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/lit/ - Literature

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2342928 No.2342928 [Reply] [Original]

I want to read something depressing, nihilist, timeless, with horror, no fantasy, nothing super natural, with no conclussion, something to hurt myself with. Any advice?

>> No.2342937

i found this terribly crushing

http://www.amazon.com/Very-Death-Pantheon-Modern-Writers/dp/0394728998

>> No.2342951
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2342951

>something to hurt myself with
Paper cuts? Sick sad emo/goth kids.

>> No.2342972

The works of William Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe might be right up your alley.

>> No.2342977

Reading Emily Dickinson makes me feel like a bear and I are just shaking each other violently while falling through a bright chasm. Is that close enough?

>> No.2342996
File: 33 KB, 529x372, BraveLittleToaster.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2342996

Nobody on this board will be able to recommend anything more depressing than "The Brave Little Toaster" minor highlights include the main gang making fun of an air-conditioner until it commits suicide and the music piece "You're a loser" in which several cars commit suicide is particularly special. Honestly by the end of it you'll feel completely raped, that is, if you don't kill yourself halfway through so as not to watch the unlovable cast of talking house appliances crawl through adversary after adversary all the while never banding together and taking the complete shit out of each other. Enjoy

>> No.2343003

Thomas Ligotti

>> No.2343007

If you can get past the somewhat "boring bits" (Its a little dry at times) I recommend The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoyevsky. Its depressing in a very Russian kind of way.

>> No.2343016

>>2342928
I'm reading 120 Days of Sodom right now, some consider it to be the most vile book ever written.
Basically iesits about 4 libertines pushing the bounderies of sexuality by raping/torturing people for 4 months while talking about sexuality, morality, passion, philosophy, etc (all descriptive too)

>> No.2343025

Atomised by Michel Houellebecq. Bleak, depressing and nihilistic. No horror, though.

>> No.2343028

Americsn Pyscho definetly fits

>> No.2343029

>>2343003
This is what I've been reading lately and left me craving for more. Minus the paranormal.

>> No.2343059

You could try A Clockwork Orange (some find it scary, some find it funny, but it has some horror elements.) The ending differs depending on whether it includes chapter 21, so you've got some ambiguity in place of a conclusion.

>> No.2343078

>something depressing, nihilist, timeless, with horror, no fantasy, nothing super natural, with no conclussion, something to hurt myself with.
History.

>> No.2343085
File: 51 KB, 415x641, SkorzenyOtto[1].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2343085

>>2343078
History wise I only read about Kommandos and overall badass men from all over the world, I could not possibly depress myself with it.

>> No.2343113

Anything by Dostoyevsky.

Alternatively, A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov. Dem Russians, man.

>> No.2343255

"No Longer Human"

>> No.2343303
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2343303

This fits your aspirations!

>> No.2343320
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2343320

Emil Cioran will destroy your soul.

>> No.2343326

Steppenwolf by Hesse.
changed my life.

>> No.2343345

>>2343326
> steppenwolf
> depressing and nihilist

> implying the main character doesn't find the meaning of life through the consumption of drugs and alcohol and is happy as fuck in the end of the book

>> No.2343354

Bataille

>> No.2343356

>>2343320
this

>> No.2343359

Notes from Underground
The Brothers Karamazov

Pretty much Dostoevsky's entire oeuvre.
>>2343113
A Hero of Our Time is great, but not really depressing in my opinion.

>>2343345
That's giving up and falling into oblivion, not finding meaning, you idiot.

>> No.2343364

Nausea.

>> No.2343392

Ethan Fromm will do the trick get ur hopes all up then bam suicide attempt by sled to the most depressing ending of all time

>> No.2343400

>>2343364
this.

>> No.2343401

Is there a significant market for novels that are severely depressing and have a downer ending? It seems like people would become heavily desensitized about halfway through and just...stop giving a shit.

>> No.2343405

Something Happened
Joseph Heller
- only book I wish I hadn't read

Vinegar Hill
Oprah's Book Club
- I'm not kidding, you want to punish yourself?

>> No.2343406

>>2343392
Thanks, for the spoiler dickwad.

>> No.2343407

>>2343406
thats what u get 4 reding boks

>> No.2343408

'Under the Volcano' is quite alright in this regard (though not so much midway).

>> No.2343821

>>2343320
>i do not know what is right and what is wrong; what is allowed and what is not;
i cannot judge and i cannot praise. there are no valid criteria and no consistent
principles in the world. it surprises me that some people still concern themselves with
a theory of knowledge. to tell the truth, i couldn't care less about the relativity of
knowledge, simply because the world does not deserve to be known. at times i feel
as if i had total knowledge, exhausting the content of this world; at other times the
world around me does not make any sense. everything then has a bitter taste, there
is in me a devilish, monstrous bitterness that renders even death insipid. i realize
now for the first time how hard it is to define this bitterness. it may be that i'm
wasting my time trying to establish a theoretical basis for it when in fact it originates
in a pretheoretical zone. at this moment i do not believe in anything and i have no
hope. all forms and expressions that give life its charm seem to me meaningless. i
have no feeling either for the future or for the past, while the present seems to me
poison. i do not know whether i am desperate or not, since lack of hope does not
automatically imply despair. i could be called anything because i stand to lose
nothing. i've lost everything! flowers are blooming and birds are singing all around
me! how distant i am from everything!

- On the Heights of Despair, E.M. Cioran

>> No.2343849

>>2343407
It's spelt 'redding' faget

>> No.2343864

>>2343849
no its reddit you fucken knob jockey

>> No.2343941

Cioran was a nazi dont read his stuff

>> No.2344003

>>2342928
> nihilist, timeless
Uh, pick one. I'm serious, you can only have one.

>> No.2344263

>>2344003
NOPE

>> No.2344268
File: 110 KB, 490x560, fanged noumena.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2344268

>>2342928
No Nick Land?
Nick Land.

>> No.2344430

not depressive as fuck but defenitely nihilistic.

No one writes to the colonel by Garcia Marquez.

>> No.2344445

The Stranger

>> No.2344458

>>2342928
sounds like some Jean-Paul Sarte is right up your alley.

No Exit is pretty good, with the whole "Hell is other people" bit.

Nausea would be a good one by him if you want more of a novella.

>> No.2344463

>>2344268
does this book live up to the hype?

>> No.2344468

J.G.Ballard, namely his novel Concrete Island, fits your description perfectly, aside from "timeless" part.

>> No.2344543

>>2342996
The song was called Worthless and they weren't exactly killing themselves they were more conscious of the fact that they had outlived their usefulness and were waiting around to die.

>> No.2345108

>>2344543
That's even more depressing.

>> No.2346027

>>2343405
Sounds alot like American Psycho for some reason

>> No.2347185

>>2343085
Anyone have otto skorzenys autobiography in ebook

>> No.2348406

bump

>> No.2348418

Hunger by Knut Hamsun.

Shit is freaky insane.

>> No.2348508

>>2347185
Look for it on Amazon

>> No.2348571

Choke by Palahniuk.

The only good thing he ever wrote. Don't watch the movie, not worth even waiting through the opening sequence.

>> No.2348577

>>2342996
You have terrible grammar for someone who has gone to a forum to discus literature.

>> No.2348650
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2348650

OP should try Blindness, by José Saramago.He won a nobel prize, so he cant' be that bad.

>> No.2348913

'Animal Farm' isn't quite in your category, but it'll definitely make you want to cut your own throat after reading it. I was depressed for a fucking week after I read it.

>> No.2348915

>>2348571
I didn't think that book was depressing, nihilistic or timeless at all.

>> No.2348936

The Road is pretty depressing, not just for the story but for the implications. It doesn't depict humanity holding on, it depicts humanity dying.

Flowers For Algernon for baww'ing, but it isn't the kind of deep depressive experience I think you are after.

>> No.2348954

GOT ANY MORE PRE-1950 ONES BOYS? PRETTY MUCH READ ALL THE ONES RECOMMENDED BY MALES THAT FIT THAT

>> No.2348997

>>2348954
Bumpie

>> No.2349020

To The Lighthouse or Mrs Dalloway are both extremely depressing and pointless.

>> No.2349021

>>2348954
Why don't you read books by women?

>> No.2349023

>>2349021
SET SELF-IMPOSED RESTRICTIONS TO MY READING PARTLY AS A TROLL, BUT ALSO BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO BOTHER WITH BOOKS THAT MAY BE SHIT WHEN I KNOW THERE IS COUNTLESS WORKS WRITTEN BY MEN THAT WON'T DISAPPOINT ME

>> No.2349031

>>2348650
Obama won a nobel prize supposedly for being a cool guy and then he went and killed bin laden-chan :(

>>2344430
I'd say it is depressing, if you think about the colonel's situation and how he's basically selling everything he can to get money for food, and then he is forced to sell the rooster, which is the thing he loves the most, even most than his wife. It can be analyzed from a nihilist context, but in a less academic approach it is a very sad story about how in the end of our lives we end up having to give up on a million things just to make it to the next day.

>> No.2349037
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2349037

>>2349023
>bitches and hoes
Wait, is that the real capsguy? I used to think he was a pretty OK /lit/bro. What happen?

>> No.2349039

Grapes of Wrath is probably the most depressing book ever written.

>> No.2349043

>>2349037
I AM NOT REALLY A MISOGYNIST.

WELL, SOMETIMES.

>> No.2349045
File: 937 KB, 200x138, saddness.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2349045

>>2348936
>Flowers For Algernon
>mfw

>> No.2349046

>>2349039
Steinbeck was a butthurt rich white-guilt Socialist.

>> No.2349048
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2349048

i know you said no fantasy, but its very minimal in this, i found the atmosphere to be very oppressive and nihilistic, the horror comes from the mystery and the very detailed and depressing effects of disease and pestilence and birth mutation.

>> No.2349049

>>2349046
That may well be, doesn't change the fact his books are good, and depressing.