[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 234 KB, 1600x1000, 1254197918529.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2713768 No.2713768 [Reply] [Original]

What's the most soul-crushing, despair-inducing thing you've ever read?

>> No.2713772

Hunger by Knut Hamsun, maybe....

>> No.2713784

schopenhauer
journey to the end of the night

>> No.2713787

This may sound cheesy but i was crushed by Jack Kerouac's The Subterraneans. The Love story is very strong, and if you read the book in a breath, it will be very strong.

>> No.2713809

Dazai.

His works was even the inspiration for SNZ.

>> No.2713814

Did anyone else read The Road? It was really depressing to me.

Also, I read the first 150 pages of Twilight and, of my fuck, was it depressing. How the fuck did this get published? I'm not one of those elitist assholes who hate anything popular. I love Harry Potter, I love ya-lit. But Twilight reads like it was written by a fucking 12 year old.

Which raises several depressing questions.

1) Why do people like this shit so much?
2) How the fuck did she get published?
3) Why, even if they did decide to publish this drivel, did different publishers fight over it to the point that she got $750,000 advance for it?

I mean, fuck.

>> No.2713816

There must be some kind of perverse pleasure in such soul-crushing works or we'd never finish any of them.

>> No.2713820

The news that Justin Bieber sold out 2 shows in Madison Square Garden in 30 seconds. I don't want to live in a world where that happened.

>> No.2713828

>>2713814
>The Road
That crushed my soul pretty thoroughly. I haven't watched the movie, but I don't think the movie comes nearly as close to the book in terms of how absolutely bleak and depressing the world is.

>> No.2713995

>>2713814
I enjoyed it for what it is

>> No.2713997

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

>> No.2714107

>>2713828
The movie made a good effort, but there are some obvious things they couldn't show, for risk of having an NC-17 rating (i.e. the roasted half eaten baby). The world I pictured reading it was much more bleak and hopeless. The world the movie portrayed was more of a post ww2 battlefield than a desolate wasteland of psychopaths.

>> No.2714116

MORE

>> No.2714119

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race - By Thomas Ligotti

>> No.2714141
File: 103 KB, 772x578, abject horror.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2714141

The Road, I mean goddamn.

>"You killed us"
>"Come on, man"
>Boy crying
>That feel when you hate that the Man left the guy naked, but you can't because there's no place for that kind of guilt, or humanity, in a dead world.

>> No.2714148

>>2714141
How's being 14 going?

THE ROAD, DEPRESSING?

HAHA

PASS ME A TISSUE

I AM CRYING WITH LAUGHTER

>> No.2714154

>>2714148

>How's being 14 going?

You tell us, underage.

>> No.2714156

>>2714148
d'you have an issue?

>> No.2714157

>>2714148
It's not a happy book mate. If it had no effect on you you're probably autistic.

>> No.2714158

>>2714154
No.

Capsguy ain't 14.

>> No.2714165

>>2714119
>>2714119
>>2714119

This, a million times.

The cliff notes version: There is nothing inately amazing about the universe or anything in it. It is a shame sentient life sprouted on this or any other hypothetical planet because life is but suffering, then disease, then death. The fact we are conscious and self-aware only makes everything worse, because being conscious is only good to become aware of the horror of consciousness. In an universe that at its core is chaos, entropy and derangement, the only sane thing we can do is stop deluding ourselves that life is worth living.

>> No.2714167
File: 18 KB, 500x500, pork piggy.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2714167

>>2714158

>tries to "look cool" by saying the Road isn't depressing and that thinking it is makes the other person 14
>samefagging to defend himself
>not underage

I would be genuinely surprised.

Bracing for "I was only pretending to be retarded hurr i trol u"

>> No.2714173

>>2714167
I always refer to myself in third person. You must be new here.

>>2714157
It's not a happy book, no, but it is a dull book. Nothing original or spectacular in any fashion.

>> No.2714180

Richard dawkins the selfish gene

>> No.2714181

Speaking of SZS, how's No Longer Human? I hear the MC is based on it.

>> No.2714182

>>2714167
As an outside observer, I'd say it was very clear that that guy was not being serious.

>Bracing for "I was only pretending to be retarded hurr i trol u"

This sounds like metatrolling

>> No.2714184
File: 67 KB, 435x600, 6hh.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2714184

>> No.2714189

wow. i just came back from a funeral and that looks depressing

>> No.2714196
File: 53 KB, 472x800, All Quiet on the Western Front.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2714196

this
Oedipus Rex
The Cask of Amontillado

>> No.2714198

>>2713768
how did she get to that branch? i can't figure it out! my soul is CRUSHED

>> No.2714200

my fucking shitty attempts at short stories.

>> No.2714205

The Road was definitely not the most depressing book I've ever read, and I'd actually put it on the other end of the spectrum. To me it was optimistic and inspiring, the relationship between the father and son. The passing of the torch, so to say. Five times reading the book and I shed a tear every time, but mostly in appreciation for its beauty.

Most depressing however, Death of a Salesman or Hunger, but it's been a while since I've read Hunger and I don't think I can say much more for it other than how sad it is.

>> No.2714202

>>2713814
oh, go look up Fifty Shades of Grey

It's a twilight fanfiction that turned into a bestselling erotica novel.

>> No.2714206

>>2714196

The Cask of Armadillo is the most depressing thing you've read? dafuq?!

>>>In an universe
>>>an

Inner voice was mad. . . confused.

>> No.2714231

>>2714206
A man being entombed and left to die is pretty depressing.

>> No.2714236

People often say that the English are very cold fish, very reserved, that they have a way of looking at things – even tragedy – with a sense of irony. There’s some truth in it; it’s pretty stupid of them, though. Humor won’t save you; it doesn’t really do anything at all. You can look at life ironically for years, maybe decades; there are people who seem to go through most of their lives seeing the funny side, but in the end, life always breaks your heart. Doesn’t matter how brave you are, how reserved, or how much you’ve developed a sense of humor, you still end up with your heart broken. That’s when you stop laughing. In the end there’s just the cold, the silence and the loneliness. In the end, there’s only death.”
― Michel Houellebecq, The Elementary Particles

>> No.2714237

>>2714231

It's too short to get really attached to the guy, though. I always read him as an allegorical figure, anyway. The harlequined fool of Shakespeare, who is actually the wisest one of the bunch, slammed up in the oven and burnt to a crisp. No more wisdom for us.

I didn't find it that depressing.

Bastard out of Carolina crushed my soul. Crushed it to a pulp.

>> No.2714238

>>2714231

no. more traumatic =/= more depressing.

>> No.2714240

>>2714206
>Armadillo

>> No.2714246

>>2714231
I found The Fall of the House of Usher to be more horrific than the Cask of Amontillado.

>> No.2714248

>>2714240

>>>lrn to detect intentional malapropism, sucka!

>> No.2714256

>>2714246
I'm not who you were talking to, but I thought that Fall of The House of Usher was more viscerally disturbing / creepy while Cask of Amontillado was more 'horrific' since the horror is essentially that of being buried alive.

>> No.2714278

>>2714256
Sound logic. My reading of the Fall of the House of Usher had the realization/shock factor at the end which can be a bit unexpected. By contrast, the Cask gradually builds to an end the reader anticipates. I think at that point it's personal preference.

>> No.2714282

Book 4 of 2666.

>> No.2714311
File: 69 KB, 367x418, pkd.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2714311

Something about Philip K. Dick's work brings up a feeling of religious/spiritual despair and bleakness.

Some clips from A Scanner Darkly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OJgNiqtrZ4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vIz5G-V4K8

Love that movie. It's the best PKD adaptation so far imo. I feel a connection with him as an author in some ways. My schizoaffective brother committed suicide in February. The last few years he was constantly in and out of the hospital for nervous break downs and drug abuse. When I read Valis, all of the scenes of PKD in the hospital after a suicide attempt are constructed by my memories of when I visited my brother in various psych wards.

There's also this trippy scene in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? where a slightly retarded guy hears that a figure called Mercer who leads people in group hallucinations against an unseen evil is exposed as a fraud rather than a prophet. Even after hearing this, the retarded guy clutches the handles that allow him to enter the hallucinogenic world of Mercerism. I read that, and I feel like that's how it is with god maybe. Most of us have figured out that religion is bullshit and we understand LOGICALLY that god is just some strange psychological projection, yet when he hold on to these handles of hope and life as if we're not going to die someday and then be gone forever.

Anyway. Just my thoughts. Good look finding miserable books.

>> No.2716050

>>2714165
>not making it the goal of the human race to develop a method to end the universe (and all other universe out there) forever.

kill life for it is evil

>> No.2716163

Is it the Loo Sanction by Trevanian that has the Bond woman getting horribly raped and tortured after it? That really brought me down.

Also, the baby dying at the end of Song of Kali made me cry.

>> No.2716182

>>2714196
Oedipus isn't supposed to make you feel bad, stupid. You should feel satisfied and proud of man.

>> No.2716201

Anything by Doestoevsky.

>> No.2716267

Nearly finished The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa and holy shit the loneliness. Made me fucking thankful for who I've got in my life

>> No.2716304

>>2714119
>>2714119
>>2714119


Its amazing to see that posted, I have mentioned it here before but thought I was the only one that has read it. Non-fiction horror that I agree with wholeheartedly.

Also 'Journey To The End Of The Night' and 'Death On The Installment Plan' obviously. If Céline hadn't been an anti semite he would be universally regarded as the greatest writer of all time.

>> No.2716326
File: 1.50 MB, 2000x2800, depressing lit.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2716326

>> No.2716333

>>2714205

>Death of a Salesman

Yeah I found that pretty crushing as well.

>> No.2716378

>>2716333

Second.

>> No.2716405

>>2716378
>>2716333
Thirded

>> No.2716437

The Glass Bell Jar
The Road
Atonement

>> No.2716446

The end of Don Quixote.

>> No.2716865

http://www.amazon.com/Forms-Meanings-Performances-Audiences-Computer/dp/081221546X

Roger Chartier can suck on all the dicks; all the razor-spiked, salt-sprinkled horsecocks in the universe. I have never despaired so hard as when I was punished with this vile, contemptible steaming pile of camel chode.