Bleak Books

[callmemadam]

From Scott Pack's blog came this link to the top 10 books in which things end badly. I've only read half these and started my own list which I'll add to when I think of some more. Mine are not necessarily top books, though some are.

1984, George Orwell
A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh
Requiem for a Wren, Nevil Shute
Konigsmark, A E W Mason
Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot

Comments

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

A Handful of Dust = bleakest book EVAR.

Pretty much anything by Hardy would qualify.

Take A Girl Like You shocks me because it goes from lighthearted romp to eternal punishment for sins.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Incredibly, I heard AHOD referred to as a comedy!

Hardy: yes, I could just as well have picked Tess but don't forget Under the Greenwood Tree.

Are we talking Amis? He was frightfully moral in his way. Doesn't qualify as bleak, for me.

[sloopjonb.livejournal.com]

Possibly Jude failed to make the top ten because it not only ends badly, it starts badly and remains badly all the way through. The end comes as a relief.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Ha ha! I can't say I ever want to read it again. Looking on the bright side, its reception made Hardy stop writing novels and turn to poetry, which he was much better at.

[legionseagle.livejournal.com]

I think Nevil Shute thought the actual ending of Requiem For A Wren was a happy one, though I confess to having doubts about the future for a marriage which is based purely on the fact that the man identifies the woman concerned with the dead fiancee of his dead brother.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Yes. Quite a few books have apparently sad endings which the author approved of. Perhaps I should have picked On the Beach.

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[legionseagle.livejournal.com]

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