For discussion

[sabotabby]

What's the most depressing ending in a work of fiction that you can think of?

Oh yes, and why?

Comments

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

Don says "Vanyel: The Angsting"

That after giving 50 years or whatever of his life to service at the expense of his own wellbeing and happiness, Vanyel gets sucked into a centuries-long afterlife of further service.

For me, I am suddenly (and exhaustedly) thinking of the end of Kafka's Metamorphosis.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

Right of the top of my head, War and Peace.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

a) A theoretically worst ending, or does it have to be in a real book?

b) Do I have to have read it?

[jvmatucha.livejournal.com]

The first thing I thought about was the ending to Crime and Punishment. Dunno why, the whole book was purty gloomsy.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

That wasn't a happy ending?

[apperception.livejournal.com]

That would be the end of Kafka's The Metamorphosis.

[corbet.livejournal.com]

A tie between Doomsday Book and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. It's been awhile and I can't remember exactly the details of how they ended, but I do remember they left me going omg-kill-me-now-I'm-so-depressed.

[jenlight.livejournal.com]

I find it really depressing as well.

[jenlight.livejournal.com]

Old Yellar.

[homewardangel.livejournal.com]

Jude the Obscure. The son hangs all of his infant siblings and then himself because "we are too many." Sue feels it represents God's anger and leaves him. Then he dies.

[sabotabby]

a) Your choice. But I find it hard to imagine a theoretical worst ending. I mean, the heat death of the universe, perhaps? But if I think of books or movies that I've genuinely sobbed (or cringed) at, it hasn't been so much because everyone dies. It's because I identify with the characters and something awful happens to them.

But I'd be interested in seeing what your theoretical worst ending is.

b) Nope.

[jenlight.livejournal.com]

Really? I have always read that as a hopeful ending. His sister is the future and all that.

[sabotabby]

That made it more depressing. Holy shit. It's one of the most cynical lines I've ever read.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

Oh, does his sister represent the future? I always thought it was happy for him-- just that the best thing had happened, which was that he was dead and away from his family who could never accept him.

[streetdreams.livejournal.com]

Requiem for a Dream.

But if that's too cliched, Geek Love left me speechless for a few days.

[rojonoir.livejournal.com]

Lina Wetmuller's Seven Beauties had a pretty depressing middle 90% with the main character literally and figuratively swimming through a cesspool and prostituting himself to save his own skin in a Nazi death camp, ending up with a happy ending - returning home to find that not only were all of his sisters forced by poverty into prostitution but so was the little girl that had a cute crush on him before the war.

[rojonoir.livejournal.com]

Wertmuller, actually.

I picked it up from the rental store because the cover implied it was a wacky comedy with WWII as a backdrop.

[herkyjerkydance.livejournal.com]

Super obvious, probably, but: 1984. I first read it when I was 11 or 12 and it was the first book with a non-happy ending that I ever read - the idea of a massive authoritarian government that inexorably crushes all opposition left me depressed for weeks.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

I have a copy of an early draft version of the script to Blade Runner that's pretty harsh.

Static had a tremendously depressing ending.

not meant for use as a playbook

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

1984 also takes my personal comes-to-mind-first medal - it definitely makes top 5 because of the combined strength of general writing quality, downer-ness of ending, and real-world relevance and plausibility.

[hopita.livejournal.com]

I'm not coming up with a choice for fiction right now, but It's Always Something is the book with the most depressing ending. It's Gilda Radner's autobiography, and she's just so sure that she's gonna beat it. And we all know how that ended ...

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

Which one?

[rrrao.livejournal.com]

Robert Cormier's 'The Bumblebee Flies Anyway'. (For 'young adults', by the guy who did the Chocolate War [apparently the better read of his stuff, except by me].)

Holy shit. I dunno if we're allowed to spoil the endings here, for those who haven't read the book, but basically all these misfit kids who have been institutionized in some kind of mental hospital for youth make it onto the sloping roof with their hand-made go-cart, and go hurling off the edge to their death. (Hence the cruel, cruel irony of the title.) I'm not sure if they'll let 12-14 year olds read that stuff anymore. The fact that they were all institutionised was depressing enough.

It became a running in-joke between me and my brother to mail it back and forth around the world as a 'gift' when we were both on different continents - the copy we had must have crossed from India to Europe and back to Toronto at least once or twice...

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Do any Hardy novels not have depressing endings (and middles and beginnings)

[sabotabby]

I'm not sure if they'll let 12-14 year olds read that stuff anymore.

Hey, Disney made a movie of Bridge to Terabitha, for God's sake. Which would probably make my (not-very-highbrow) list.