TheHoundRules Posted January 4, 2008 Share Posted January 4, 2008 Where the Red Fern Grows - I remember finishing that book as a child at the kitchen table and crying. The Road Crime and Punishment - This may be an unusual choice. I felt extremely sad while read this for some of the characters (Marmeladov, Sonia, Raskolnikov). The Kite Runner The Green Mile - The execution at the end Into Thin Air - The tragedy of Everest. The Things They Carried - Some moving, sad stories of Vietnam All of these were sad to me in a different way. Enjoyed all of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Multaniette Posted January 4, 2008 Share Posted January 4, 2008 I agree with Hereward regarding Birdsong. However, if I were to choose a single book, it'd be God of Small Things by Arundhati Roi. Failing that, Khol Do by Sadat Hassan Manto. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isis Posted January 4, 2008 Share Posted January 4, 2008 Charles de Lint's The Onion Girl was like a punch to the junk, considering that one of my two closest friends in the world is a survivor of incest and reading that reminded me of all the pain she dared to share with me when she told me all this six years ago.When I lent this to my supervisor she said it made her cry on the train to work (as if that was MY fault). She was clearly bothered by this, whereas I have no problem being emotionally affected by something I read, whether there is anyone around to see it or not. I have to say that my gut response to this question is Watership Down. But The God of Small Things, All Quiet on the Western Front and The Sil are also up there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanteGabriel Posted January 4, 2008 Share Posted January 4, 2008 My nominee is The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. Man discovers that there is a civilization on a distant planet, and the first organization to muster up an expedition is the Jesuit order. What follows is full of tragedy, betrayed faith, suffering, and despair. Though the first book that popped into my head was William Gibson's Pattern Recognition. His first non-scifi book, written as a response to 9/11, every page of the book was infused with a spirit of loss and loneliness and seeking for something you can't quite ever grasp. I thought it was Gibson's most elegant novel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vervain Ashe Posted January 4, 2008 Share Posted January 4, 2008 I haven't read A Fine Balance in years. I read it in high school and it made me get really depressed, and I didn't read it for a long time after that. It's truly a sad story, but very beautiful. Where the Red Fern Grows was the first book that had a real emotional impact on me, so in a way it was the saddest book I've read. Where the Red Fern Grows did it for me too. It was required reading in my fourth grade class. I felt compelled to read it again that Summer, and I cried just as much the second time around. I can't bring myself to read it now that I'm an adult. It's just too sad. But, I'm glad I read it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smeech Posted January 4, 2008 Share Posted January 4, 2008 It's already been mentioned, but I'll throw A Farewell to Arms into my list. You KNOW what's going to happen, but good god -- it's so much sadder than you would have imagined. While it's perhaps less depressing than All Quiet on the Western Front, it hit me a hell of a lot harder. It's a lot more personal, and (imo) it's a better book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harlot Posted January 4, 2008 Share Posted January 4, 2008 The only two books I have read that made me cry: 1. The Diary of Anne Frank 2. Lonesome Dove Though Anne Frank is often cited as an uplifting book of hope for the human spirit, knowing what ultimately becomes of her I was left feeling that her optimism was naive and unfounded. It is about youth and innocence that you know will end in cruel tragedy. Lonesome Dove remains one of my favorite novels and Gus McCrae one of my favorite characters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 4, 2008 Share Posted January 4, 2008 I originally commented and said Where the Red Fern Grows. That still had the greatest impact on me when I read it, but I was so much younger. A few comments on some of the others mentioned: 1984 - Very dark and ominous for sure. Sad isn't the word I would use to describe it, but I feel you. Lions of Al-Rassan - I know exactly what you're referring to. Didn't have a huge impact on me. I really liked the book, but I wasn't too depressed by it. The Road - Whoa. Just read this. That is some sad shit. Not sure I'd go so far as to say I wish I hadn't read it, but damn. Red Pony and Of Mice and Men - I see why you'd say this but for some reason, I can't stand Steinbeck and therefore I'm not very impacted. I don't like the place his writing takes me. Mabye I don't like his dusty settings. I don't know, but I was not effected much by either. Special Comment: Wizard's First Rule - Goodkind - First 100 pages. Very depressing to realize such a bad writer could be so well-read and so cocky about it. The most depressing statement on the state of man that I can remember. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alytha Posted January 4, 2008 Share Posted January 4, 2008 I nominate: The Time Traveller's Wife The Book Thief The end of The Return of the King (all the sad tragic fates in the appendix) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaxom 1974 Posted January 4, 2008 Share Posted January 4, 2008 A Ring of Endless Light - L'Engle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lya Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. Once I got past the craziness of the prose, it hit me really hard, for some reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angalin Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 When I handed my copy of the Silmarillion to a friend, I warned him: "Everybody dies." I read The Last Battle the least frequently of all the Narnia books, because I have to be prepared to cry most of the way through it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derfel Cadarn Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 When I handed my copy of the Silmarillion to a friend, I warned him: "Everybody dies." I read The Last Battle the least frequently of all the Narnia books, because I have to be prepared to cry most of the way through it. Um, Not everyone dies in the Silmarillion. Elrond, Galadriel and some others survive. In the Last Battle everyone excerpt for Susan dies. But they all end up in heaven which happens to be a patchwork of Narnia bordering England for some reason. Apart from (the now fatherless, motherless, brotherless, sisterless and cousinless) Susan, because she's a Narnia-rejecting 16 year old slut with an unwholesome fascination with make-up, lipstick and most likely indulges in pre-marital snogging. The dirty whore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angalin Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 Um, Not everyone dies in the Silmarillion. Elrond, Galadriel and some others survive. Okay, so 95% of the characters die. In the Last Battle everyone excerpt for Susan dies. But they all end up in heaven which happens to be a patchwork of Narnia bordering England for some reason. Apart from (the now fatherless, motherless, brotherless, sisterless and cousinless) Susan, because she's a Narnia-rejecting 16 year old slut with an unwholesome fascination with make-up, lipstick and most likely indulges in pre-marital snogging. The dirty whore. Yeah, I know... and it was probably crappy post-war lipstick too, just to rub in her misfortune. That particular development says a lot more about CSL than about Susan (which was treated interestingly in a short story by Neil Gaiman, IIRC). But the whole idea of Narnia being gone forever is always tough. Probably a holdover from my childhood. :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Whiteravyn Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 I'll jump on the Silmarillion bandwagon, which definitely has the Anglo-Saxon epic melancholy going on. Winter Warriors by David Gemmel is pretty sad as well, some good character deaths in there, but the only two books I can think of right now that consistently make me cry at the end each and every time I have read and re-read them are Cyrano de Bergerac, which, I suppose, is really a play (Get it in French, and learn to read it. It's worth it), and H.M.S Ulysses by Alistair MacLean. Incredibly sad, and yet I read them again and again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isis Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 When I handed my copy of the Silmarillion to a friend, I warned him: "Everybody dies."I don't get why you would tell someone that unless they said: "Can you lend me that book AND tell me what happens before I read it too." Do you do that with all the books you lend? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smeech Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 Some books come with inherent spoilers. I haven't read the Silmarillion, nor had I the patience to read LotR (though I am considering giving it another try.) Still, somehow I figured that Tolkien's novel WOULD end like that. Kinda what I was saying about A Farewell to Arms earlier this page. You KNOW what's going to happen, but I'll be damned if it makes swallowing it any less painful. Anyway, in a great many novels -- and in many great novels -- the ending is, if not foreshadowed, foregone. This, in my opinion, doesn't make a novel any less a pleasure to read. Kinda talking out of my ass here, by the way, as I haven't read Tolkien's novel. Just throwing that out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ennui Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 another vote for Of Mice and Men, it makes me tear up just thinking about it, though gotta give stienbeck major credit for what he does with the end of the grapes of wrath, that is another extremely affecting final scene. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monboddo Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 'The Road' I think qualifies for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted January 5, 2008 Share Posted January 5, 2008 Eragon - cos it was so bad it was sad. I dont have alot of empathy so sadness is subjective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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