(cartoon from here)
Everyone’s reading habits change with time and I’m no exception. Once upon a time I though Paulo Coelho should get the Nobel. Once upon a time I cried buckets over Message in a Bottle and A Walk to Remember. But I got more discerning, cynical and thankfully much more choosy. I don’t know if I’ll still change a lot because lately my tastes seem to have stabilized, except on one point: my ever-declining tolerance for depressing, melancholic and generally “tough” books. I would have guessed that with age (I’m 31 by the way) I would increase my delight in inner-angst and the hardships of life but alas, all I want now (and more and more) is to be entertained and a healthy dose of escapism.
Don’t’ get me wrong, I don’t need to escape because I’m unhappy, life’s been good to me so far, but the fact is that just 10 years ago I enjoyed reading the likes of The Grapes of Wrath and now I would not, even if it’s a master piece. Nope, I don’t want to read about the child-soldier from Sudan who made it out alive, even if it’s an inspiring story of survival. I often wonder: how could my 19-year-old self actually go through all three “A Child Called It” books?! It would be unthinkable today.
Looking back now, I’m glad I read some “tough” books earlier on because I’m perfectly aware that otherwise I would miss some amazing stories. For instance, in my teens I read 1984, Jude the Obscure and almost all other Thomas Hardys, Germinal, some Russians and they blew my mind. They changed (improved?) the way I read, think, vote, travel, live… so in a way I wish I was attracted by others I suspect would also have a great impact: Heart of Darkness, Sophie’s Choice, The Bell Jar, A Fine Balance.
This whole syndrome also applies to movies. I look back and am absolutely amazed how I actually went to see Schindler’s List, Hotel Rwanda and The Pianist. Now I would enter the cinema almost as I go into the dentist: it’s good for me, but there will be pain (“it’ll be over in a minute and then you’ll be glad you came”).
So what changed? No idea. Not only I avoid sad books, I cannot for the life of me understand what makes people want to look for these types of books in particular. Have you seen the amount of people online asking for recommendations for sad books? Is it normal to want to purposely be sad? My best friend loves to read about WWII and dictators. Not just about the macro-politics of it all, she really wants to know about the gas chambers, cannibalism in the Siege of Leningrad and genocides, all the gory details. She says it makes her feel better about her own life. Is that it? Or maybe to know you’re not alone in feeling heartbroken or depressed? That life is not only cruel to you in particular? Sadism? Voyeurism? Masochism?
My theory: we’re all looking for an emotional connection with the books we’re reading and for some people that’s easier with something sad than something happy. It must also be easier to write a good sad and miserable book than an uplifting one which is not too sugary. Humor in particular is a mine field – it can go so wrong.
So what’s your relationship with sad books? Do you avoid them? Prefer them? Do you balance them with a more relaxing book afterwards? Are you more or less tolerant of depressing books as you grow older?
The Sleepless Reader 
19 comments
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September 16, 2010 at 8:20 pm
cbjames
This is an on-going topic at my book club’s meetings.
To be honest, I don’t understand the problem. To read only books with happy endings one after another would make me depressed. While I don’t seek out sad endings, I don’t avoid them either. To do strikes me as denying part our own existance. We’re not happy all of the time. The times that we are sad are as worthy of art as the times we are happy.
What I don’t like are books with endings they have not earned. A happy ending that seems phony bothers me much more than a true sad ending. (I have read books with sad endings that hadn’t been earned either.)
I want a good story, well told, with something that touches me. A book that makes me laugh or a book that makes me cry. A book that moves me one way or another is a good book. In my book.
September 16, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Alex
It’s also a recurrent topic in my bookclub! I’m actually perfectly ok with a non-happy ending, don’t get me wrong. I don’t avoid all books with unhappy endings, just very depressing books in general (with and without a happy endings). I guess it’s almost like avoiding a particular genre.
But not all hope is lost for me! I still have in my TBR shelf Dr Zhivago, White Olieander and The Hours, which I’ve heard are pretty gloom…
September 17, 2010 at 12:43 am
Emily Jane
I don’t particularly seek out sad books, but I don’t avoid them, either. Like cbjames above, I read to gain all kinds of vicarious human experiences, which certainly contain depressing elements.
I think you’re not far off though in your theory that for some people, it’s just easier to feel a quick emotional connection to something sad, for whatever reason. Catharsis is important.
September 20, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Alex
By wanting reading sad books people are self-inducing catharsis? Humm.. that might work. Cheaper than therapy I’m sure 🙂
September 17, 2010 at 1:02 pm
Falaise
I certainly wouldn’t seek out sad books but I wouldn’t shy away from one if, otherwise, I thought it was interesting. One exception to this is that I will not read what I term “miseryporn” – factual accounts of unhappy childhoods or grim lives. It’s not that I am unsympathetic to the authors. I just find them depressing and would feel slightly ghoulish and voyeuristic at reading them.
September 17, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Alex
When I first heard about your project I immediately thought how I couldn’t make it because of all the melancholic literature you’re sure to stumble upon! Or else I would add more (what to you call it?) “get out of jail cards”.
Surprisingly, I’ve read some “miseryporn” back in the days (A Child Called “It”). It does seem to be developing into a genre of its own, don’t you think?
September 17, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Falaise
I suspect that, given my aversion to German lit and James Joyce, I will rapidly run out of the “get out of jail free” cards! I’m hoping that the melancholic works will have something else about them to make them worth reading. Also, one of the reasons for doing the project is to expand my horizons a bit so I guess that means reading the sad ones too.
I agree with you on the “miseryporn” genre. The Waterstones near my office in London even has a separate bookcase for it and a name for it (which slips my mind).
September 20, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Alex
Please do find out how they categorize them, like Teresa I’m also curious to find out. Maybe something like “Life as it is” or “Grass is not always greener or the other side” or “Instant contentment” 🙂
September 17, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Steph
I think what you said about emotional connections is spot on… I think that as distressing as sad books can be, there can be something cathartic in the experience, and more over, there can be beauty and truth found in the sorrow. I also like to think that the very best sad books are ones that are not without hope; when you remove that, then they really are just unrelentingly depressing and not necessarily an enjoyable or compelling reading experience.
I guess for me, while I don’t actively seek out sad books, I do like having them pop up in my reading every now and then. Being able to empathize for a character, really be invested in wanting things to be better, is one way I know a book has really made an impression on me. I guess by having those troughs, we can better appreciate the peaks and happy moments as well.
September 20, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Alex
“The very best sad books are ones that are not without hope” You’re also onto something with this one and if I go back to my past read I notice there are a lot of book there that fit this description. Maybe what I rally avoid is the ones that are sad-for-the-sake-of sad. Or because the author thought that’s the only way to write a serious and credible book.
September 18, 2010 at 6:33 pm
bookgazing
I’m totally emo so sometimes reading sad books is all about ‘nobody understand me, only the books’ and sometimes it’s about that rush that you get from an intense genuine emotional connection with a book, which can be easier to get from a sad book than from a happy one. Paths to sadness are maybe easier to understand and universal, while paths to happiness don’t always look like happiness to all of us? But here I’m thinking of tragic love stories etc. I’m not sure why I read sad books that are about war, or children in distress – maybe to educate myself and try to really understand someone’s situation?
We all have emotional limits though I think and they change throughout life. Like I can’t convince myself to read about people being tortured no matter how important I think the subject is.
September 20, 2010 at 7:06 pm
Alex
You’re very right and I had never though about it: things that cause sadness are more universal hence it’s easier for an author to reach you with some a pathos-filled book while happiness means very different things to different people. Most of the times people don’t even know what they want, only what they don’t want!
September 19, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Teresa C
Just a note, I do not think The Hours was particularly depressing. Yes, it is sad, and there is spoiler ( though ok, history is not spoilers) but I did not find it devastating.
I do not get why people would love *just* or even *better* sad books. I don´t get the market for misery porn – I would love to kno what Waterstones calls it officially!
I will always avoid books which sound like they might be myseryporn. And books which might be good but where it feels like a lot of bad things happening to characters, I will usually save it for when I am in the right mood (though again, I save books of all kinds for when I am in the right mood. Even the fluffiest and wittiest of reads, Wodehouse, sometimes is not right).
Even with redeeming values, if it seems likely I will look for spoilers and will avoid stuff with a couple of particular things.
September 20, 2010 at 7:09 pm
Alex
I actually saw thefilm adaptation of The Hours and wouldn’t mind watching it again. I even bought the soundstrack, actually. So I guess my sadness-tolerance is bigger than I though…
September 19, 2010 at 9:43 pm
Sasha
I don’t think I seek out books to be sad — it just happens. I know I’m predisposed to liking sad books, and I know I find sadness rather moving and beautiful — more so if the author does it well. [In real life, well, too complicated.]
I think that’s it: How the book reads, what it calls upon you, what changes inside you as you read it. I read Ethan Frome and was so devastated by it, and at the same time so wonderfully uplifted because I’d been witness to such a moving piece of good literature.
Once upon a time, I cried over A Walk to Remember too. I think I was 12? Then again, I think I cried over many things then.
September 20, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Alex
The way you described Ethan Frome was the same way I felt about The Grapes of Wrath. After that I was on a chick-lit diet for 1 month.
November 19, 2010 at 6:40 am
LiTi
I don’t so much have a problem with sad happenings in books, but rather the authors whose subtext is the meaninglessness of life. I may not be the most spiritual of people but I do believe that however difficult life is, it has meaning. I have noticed that my daughter’s school assigns the most depressing books. And I wonder how that might be shaping how she sees the world. The poet Louise Bogan had a tough life but she was able to write, “I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy!” I do not define this as looking at the world through rose-colored glasses and blinders, but recognizing the beauty and love around us that we can too easily overlook.
January 14, 2011 at 5:09 am
LiTi
If you like sci-fi or are willing to try it, Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines has one of the most amazing openings. “It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried out bed of the old North Sea.” Municipal Darwinism, a heroine who isn’t beautiful, steampunk dystopia. Have a good read.
July 12, 2012 at 4:30 pm
On re-reading The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley « The Sleepless Reader
[…] Look, I get it, she’s in love with someone who’ll never love her back, and her way of life is dying before her helpless eyes, I see how that makes a person cranky. But at the same time I wish she would, just once in while, let go of the aura of pathos she carries around all the time and laugh like she means it. I think my reaction to Morgaine is part of my growing intolerance of depressing books and movies I mentioned here before. […]