# The most depressing novel you ever read **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 6, 2016, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209 "2016-09-06T18:27:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/121 "2016-09-07T19:36:45Z")
> [@Catamount](#): > > Don’t do it unless you’ve grown tired of living. Heh. Actually despite its grim ending, it’s a fantastic story. One of the best of all time. I think if you liked _Lord of the Flies,_ you’d love _Flowers for Algernon._ ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/122 "2016-09-07T19:54:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Sangahyando** : > > I’ve loved LOTR and The Hobbit almost lifelong; but I’ve heard from sundry sources about – as above cite – the extreme depressingness of "JRRT and editors’ " chronicles of Middle-Earth pre-the late Third Age. Reckon it most unlikely that I’ll ever embark on Silmarillion or Children of Hurin; be their literary crafting never so exquisite. The great thing about the Silmarillion is that if there’s one story in it you don’t like, you can just skip on to the next one. Children of Hurin is the only really depressing tale in it: Others have sad happenings and wistful longings and crushing defeats and so on, but it’s not really _personal_. And on the other hand, you also have epic adventures like the tale of Beren and Luthien. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/123 "2016-09-07T20:12:13Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > I’ve loved _LOTR_ and _The Hobbit_ almost lifelong; but I’ve heard from sundry sources about – as above cite – the extreme depressingness of "JRRT and editors’ " chronicles of Middle-Earth pre-the late Third Age. Reckon it most unlikely that I’ll ever embark on _Silmarillion_ or _Children of Hurin_; be their literary crafting never so exquisite. > [@Chronos](#): > > The great thing about the Silmarillion is that if there’s one story in it you don’t like, you can just skip on to the next one. Children of Hurin is the only really depressing tale in it: Others have sad happenings and wistful longings and crushing defeats and so on, but it’s not really _personal_. And on the other hand, you also have epic adventures like the tale of Beren and Luthien. A year or so ago, at a “dirt-cheap used-books bazaar”, I did buy a copy of the _Silmarillion_ for 50 UK pence: have yet to open it – but will endeavour to keep your words in mind. ---
**Author:** ![Soylent\_Juicy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@Soylent\_Juicy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Juicy)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/124 "2016-09-07T20:35:31Z")
Any given book by V.C. Andrews. They’re all the same premise anyway. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/125 "2016-09-07T20:41:05Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned anything from the Game of Thrones series. I only read the first part of one book, but just based on what I’ve heard it sounds like it’s full of torture/rape/misery porn. You forgot the incest porn. A Song of Ice and Fire has plenty of depressing things happen, but it’s not depressing itself. No matter how many hero characters get massacred, there’s always someone else for you to root for. Sometimes even the very characters you once despised for what they did earlier in the series. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/126 "2016-09-07T20:42:12Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > You forgot the incest porn. > > A Song of Ice and Fire has plenty of depressing things happen, but it’s not depressing itself. No matter how many hero characters get massacred, there’s always someone else for you to root for. Sometimes even the very characters you once despised for what they did earlier in the series. Until they die. ---
**Author:** ![Dante\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@Dante\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante_G)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/127 "2016-09-07T21:11:14Z")
For me it’s got to be \*Of Mice and Men \*and _Hunchback of Notre Dame_. ---
**Author:** ![Mavic\_Chen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@Mavic\_Chen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mavic_Chen)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/128 "2016-09-07T21:53:43Z")
Do graphic novels count? Can I “recommend” the 2000AD Story “Kano” originally published in Progs 828-837 in 1993 but available as a complete volume? The eponymous hero “Kano” is a war veteran struggling to come to terms with terrible abuse at the hands of his captors and the death of his family and comrades. He lives it all over again on a planet where time runs backwards for an hour a day. The ending where he experiences the terrible certainty of it all is just awful to experience. A wonderful, vivid, emotional read. But not happy, oh no. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/129 "2016-09-07T22:58:47Z")
> [@Soylent\_Juicy](#): > > Any given book by V.C. Andrews. They’re all the same premise anyway. That lady _really_ had a thing for incest. When I was maybe 10 (yes, 10!) my grandmother gave me the _Dawn_ series. Based on what I recall, Dawn lives a shitty life sharing a mattress with her brother and goes to a rich-kid school where she meets this pushy rich asshole Phillip that she almost fucks. Then the cops come and she learns that her brother is not really her brother, and the pushy asshole Phillip is actually her brother. So naturally she fucks the guy that she _thought_ was her brother, and then is raped by her actual brother (Phillip.) Later in the series she has a teenage daughter with the guy she thought was her brother, and her actual brother (Phillip) rapes the daughter too. Lovingly depicted, detailed rape scenes clearly intended to titillate. It’s trash. ---
**Author:** ![LH75](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lh75/32/4438_2.png) [@LH75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LH75)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/130 "2016-09-07T23:40:53Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > _Ethan Frome._ > > Fuck that novel so hard. SO you were in Sister Mary Roberta’s Sophomore class too? I hated that book! ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/131 "2016-09-07T23:41:51Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > That lady _really_ had a thing for incest. So I gathered. Wow,\* ten? \* ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/132 "2016-09-07T23:55:12Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > A bit of a detour here, but I had no idea _Death Be not Proud_ was a book, much less one from the '40s. I only remember the gut wrenching, sob inducing movie starring Robby Benson. Sweet Jeebus, \*I \*was a “crybaby boobie” after watching that one :o I shudder to think of reading the book. It’s the only John Gunther book that’s still in print. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/133 "2016-09-08T01:14:26Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > So I gathered. > Wow,\* ten? > \* It’s pretty sad these were some of the only models for romance in fiction I had at the time. A lot of my early work is very derivative, which is not uncommon for new writers, especially considering I was just a kid. But it was a standard model that took some time to work through and ultimately reject. I vowed no book of mine would be exploitative of these very painful issues. I’ll write about them, because they matter, but I won’t _exploit_ them. I still kind of hate the romance genre but the straight-up rapeyness of romance novels is not as bad as it used to be. And VC Andrews books were generally targeted at teen girls. These helpless victims were supposed to be our role models. And people wonder why some women have such fucked up ideas about sex and relationships. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/134 "2016-09-08T01:52:14Z")
What do you write? ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/135 "2016-09-08T01:55:36Z")
Ironweed. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/136 "2016-09-08T02:36:48Z")
> [@Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](#): > > _The Good Soldier_ by George Gissing is summed up by it’s famous 1st line: It’s “its” and it’s Ford Madox Ford and it’s not really all that sad. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/137 "2016-09-08T02:45:03Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > _Ethan Frome._ > > Fuck that novel so hard. This. It was required reading in HS. Hated it then. It was free on kindle several months ago so I picked it up to see if it was as bad as I recalled. Yep. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/138 "2016-09-08T02:47:41Z")
> [@Waltzes\_with\_Cacti](#): > > What’s the most depressing work of fiction that you ever read? > > Mine is Dalton Trumbo’s 1939 novel _Johnny Got His Gun_ about a US serviceman who has lost his limbs and his voice in combat but whose mind is fully functioning. He is permanently relegated to a hospital bed, unable to move, unable to speak, his situation the very definition of hell. This was a big thing in the 70’s when I was a teen. I read the first chapter or two, don’t really recall how many. I was nope, nope, nope…one of the first books I never finished. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/139 "2016-09-08T02:55:57Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > _Atlas Shrugged_: tedious, boring, depressing and pointless. The more I read, the more I wanted to murder Ayn Rand and then shoot myself in the head. That was one fucked up woman. I thought she was brilliant when I was 15. I thought she was insane by the time I graduated college 5 years later. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209/140 "2016-09-08T03:30:02Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > What do you write? I’m revising my first sci-fi novel. It’s a dark, gritty, sexy love story set in the middle of a fictional civil war. Genocide, poverty, racism, trauma, sexual assault v. kinky consensual sex, you name it, it’s in there. I have a brief description [here.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19612409&postcount=17) It has some intense, very violent, bleak moments, but I think the message is ultimately positive: Love makes life bearable. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-depressing-novel-you-ever-read/765209.md?page=8)