"Because the ending's just too hard to take"

[hrafn]

A few years ago, the song I'm quoting in the subject line was playing on the intercom in the local art supply store, and it got me thinking. (Yes, that means I've been thinking about writing this post, and have been putting it off, for probably 3 years now

Comments

[eanja]

Hmm. I'm usually not keen on bleak books- I can name you plenty of bleak classics, but most of those aren't SF. I assume you've read Orwell and Brave New World and Left Hand of Darkness already, and have no idea what your background/interest in non genre books is. This time of year, I tend to do just the opposite and go for cheerful books with lots of action or fluff.

Of the ones you list above, the last two are the only ones I've read- Canticle for Lebowitz was pretty grim, and the last section just pissed me the hell off, because I was still close enough to practicing Catholic at the time to be very much wanting to hit whoever came up w/ some of the doctrines they were invoking at the end. I think of The Forever War as having a happy ending.

Have you read Maria Russel's The Sparrow? Tells you flat out at the start that horrible things will happen to all the characters, and then makes you care about them anyway. I had to force myself to keep reading as the terrible things were getting closer, but it was a wonderful book. I should

[hrafn]

I have read Animal Farm; I couldn't get through Brave New World (maybe I was too young) or Left Hand of Darkness (YAWN).

The ending of Forever War is what keeps it off the "Bleak!" list for me, but up until the last chapter (or two?), I found it pretty rough.

I did recently read Smilla's Sense of Snow, and while I found the wintery scenes kind of bleak, overall I didn't find the novel as a whole quite that bad. Maybe because the protagonist had such a strong sense of being able to accomplish something, rather than wallowing in misery?

I haven't read The Sparrow or Dinner at Deviant's Palace, but I will add those to my list (and I really should read 1984 and give Brave New World another shot).

Genre-wise, I am more interested in SF than the classics. I can get plenty of realistic bleakness from the frickin' news.

[eanja]

I didn't think of Smilla's as particularly bleak, despite the ending, but figured it was seasonally appropriate enough to be close.

I was young enough when I read Brave New World that I don't know if I could get through it now. 1984 I read at 13, and it kind of freaked me out then, but I'm also not sure how it would read now.

I found LHoD took a little getting into, but then the pace really picks up, and it's all chase scenes and escapes across and ice and stuff. Then again, I'm not sure if it really counts as bleak or not. For me, if book is really dark, I usually don't enjoy it, so it won't come up in my list of things to recommend.

Per memory, the DaDPis much more conventional SF (the Sparrow was not marketed as SF, based on the author's prior work, despite being about interplanetary travel), but Sparrow is a much better book.

[hrafn]

Reading Smilla during the winter might have been better than reading it in the early fall. Cause all the snow and ice scenes just made me twitch in anticipatory horror. (OTOH, it was a relief to look up and realize it was NOT bitter cold outside.)

I got at least halfway through Left Hand of Darkness. If a book is still dragging by the halfway mark, I figure it's going to drag the rest of the way, too. Now I'm annoyed that I quit, because if I ever want to read the whole thing, I'll have to start over, and I don't know if I could bear all the heavy-handed "OMG LOOK ANDROGYNY! ISN'T LACK OF GENDER ROLES AWESOME!' stuff again. *stabs self*

Maybe when I'm feeling /really/ masochistic :)