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/lit/ - Literature

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2686709 No.2686709 [Reply] [Original]

Can /lit/ recommend me literature that is bleak and depressing?

Many thanks.

Can include black humour like Celine

Picture related

>> No.2686718

Waterline by Ross Raisin.
The most depressing thing I have ever read.

>> No.2686721

>>2686718
Because it's so bad?

>> No.2686728
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2686728

>> No.2686742

>>2686728
Can we expand upon this chart?

>> No.2686758

>>2686742
Sure, recommend away. I'll make sure to put them on there soon.

>> No.2686761

>>2686728
>The Trouble With Being Born
> Depressing

I have to disagree with this, and two of Cioran's novels are on this list. Although he is a very nihilistic writer, I find him to be somewhat encouraging. It is like he said "I'm simply an accident. Why take it all so seriously?"
I usually read Cioran when I want to be cheered up, there is just something about his ideas that makes everything feel less important than it really is.

>> No.2686773
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2686773

Kafka depressed the shit out of me. Go ask Alice was pretty depressing. Dystopian fiction is usually going to be pretty heavy shit. I remember being down for a while after reading 1984 for the first time. You could also check out Poe.

>> No.2686774

>>2686761
reading that atm. Agree with you on Cioran--I've read a few of his other books and find them more uplifting and funny if anything. I do however prefer his essay style to his aphorisms.

>>2686728
Also I thought the Possessed was the most depressing of Dostoyevsky's novels (particularly the ending). But I definitely saved the list.

>> No.2686776

i stopped reading jose saramago's blindness because i didn't want to feel like shit anymore

>> No.2686792

More classic depressive literature please

>> No.2686816

I am interested in literature from the perspective of the Germans, Russians, and Japanese from WW I and WW II

Read Solzhenitsyn, Storm of Steel, and All Quiet on the Western Front

>> No.2686817

>>2686816
What about WWII from the perspective of an American GI who happens to be a serial killer, shot down behind enemy lines in Tokyo during the American firebombings?

To the White Sea

>> No.2686829

The Road

>> No.2686894

BAMP

>> No.2686930

>>2686709


Of a Boy

such a sad novella.

>> No.2686943

City Of The Dead by Herbert Lieberman

I'm reading it right now and it's exactly what you're asking for.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2172164.City_Of_The_Dead

>> No.2689019

BAMP

>> No.2689021

Not classic, but Tao Lin.

[spoilers]seriously[/spoilers]

>> No.2689028

Hunger by Knut Hamsun was the most painful book I have ever read. I actually cried out several times.

>> No.2689044

The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes. Depressing as fuck to me.

>> No.2689056

Samuel Beckett - Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable

>> No.2689064

>>2689028
Because he made you hungry?

>> No.2691336

Literally, Alls Quiet on the Western Front really was ridiculously depressing for me, but then again I was in the 7th grade when I decided to plow through it. It left me quiet for a few weeks.

>> No.2691339

>>2689056

just finished molloy -- bleak is on point, but i think depressing misses the mark by a long shot

>> No.2691417

'Slowly Downward' by Stanley Donwood. It is also hilarious, but still puts me in a desolate stupor for days.

>> No.2691484

Night by Elie Wiesel
made me really depressed when i was 13
could'nt shake that fell for around a week or so