Top 10 Most Depressing Books

So Abebooks released a list of the top ten most depressing books. Not surprisingly, some of my favorites are on here.

Top 10 most depressing books

1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)
The first time I read this I sobbed for a solid hour after I finished it. I mean, not just “a single tear trickling down” kinda thing, I mean nearly hysterical boo-hooing. And I don’t cry at books. I’m an English major--we’re desensitized and can approach everything from a “critical distance,” blah blah blah. However, I don’t know that I would describe the book as depressing. I actually found the ending extremely hopeful. I think that was why I cried, actually. The final paragraph can be taken a number of different ways. How one interprets it, I think, can reveal much about that reader’s worldview.

2. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1963)
I read this in college and really liked it. I think most young females can identify with Esther Greenwood in some way, even if they aren't suicidal.

3. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (1895)
Okay, this one was a little much. I won’t give it away, but what happens is pretty harsh. But, it’s perhaps a welcome departure from 19th century marriage-plot novels.

4. Nineteen Eighty-four by George Orwell (1949)
This is the book I beat my students over the head with for five semesters, off and on, as Bush was waging his War on Terror and Congress was shredding the Constitution with the Patriot Act. Everyone should read this book. I actually found Brave New World more depressing, since I felt much of it was more realistic.

5. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1957)
I tried to read it but only got about halfway through (which was itself a hefty 600 pages). I just didn’t get the point. Human beings are portrayed as driven by competition and bereft of any sense of morality (which I guess is pretty accurate considering our fallen state). However, there seemed NO possibility of redemption on the horizon (I don’t know since I didn’t finish it. Has ANYONE actually finished this book???) There just wasn’t a lot there to keep me reading.

6. Night by Elie Wiesel (1955)
Haven’t read it but I guess I should, since Oprah said to.

7. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939)
Read it a long time ago, but I don’t know that I would describe it as depressing. Maybe bleak--but look at the setting.

8. On the Beach by Nevil Shute (1957)
Haven’t read it. Want to now.

9. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (1970)
Read this in college and it stunned me. Beautiful and horrific. This is another one everybody should read.

10. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954)
Read this when I was ten (my grandmother was horrified) and have loved it ever since.

I’m not sure what I would add to this list, as I don’t tend to think of books in terms of “depressing.” A lot of people think my favorite novel, Wise Blood, is depressing, but if you understand O’Connor’s theology, the ending is actually quite happy, at least for the protagonist. Some people think Faulkner is depressing; I think he’s prophetic. Slaughterhouse Five is pretty bleak, but it’s also funny. If more people had read it, Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun would probably be on here. I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t actually gotten around to reading it myself, but I saw the movie (haha), so you’ll have to ask my husband about it.

I’ve had students ask me why I assign such depressing books in my classes, especially since I don’t seem to be have that “dark” of a personality (at least in class I don’t, apparently). I usually respond that 1) “happy” things just aren’t as interesting, and 2), one of the ways we can identify a text as “literature” (that is, a text that invites study and rumination versus a text read for recreational purposes) is that it plunges us more deeply into the world rather than just taking us out of it momentarily. A book that does this can transform its audience. And because readers tend to be complacent and desensitized, to do that, sometimes you have to shake up your audience. As Flannery O’Connor once said, “For the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.” From a Christian perspective, I believe that a text that forces us to confront the reality of our fallen estate can draw us that much closer to God, even if that effect is unintentional--for example, if the author is an atheist.

Your thoughts? What would you add to this list? Or perhaps it should be re-named . . .

End of semester reflections

As a horrible, horrible semester draws to its close I thought I would make a list of good things that happened to remind myself of why I still teach.

-After submitting a paper in which she expressed her distaste for freeganism, a student decided to investigate for herself and went dumpster diving with a friend. They had great fun and found a perfectly good file cabinet, a set of John Deere tools, and a large bag of unmoldy bagels, among other things. The student enthusiastically showed a video of her adventures to the class.

-For the first time, I taught the story “The Ones Who Walk away from Omelas” by Ursula K. LeGuin. We had a meaningful discussion about America’s “non-negotiable” lifestyle and a former Wal-Mart employee suggested we stage a protest. This was even before the Black Friday trampling tragedy. An article about the story is forthcoming.

-Amidst much groaning and grumbling, I forced students to act out scenes from Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House. Duplicating the scene in which Nora dances a frenetic tarantella for her domineering husband, a middle aged mechanic/Army vet (male) rolled up his pants to show some leg and proceeded to sachet around the classroom shaking my daughter’s toy tambourine. Uproarious laughter ensued. Ah, for the good old Shakespearean days when men played the female leads . . .

-A student cited Ron Paul as a source in a research paper without any prompting, coaxing, or threats from me.

-I taught three Flannery O’Connor stories--as always, some “get” her and some don’t. Flannery (we’re on a first-name basis) always manages to make me laugh, not take myself so seriously, and reminds me that so much of human machination is hogwash. A wise person on the Internet once said that reading Flannery is like waiting at a railroad crossing catching glimpses between train cars of the scenery beyond--you can’t quite make it out, but you know it’s something wonderful and mysterious. Although it wasn’t this semester, one of my finest Hallmark-shed-a-single-tear moments of past ends-of-semesters occurred when a student who was wise beyond her years simply said, “Thanks for the Flannery.” If I meet Flannery in heaven, I doubt I’ll be able to say much except “Thanks for the stories.”

Birthday present

Another addition to my arsenal: Flannery O'Connor: Unmasking the Devil by Regis Martin. Anyone whose obsession with Flannery borders on idolatry will enjoy this brief and readable ode to her greatness. A few gems from Martin:

"In short, to read Flannery O'Connor with an adequacy of attention is, as someone once suggested, on the order of Horatio seeing the ghost of Hamlet's father: 'It harrows me with fear and wonder.' How well, in other words, she could separate out the sentimental syrup, the cloying treacle of so much contemporary literature, seeing right to the bone and marrow of real meaning. Not to have understood this, of course, and thus to be pulverized and never quite know why, is the fate of all sentimentalists" (45).

"Her preferred way to persuade the godless that God had better not be dead . . was to spin tales which truthfully rendered the consequences of their belief that He was. Here she would unfailingly flesh out for her readers what surely must remain the most ludicrous aspect of our fall from grace, to wit, our persisting and sentimental refusal to acknowledge that we had and have" (42).

"Even at its antiseptic best, ours is an age wrapped in cellophane. Can it not be a good thing, now and again, to pierce the cellophane?" (34)

Pierce away.