultobelib]

51. I can think of a couple of short stories that depressed

the heck out of me:

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant (disclaimer: I looked that spelling up!)

[Momgonepostal]

52. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

There are others, but I just finished this and it's fresh in my mind. What a downer!

[MilesColtrane]

57. Agreed.

There was a bit of hope at the very end. But, the rest is grim, grim, and grim.
"The Road" made "Blood Meridian" seem like "Blazing Saddles".

[smoogatz]

54. A toss-up between "Blood Meridian" and "Under the Volcano"

by Malcolm Lowry. Yeesh.

[greatauntoftriplets]

55. Ethan Frome.

God, that was depressing. :cry:

[LWolf]

56. Here's one: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter n/t

[mitchum]

58. "Last Exit To Brooklyn" (also the best post-war American novel)

[SteppingRazor]

61. A Farewell to Arms n/t

[Marie26]

63. Ethan Frome! nt

[Lethe]

68. The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain

it kind of destroys your faith and hope for the human race

[The Wizard]

69. DosPassos USA, The Big Money

The big money interests crush and corrupt everything. Written about the years between the wars, but primarily the years leading up to and into the Great Depression. People getting rich quick and then losing everything.

[gratefultobelib]

70. The Collector by John Fowles--still haunts me

[Critters2]

75. The Stranger by Camus nt

[ailsagirl]

106. I remember the ending...

"It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe."

Camus was killed in an auto accident

[Jim__]

109. Do you take that sentence to be depressing?

I always take that last paragraph of The Stranger to be Meursault, at last, recognizing the beauty of life:

... For the first time in a long time I thought about Maman. I felt as if I understood why at the end of her life she had taken a "fiance," why she had played at the beginning again. Even there in that home where lives were fading out, evening was a kind of wistful respite. So close to death, Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody had the right to cry over her. And I felt ready to live it all again too. As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself - so like a brother really - I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.

[ailsagirl]

110. Well, maybe the "emptied me of hope" part...

I remember another quote from Camus, though not from The Stranger:

"Thus I progressed on the surface of life, in the realm of words as it were, never in reality. All those books barely read, those friends barely loved, those cities barely visited, those women barely possessed! I went through the gestures out of boredom or absent-mindedness. Then came human beings; they wanted to cling, but there was nothing to cling to, and that was unfortunate--for them. As for me, I forgot. I never remembered anything but myself."

[Jim__]

111. Camus does believe that hope is an illusion.

However, the realization that hope is an illusion is liberating. From The Myth of Sisyphus:

One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness. "What!---by such narrow ways--?" There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery. It happens as well that the felling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Edipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.

All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

Even Meursault sitting in his prison cell, awaiting execution, finds happiness.

I agree that the lack of hope can be depressing. But, my reading of Camus is that we should rebel against that lack of hope. Embrace life and find what happiness we can.

BTW, I think your last quote is from The Fall and the speaker is Jean-Baptiste Clamence.

[KiraBS]

77. Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold....

March by Geraldine Brooks
Roses From The Earth. The Biography of Anne Frank

[qdemn7]

78. This Is the Way the World Ends

By James Morrow. http://www.amazon.com/This-World-Ends-James-Morrow/dp/0156002086

[northernsoul]

79. I had to put The Corrections down after about 10 pages

I could tell it was going to hit way too close to home.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

80. I completely understand

I made an excuse to not lend it to a friend that I thought it "too" relevant to. I also thought it was way too relevant to my own life. And now you feel the same. I think it turned the Tolstoy saying "Happy familes are all alike" inside out. That's why it's a work of genius.

[Princess Turandot]

82. In a way, "The Children's War"..

written by JN Stroyar. It's an alternative history book in which the Nazis conquered all of Europe because America followed an isolationist policy and never joined WW2. As a result, Europe has turned just what Hitler, Himmler et al envisioned: a society with a master, privileged race and various subservient classes. It has the single most horrifying episode that I've ever read in fiction.

I highly recommend the book, however. It is a 1,000+ page novel written as a first work by a female nuclear physicist. There is also a sequel. When done, you'll develop a truer sense of gratitude to the Allied forces who stopped these miscreants, because of the image of what the Nazis would have created had they succeeded.

[freesqueeze]

83. The Painted Bird

by Jerzy Kosinski

down down down down down down down down down down down down down

and down

Still, I liked it.

[Rowdyboy]

84. Very tough book.....very tough

[freesqueeze]

86. I Still see certain images

> The gang rape on horseback

> Falling in the rat hole

> Dead and wounded Jews scattered beside the railroad track

> The eye plucking, eye stomping scene

All this through the eyes of a child. I can't remember one positive aspect of that book, but still beautifully written.

[idgiehkt]

85. "I Am The Cheese" comes to mind for some reason

that book effected me. I've read lots of sad ones...but to be trapped in that kid's mind...ugh.

[Enoch1981]

87. 3 Most depressing books

I suppose my first choice would be The Rising Sun by John Toland. My grandfather (who worked for the US Army as a translator)had family who were on the other side in the Pacific War. He lost both his brothers...one on Iwo Jima and the other on Leyte. He also lost all his male cousins too...I don't know the circumstances. It's heartbreaking to read because of that, and because war always seems like it could be avoided. So many people in Asia and Japan suffered untold horrors because of pride and avarice.

My second choice is All God's Children by Butterfield. It's about this African-American family who's had a long line of 'highly intelligent malefactors'. The center of the story is a man named Willie Bosket and his father Butch who both ended up becoming murderers. Though I was never as troubled as Willie, but I could relate to that toxic combination of almost suicidal despair combined with a great deal of anger. I've noticed that when I've read bios of murderers that there was a missed opportunity to help them before they passed the point of no return and shed blood. In Bosket's case, he was sent to a halfway house in his neighborhood and just went AWOL even though he was clearly dangerous.Having struggled with a possibly borderline personality while a teen, I always thought that if my life circumstances had been harder then I could have gone down the same road. =(

My third is a book called City of the Dead by Brian Keene. Its a sequel to a book called The Rising. Basically both books are about a sort of 'Night of the Living Dead' scenario.In this case, the zombies are corpses possessed by demons. They can fire weapons and plan attacks. I won't give it away, but the ending of City of the Dead left me feeling depressed and scared.

[Forkboy]

88. Toland was a dry but excellent writer.

I've read a bunch of his books.The Rising Sun,No Man's Land:1918 - The Last Year of the Great War (the one that I found very depressing),In Mortal Combat:Korea 1950-1953,and Battle:The Story of the Bulge.

All are excellent,especially for war history buffs.

The Rising and City of the Dead sound right up my alley so I'll have to look for those.

Welcome to DU!

:toast:

[Enoch1981]

89. Thanks for the kind welcome

[wordsaladwithranch]

91. This is somewhat of an old thread, but i couldn't resist.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.

[AllieB]

94. I'm reading The Lovely Bones right now.

It is very depressing. I usually don't cry reading books. The movie version is coming out in March 2009.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

98. Oh good God.

[RebelOne]

95. "Black Beauty"

I read it when I was a child. When I finished, I was crying my eyes out. I put it away and never looked at it again.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

96. One of my childhood favorites. It had sad parts but at least it ended happily

when Beauty ended up at a very nice home and was attended to by his old boy groom, now all grown up.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

123. The 1994(?) movie had me and my friends in tears at the end

It's quite a faithful adaptation of the book.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

97. Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions.

[KatyMan]

99. Gulag Archipelago

My wife made me stop reading it halfway through book 2 because I kept having nightmares...

[terrya]

102. "1984" is a great book, but it wasn't exactly a lot of laughs.

[MrCoffee]

103. Random Acts of Senseless Violence - Jack Womack

Unbearably depressing and an incredible achievement.

[holograms r us]

112. Well, I only read a few pages of "The Stranger" by Camus...

I don't know if it was where I was at or if the book is a total bummer, but I had to set it aside. That was 20 years ago...

[Are_grits_groceries]

117. Johnny Got His Gun.

Edit to change.

That book still gives me the shivers!!

[Rowdyboy]

118. Jean-Paul Sartre "Nausea" or Camus....any of Camus....VERY depressing

[Captain Hilts]

120. Fiction: The Shipping News Non-Fiction: Nights of Stone. nt

[Mz Pip]

122. A Thousand Acres

A modernized version of King Lear. I was depressed for weeks after reading it.

[FrankieFunk]

126. Ethan Frome

was damn depressing.

[LeftishBrit]

128. I think the one that depressed me most was Irving's "The World According to Garp"

But I won't read Hardy's "Jude the Obscure" or see the film, even though I would probably find it interesting, because of what I know happens to the children.

[Dulcinea]

132. I couldn't finish that book.

I can't get into anything John Irving writes. Too depressing.

[azul]

129. Infinite Jest

The book itself is like the ultimate jest video in that it is too fascinating and induces a state of anhedonia. A jest that doesn't stop or start but leaves you helpless.

A beauty of emptiness mind bomb that penetrates the brain through the yearning human eye.

[mentalsolstice]

130. "Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates

I read the book, and then saw the movie with my spouse. It's definitely not a date night kind of movie. The book was superbly written. Anyone who reads it will recognize the worst aspects of their own personal relationships, however small or large they may be. And it's a commentary of the earliest realities of suburban sprawl and how it can just suck the life out of even the best and brightest of us.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

131. Their dream of moving to Paris reminded me of Chekov's Three Sisters wanting to go to Moscow

The mistake of thinking that a change of locale is all that's needed for a life bereft of meaning.

I bought the book at the airport while traveling based on the reviews plastered all over it and then was surprised to see how old the book itself was. I had never heard of it.

I have to agree it's depressing. Proto-yuppy couple move to suburbs. Them - "We're special!" Life - "No, you're not."

I really didn't quite know what to make of the sub-plot with the real estate agent's strange son.

[deepthought42]

133. Bastard out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison

the ending was just depressing and made me mad at the same time...