/lit/ - Literature

Celine - Journey at the end of the night.

>>3041366
But the book is funny

the chocolate war, by robert cormier

standard high school set text in australia

sets up an epic battle where teens are selling chocolate to raise money for something

THE PROTAGONIST LOSES. BIG TIME. there is no come-back, no explanation: HE LOSES. it's like being dropped into a toilet bowl and flushed.

it certainly shits all over the "hero's journey" thing.

>>3041364

The Metamorphosis

>>3041377
It is but it's not supposed to be enjoyed.
You laugh but Celine just grins and pokes you in the side whispering in your ear "we'll see who will laugh last bitch you have no idea what it's coming up and when it's coming up you will be so scared that you are going to drop your bowels to the floor"

thomas covenant: the unbeliever

I'm the king of the castle.

The Bible

Wittgenstein's Mistress
"Einer" by Norbert Gstrein (I don't think there's a translation available)

>>3041364
The Jungle

>>3041366
Definitely this and its companion, Death on the Installment Plan.
Hilarious stuff, but also incredibly fucking depressing. It's distilled misery, and the comedy is simply the most bitter schadenfreude.

William Lindsay Gresham - Nightmare Alley

>>3041549
I cannot seem to find any books similar to Celine's. Had any luck?

Stoner by John Williams

Siamese by Stig Sæterbakken.

Fuck that book, I felt like shit for days after reading it.

>>3041684
You okay?

Scientology. The ending, so horrifying, is intended to cause an emotional breakdown lasting years.

>>3041631
Have you tried Bukowski? Celine was his favorite author, and it comes through.

For Esthme with Love by Salinger

No Longer Human

Don't know if I'd call it the most depressing, but Flowers for Algernon.

1984. Plebeian I know.

>>3041842
Brave New World seems way more depressing to me that 1984, because Huxley's predictions are the ones that 'came true'.

>>3041843

But Brave New World is a utopia.

>>3041848
And was copied from We...

>>3041843
>because Huxley's predictions are the ones that 'came true'.

Read about "Panopticon". Read Orwell's essay "Politics and English language". Try at least sometimes look under the surface.

>>3041855
What a doubleplussungood post. There was a thing somewhere that compared Facebook's "like" button to newspeak, in that it lets you 'respond' to something without really thinking about it.

>>3041855
I don't think it's absurd to claim Huxley's views came true. Orwell predicted a world in which a totalitarian government would control the truth and crush opposition, while Huxley predicted one in which such actions would be no longer necessary.

That is not to claim Orwell was 'wrong', but, considering today's western society and the way it is has turned everything into entertainment, Huxley's utopia (>>3041848
??) is closer to reality that 1984.

I'm gonna go with Harry Potter. God it was awful, shallow and empty.

Blindness, by Saramago. It's not depressing as much as pessimistic. Don't watch the movie, though, it doesn't measure up.

Also, the 'sequel', Seeing, is also excellent (though completely different and can only be considered a sequel in the sense that it happens in the same universe).

>>3041864
>Orwell predicted a world in which a totalitarian government would control the truth and crush opposition, while Huxley predicted one in which such actions would be no longer necessary.

And Orwell win. You can't think and speak what you want. You must be "correct".

>western society and the way it is has turned everything into entertainment

Entertainment and videogames. Here you push button and somewhere in the East rocket kills unarmed citizens who don't understand what a beautiful thing democracy is. And I don't mention even more free and entertaining countries like China, Arabia, North Korea.

ITT no one has read Russian Lit

>>3041876
But you can think and speak what you want (in the 'civilized western democratic' world). You can start your own newspaper and speak against all authorities if you want to. It's just that no one cares.

Of course this does not hold true for the entire world, and I specified that I was talking about western society. Of course North Korea will resemble 1984, as did the Soviet Union before it.

But, going back to topic, I think both are so depressing not only because they paint terrible scenarios, but because these scenarios are still so relevant today (with varying strength in different parts of the world).

>>3041884
Anna Karenina half-depressed me. Anna's story is depressing, but Levin's isn't.

Fingersmith.

>>3041888
>You can start your own newspaper and speak against all authorities if you want to.

For example, by denying the holocaust or organizing a muslim jihad?

Lolnope.

>>3041894
Comparing the impossibility to deny the holocaust to 1984-like censorship (or even to lack of freedom of speech) is preposterous. Denying the holocaust is not an historical theory, is just hate-mongering.

>>3041900
why do you think so?

>>3041900
The design of Auschwitz does have me quite sceptical to be honest

>>3041900
If you think it isn't reasonable as a theory than you've been brainwashed by the Jew media to think so.

Jude the Obscure

>>3041900
> Denying the holocaust is not an historical theory, is just hate-mongering.

Denying the progress of Soviet socialist democracy is not a historical theory, it is just hate-mongering.

(And I only _wish_ I was egging you on; sadly, the '... denying Soviet socialist democracy ... not a historical theory ...' spiel is __literally__ the exact turn of phrase that was used to convict people back in the USSR.)

>>3041930
The part with the children has to be the saddest bit I've ever read. To be fair, though, I have only read about 40 books.

>>3041937
Yeah, it's quite funny how the defendants of liberal humanism claim neutral universality for their fuzzy concepts and rights, but when you ask them what they mean they explain it as a validation of their personal way of life and the culture they were brought up in, just like every other system of thought / culture / ideology / religion, before 'secular humanism', ever, , ...

Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse.

It's about the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Enough said.

>>3041900
>>3041902
>>3041903
>>3041914
Well, this thread was good while it lasted...

In the hope of keeping it alive, Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake is one of the most soul-crushingly depressing books I've ever read.

>tfw you don't read because you're afraid of being sad
>tfw you're sad because you don't read
I just can't win.

Song of Kali

>>Those last two chapters

Talk about ripping the fun out of a good thriller

>>3041948
On that note, The Persian Boy was terribly sad for me. But, I get sad over odd things, so... Yeah, it was still sad.

>>3041953
>Song of Kali

Kali=mywaifu

Films are more depressing than books.

>>3041986
God tier depressing:
Daytime television
Local radio
Blogs by middle aged women

>>3041542
The Jungle is definitely not a happy book. Remember, life sucks until you're a Communist!

The death of ivan iljitsj

no longer human by Osamu Dazai

Elementary Particles by Houellebecq

The Age of Miracles was pretty soul-crushing.

Infinite Jest

>>3042045
MY
NIGGER

Erich Maria Remarque - Drei Kameraden

>>3042045
>>3042094
I read it half a year ago, in a happy period. Didn't bother me at all. My engagement broke off a few weeks ago, now it keeps coming to mind.

This.

I don't know if I could bring myself to read it a second time.

The Elementary Particles seemed way too "edgy" for me to get truly depressed. Although the very beginning of the book where the lonely scientist's bird dies did make me very sad for a second.

Stoner doesn't make me depressed at all. It's bittersweet, but if anything I find Stoner's persistence throughout his depressing life to be one of the most inspiring things I've ever read.

Honestly, really trying to think about it, I can't really think of anything I've read that was ever truly "soul-crushing". Even the books with darker tones I see as exorcisms for the inner turmoil of both the author and myself as a reader. Even the most bleak novel to me is a confrontation of a sad universal experience and the act of having it written out and then having it read is a kind of abstract way of fighting it together. And it's a good fight too.

On a side note, I do find the correlation between bleak novel threads and existential crisis threads to be very amusing.

THE ANSWER IS KING LEAR YOU STUPID SHITS

FUCK

DO YOU EVEN READ?

>>3042345

>Most depressing novel
>King Lear

wat

Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman.
Some depressing stuff about mankind, some good stuff too but mostly bad :(

>>3041941

>I'm being a Nihilist and no one can stop me!

>>3042080

>>3042354
OOOOO BURN