Helter Skelter by Vince Bugliosi.
Fascinating Womanhood by Helen somebody.
“Johnny Got His Gun” was by Dalton Trumbo, noted commie screenwriter.
The point of the book was that war is ALWAYS evil, ALWAYS immoral, ALWAYS pointless, and NEVER justified. But Trumbo agreed to postpone publication until AFTER WOrld War 2. Why? Because he received orders from Moscow! Stalin WANTED the U.S. to enter the Second World War on his side, and didn’t want any anti-war books that might dissuade the American public from doing that.
So, basically, Dalton Trumbo believed that war is bad EXCEPT when it’s waged on behalf of communism… in which case, it’s GLORIOUS to lose your arms, legs, sight and hearing! (Don’t take my word for it- Trumbo PROUDLY admitted in the foreword to the novel that he postponed publication, at the request of the Communist Party, and Trumbo was GLAD his book wasn’t around to dampen anti-Nazi war fever).
**
As for me, the most depressing book I ever read was Thomas Hardy’s “The Mayor of Casterbridge.”
I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned Lord Of The Flies yet. Dreadfully depressing.
DItto! This was the most unmitigatingly depressing book; the guy starts out with some dreams and manages to screw himself over and it just goes downhill from there. It’s what I thought of as soon as I saw the thread title.
A bit more obscure, “Marching Through Georgia” by S.M. Stirling. It’s an alternate history novel (the “Georgia” of the title is in the USSR), where the author challenged himself to come up with villains worse than the Nazis, and then have them win. I’m not kidding. The Draka are so structurally evil, they make both Hitler & Stalin look like pikers. Very depressing. And then there are sequels!
I vote for 1984, Where the Red Fern Grows, and Of Mice and Men, too.
However, the very most depressing book I’ve ever read is an 1800’s novel (I collect old books) called The Woman Thou Hast Given Me. Dear God, that book was depressing from the beginning, when the girl was rejected by her father for not being a boy, to her mother’s death, to her years spent in a nunnery, to her loveless and sexless marriage to a complete creep, to her one night stand with her childhood love- which resulted in a baby- to her horrible hardships in trying to raise a child as a single mother as a completely impoverished outcast of society, to her tragic death. I just cried through the whole thing.
As for popular fiction, I nominate Pet Sematary by Stephen King as most depressing, especially for anyone who has children. :shiver:
Well, I was going to defend Joyce’s “The Dead,” but then I saw the abuse being heaped on poor Jerzy Kosinski. Since you lightweights stopped your perusal of his works with his first, THE PAINTED BIRD, I’ll let you know… they don’t get any worse than that. You can open your eyes and read another. As a recommend, his work, PINBALL, has an almost romantic tint to the tragic ending, and before that you get lots and lots of kinky sex. What more could you ask for in your reading material? And, let us not forget, he did write BEING THERE (almost verbatim with the Peter Sellers movie, by the way), which proves that he could put out a book (albeit, a very short one) which involved no stellar acts of heinous cruelty between humans.
I love that Kosinski!
But, you want to talk depressing? I once had the opinion that there was no such thing as a worthless piece of writing. Then, I picked up THE DEMU TRILOGY by F.M. Busby. Woe, unto my naive ideals! I just cannot emphasize how disheartening it is to see a 700 page paperback with NO redeeming feature other than its convenience as a firestarter, come the winter.
The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn. Powerful and frightening. I’ve probably thought about this book more than any other I’ve read.
The Coachman Rat, a take on the cinderella tale from the point of view of one of the rats thrust into the story unwillingly… a horrible horrible book I keep only to make sure that many fewer people read it.
Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein. Read the original, or get the enguin audiobook, or see the too-much-maligned Kennth Branaugh movie version, and try to forget about all the others.
My God, but this book is depressing! Victor Frankenstein screws up at the very beginning (in what seems art the time a minor way), and is made to pay for it through the rest of the book. Death after death after death, culminating in his own and (arguably) that of his Creature. But it’s worse than that. The “side story” of the impoverished family that the Monster first meets is incredibly depressing on its own – the family was royally screwed! And this has nothing to do with either Victor Frankenstein or his Creation. Although maybe it taught the Monster just how cruel the world could be. Depressing beyond what was required of it.
I read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee when it came out – depressing because it is horribly true. See the movies “Soldier Blue” or “Little Big Man” that came out about the time of the book’s release for more.
Interesting note about Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale – I was listening to an unabridged version on AudioTape (which is oddly appropriate, considering that the book claims to be transcribed from a taped memoir) when I realized that the story is set in Cambridge, Massachusetts! Much of the action takes place in and around Harvard Yard and Harvard Square! The party scene is set in the hotel along Memorial Drive, just west of MIT! None of this is shown in the filmed version, but it’s obvious if you’ve read the book and are familiar with Cambridge (which is where Atwood lived part of the time she was writing it.)
Well. Now it’s even more depressing.
Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, volumes 1 and 2 are the Bible of hardcore pessimism.
Something of a hijack, here, because I couldn’t e-mail Eve directly. Eve? Have you ever read anything by Florence King? She’s written a number of books over the years and also worked as a book reviewer for [a magazine that I’ve forgotten the name of]. One of the books she reviewed was Back Street. I read Back Street on her recommend and found it, as you said, well-written and hideously depressing. An entirely too accurate outline of the way many otherwise competent and intelligent women have allowed men to help them screw up their very own lives… Anyway, the review by Miss King is included in The Florence King Reader, which is available in paperback or easily found at your library. It’s kind of an overview of Miss King’s work – selected bits from each of her books as well as several of her favorite book reviews and magazine pieces. The flagship of the volume is her only (and very, very funny) novel, When Sisterhood Was In Flower – out of print for many years. I should warn you, though – Miss King is currently writing a column for the “National Review” and, as that would indicate, she is slightly to the right of Rush Limbaugh. Nonetheless, unlike Rush, she’s very funny and well worth a read.
After some thought I’ve narrowed this down to 3:
- Knowledge of Angels - Jill Paton Walsh
The thing that bothers me about this book is the sheer naivity of the hero (who dies as a result). He could extricate himself from his predicament by telling a couple of simple lies at any time yet he doesn’t. Noble but stupid.
- Lord of the Flies - William Golding
I’ve read it about 6 times and every time Roger pushes Piggy off the mountain I have to stop for a minute and make myself carry on.
- The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
I know this book’s taken a lot of flak in recent years but it is for me, and shall remain, the most poignant account of teenage loss, alienation and despair ever written. Period.
I have two that have not been mentioned yet.
Animal Farm by George Orwell. Just because a book has talking animals does not mean it is for kids! I cried when Boxer was sold to the glue factory after working so hard and faithfully for so many years. (And just so the greedy pigs could have the money too!)
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron. I know that this book was also made into a movie that I have not seen. But, the book was heart wrenching. Every time Sophie tells a story you think she has been through the most awful things a person could go through. Then she tells another story and it gets even worse. By her last story you feel like every horrible thing that ever happened to anyone in World War II happened to her personally. I won’t spoil the ending, but UGGH!!
In the “not really a book category”, and for overall top prize, I nominate Endgame by Samuel Beckett.
For short story, I’ll second Chickenhead’s choice of “The Dead”.
I can’t really think of a novel that I would categorize as depressing in the same way that either of these two works are.