"What is the most depressing book you have read?" Topic

Based on the article that Bill posted a week or so ago…
(Look it up if you must! )
I suggested that we make a TMP Poll out of it. Bill told me "You know how to do that", so here it is.

So, thusly do I refute those who would ask "Didn't we just have a topic on this?"

I can't believe that I wasted so much time on Harry Turtledove's alternate post ACW series that began with "How Few Remain". All the characters were either malevolent or boring. There were no interesting "good" characters to root for.
Perhaps the most depressing thing was the fact that it took me so many books before I realized that I hated the series, and didn't give a rat's ass over whether Jake Featherstone was finally brought to justice. Don't tell me. I don't really care any more.

Job.

Crime & Punishment was depressing. Ulysses was simply so hard to read that the thought of actually finishing it gives me suicidal feelings.

Must you have finished?

I started listening to a recording of Dan Brown's 'The DaVinci Code' but I only got completely through one chapter. I began skipping around after that thinking, "it can't all be written this badly; this book sold millions of copies; surely anyone capable of reading would chuck this in the nearest waste-bin".

Very depressing indeed.

Like OFM, I've had my run-ins with series' that I masochistically read before deciding I really hated them. Case in point, I read all of Eddings Belgariad and Mallorean, as well as the Elenium before deciding I really don't like Eddings (I kept getting the hardbacks on discount). Depressing because it was a train wreck of buying habits…

Damon.

I have to second the Turtledove books. I think I read 2-3 of them and gave up.

Atlas Shrugged is probably my favorite and most depressing because it's coming true.

"Atlas Shrugged is … coming true."

I thought that was 'Animal Farm'.

"Snowball!"

Depressing as in the subject matter,
or as in badly written?

I do not split hairs, Murph. All I am asking is if it depressed you. I don't care why. This is a TMP Poll, not rocket surgery.

I think Aecurtis nailed it. Doesn't get much worse…

So if every respondent's criterion of 'depressing' is different, and they all find different books depressing, you're going to end up with a ing long poll (or pole)

Besides, didn't we already have a thread about this?

rocket surgery.

I do wish I'd copyrighted that

"Atlas Shrugged is … coming true."

I thought that was 'Animal Farm'.

"Snowball!"

I think a bit less Animal Farm, and more '1984.'

Which is a *very* depressing book.

Probably one of the various Microsoft Windows Resource Kits.

I think Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon" is more depressing that 1984.

In the last words of 1984, Winston now loves Big Brother.
In DaN, the "hero" all along recognizes the necessity of hs own persecuton.

"Night" by Elie Wiesel was pretty depressing.

War and Peace. I could never keep any of the Russian characters straight. My stupidity depressed me (I've since learned to live with it).

Cormac McCarthy's "The Road." Read it soon and try not to end your life before the November movie.

Toss up between 1984 and Pyongyang (though less a book than a graphic novel). Though now that I think about it, Pyongyang is a graphic representation of a real life 1984…

Strange, I find Job to be a tonic for depression. The again, I also think the Old Man and the Sea ends on an optimistic note.

I think McCarthy's No Country for Old Men is worse than The Road in its overall outlook, but Blood Meridian takes the award for me. Try to find a redeeming character in it.

I read "1984" when i was in my teens, and it depressed me for about a week.
Some chapters in Beevor's "Berlin-the Downfall 1945" are pretty depressing.

"Job" at least has a happy ending :)

I recently read The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littel. Very depressing, experiences of a nazi, SS lawyer on the eastern Front with Einsatzgruppen, then at Stalingrad, and in the last days of Berlin, and he also tells of his physical relations with his twin sister and other men.

I felt guilty reading it.

As for non-fiction, what is more depressing than Hell in a Very Small Place.

Maybe the most depressing, as it is coming true is The Audacity of Hope by William Ayers, et al.

"…more '1984.'"
"…'Darkness at Noon…"

I can't agree, the problem with both of those dystopia is they assume a competent (albeit malevolent)authority. I see authority as more fundamentally incompetent, with the possible exception of keeping itself in power but in that particular I refer you to the well known anecdote of the two lawyers and the bear.

It would be somewhat reassuring, I think, to have even a malevolent genius in power rather than the alternative. Like being in a manically driven taxi careening from one hairsbreadth escape to another only to discover the driver has had a heart attack and your survival so far has been pure chance.

>>>"Night" by Elie Wiesel was pretty depressing.<<<

Which astounds me even more knowing my daughter read it voluntarily and for 'fun' during her summer break in '97, when she was just 15!

Tough kid (in the best sense of the word, of course)!

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist

Depressing as hell and a necessary read for Sociology at the time which made it worse

For fiction, Feintuch's "Hope" series. Pick any in the series, but don't read them if you're feeling suicidal.

In the last words of 1984, Winston now loves Big Brother.

Oh, well that makes it all better, doesn't it? :)

I second McCarthy's "The Road."

Third for "The Road".
And a shout out for "Perdido Street Station" and "Slaughterhouse Five".

The Bible, as interpreted by most of my family. It really doesn't offer much hope for most of mankind.

The Thomas Covenant books.
I read the first book, and thought it would get better with the second book. No, it didn't.
Maybe in the third book. No.
I gave up then, though I had bought all six books. I guess I don't like anti-hero types.
And I believe there is yet another Covenant trilogy published.
No, thank you but not for me.

A Farewell to Arms

Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird"

>>> "Job" at least has a happy ending

Not so much for Job's children. Oh yeah, so he had more later. Great. We're all expendable when there's a point to make, I guess.

Allen

Victory & Honor card game rulebook.
The game was okay in the end though.

The latest 40K rulebook too ,perhaps it is depressing because I liked the original Rogue trader so much.

Golden Compass. Think it was a series. Read the first one. Wont read any others.

Recently… The Road.

@T Meier "It would be somewhat reassuring, I think, to have even a malevolent genius in power rather than the alternative."

If the malevolent power crushes everything that you value and leaves no chance of improvement, no hope at all, I'd take any alternative.

The end of most henry treece books are quite depressing. The later covenant books especially depressing. My pay slip…..very dark

Various Budget reports.

"If the malevolent power… no hope at all."

But that's just the point, if the situation can be directed by an intelligence there is always hope. The wheel of fortune could conceivably turn and a benevolent one could replace the malign. If on the other hand the situation is not and never has been under any direction there's no hope of improvement.

The Sorrows of Young Werther.

Add another for "The Road," but I agree with ageofglory about McCarthy's other books.

"Night" was depressing, and it was required reading when I was 15!

I'd also add Camus' "The Stranger." Bummed me out.

'The Big Nowhere' by James Ellroy.

A sordid and disgusting tale of no merit whatsover except to expose the rotten soul of the writer. Urgh.

Give me 1984, Empire of the Sun or The Mayor of Casterbridge any day.

In the spirit of the thread, if I must

Solzhenitsin: His entire oeuvre

Sartre: La Nausee. It's even more depressing in the French.

The Thomas Covenant series. Actually I'm guessing here as I managed about 20 pages of tome 1, but those pages told me all I needed to know.

Another vote for Thomas Covenant stories , not read them for more than decade but do remember how down I felt during reading them.

>>>Empire of the Sun<<<

…Yeah, but you at least came away that during his journey and despite his age…he ended up with the wisdom of the ages locked in his head…right, wrong or otherwise, there was at least some…gain…for lack of a better word.

For fiction, Feintuch's "Hope" series. Pick any in the series, but don't read them if you're feeling suicidal.

I had almost forgotten about those. They're horrible. The first is okay, even hopeful, with a Horatio Hornblower feel to it. The rest are increasingly more depressing as irredeemable tragedy after irredeemable tragedy hits the hero. By the end of the series, he's like some sort of walking curse— anybody who serves under him or has an sort of emotional attachment with him is doomed to die; and then he spends the rest of the time reliving the loss, over and over again. Gaaaah. I never want to read those again.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a cheery little tome.

"By the end of the series, he's like some sort of walking curse— anybody who serves under him or has an sort of emotional attachment with him is doomed to die; "

Sounds like Moorcock's Elric series.

Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. Read the first book and a couple of chapters from the second book. Then it had to be put down. I couldn't get through it. I hear the series get's worse as you move along. Things like descriptions of dresses that go on for pages. Very depressing!