Anything by Herman Hesse
Ditto for Jude the Obscure
Portrait of the artist as a young man (couldn’t finish the stupid thing it was so depressing)
A Jersey Kasinsky story (sorry I can’t spell it correctly) about some peasant family where the man hit the woman so hard her eyeball flew out and rolled on the floor.
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Angela’s Ashes * by Frank McCourt. Deadbeat father. Hungry kids. Poverty. Sad.
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Killer Angels * by Michael Shaara. A fictional account of the battle of Gettysburg. I know, I know. What did I expect?
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The Lottery * by Shirley Jackson. I was traumatized by this short story.
Burn: Okay, but what about Shampoo Planet hit too close to home? The once-prosperous town disintegrating? The main character going to LA and ending up destitute? The fact of his cheating on his generous, productive, compassionate girlfriend with a self-centered, materialistic snob? The stepfather’s abuse of the mother? The acid casualty at the commune? Or just the overall pessimistic tone?
No offense if any of this is too personal. Not trying to start an argument; just curious.
Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green
The girlfriend thing, the loss of connection with reality, the disassociation of everyday life, the relationship wiuth the mother and son, the father/mother relationship. Just way too many things.
You know what Atlas did, with the weight of the world pressing down on his shoulders, his blood running over his chest for his efforts and the world continuing to bear down without concern for his efforts? He shrugged.
How about Sartre’s “Nausea”? Not only depressing during the reading, but it left me with a lingering, sickening angst for months afterward…
“Ask the Dust” by John Fante. A story of a young writer in Los Angeles.
“The Painted Bird” by Jerzy Kosinski. Man’s inhumanity to man.
“Die Leiden des jungen Werthers” by Johann Wolfgang Goethe caused young Germans in the 18th century to commit suicide.
J’ai assez vécu pour voir que différence engendre haine.
Henri B. Stendhal
I read all the way through this thread with the intention of posting Fante’s “Ask the Dust,” and here it is in the last post.
How depressing.
Most people come to Fante via Bukowski. So who is more depressing? My vote goes to Fante. I think he does a better job of capturing what a truly, utterly miserable and hopeless thing it is to be a human being.
Cheers!
“Stop the rope and let me in or I’ll go out and get some gin”
Good call, boys, on Fante. I don’t even think about the guy any more, he’s so depressing.
How about Nathanael West? DAY OF THE LOCUST? MISS LONELYHEARTS, especially the letters? Every time I want to get a sinking feeling in my chest, I read the one from the little girl who was born without a nose.
Godwin’s The Cold Equations (a short story, not a book; those who’d like to read it can find it in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Vol. I, along with Flowers for Algernon by… drat… Dickson, maybe?) isn’t really that depressing, though it is … I don’t know, “chilling,” maybe. How about Ellison’s I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream instead? There’s also a short by Piers Anthony about a guy who gets tortured; I can’t remember the name of the story but it’s in Anthonology.
I found Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle to be pretty depressing. I haven’t read his Mother Night, but the movie is certainly a big downer. And Delany’s Dhalgren is also worth considering, though maybe it’s too weird to be depressing.