Good books you wish you’d never read.

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  • #198251
    Justin
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      0 Pirate Gold Coins

      All right, I don’t demand a happy ending. I can take a painful book, but sometimes, man…

      I just finished reading “The Sparrow” by Maria Doria Russel and while it is an excellentand thought provoking novel, after finishing it I felt like I’d just eaten a bag of ashes. Not that I hadn’t figured most of the ending out (if you havent read it I won’t spill the plot) but even seeing what was about to happen to so many characters you liked didn’t make the end any better.

      I suppose given all that the book was successful, since I’m sure Ms, Russel was after just such an emotional impact. But, I can gaurantee I won’t reread it! :)

      Do you ever try to write a novel like that, one with an ending meant to jar your readers?

      JUstin

      #214507
      ErinMH
      Moderator
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        Funny — although the story really is heart-breaking, I enjoyed it and am tempted to go back and re-read it now. On the other hand, I won’t read something that feels depressing and hopeless all the way through, and I positively can’t stand dystopias.

        As to your final question, no, neither for a novel nor a short story. Bittersweet I might do, but what I write — what I try to write — is always hope.

        #214508
        Wandering Author
        Participant
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          In junior high, I read a book called The Ninety and Nine, by William Brinkley. It was set in World War Two, and followed the crew of a LST (Landing Ship, Tank) in Italy and the people they encountered. I was really enjoying the book, and got to like a lot of the characters. At the end, he loads them all up onto the ship – not just the crew of the LST, but various nurses and Italian women they’ve met, who have various reasons to be evacuating on this ship. As best as I recall it, he pretty much loaded up every character in the book who’d survived that far. Then sank the ship, with all hands lost.

          Now, I do get it. This was a World War Two novel. It was a grim war. But it was also heartbreaking, and I wasn’t prepared for it at all. (I don’t know, if I were to go back and reread this as an adult, if I’d pick up on any clues – I don’t even know if there were any clues to pick up on.) But at the time, the ending of that book felt like somebody had kicked me in the gut, over and over, until I was doubled up in pain.

          I’ve written stories that have somewhat painful endings. There are topics that do demand it. (A novel set in World War Two in which none of the characters you cared about died would be a travesty, just as one example.) And in one or two stories, I’ve toyed with very dark endings. I like exploring what I can pull off. But I really don’t like to write stories that don’t have at least some hope at the end of them. To give an example, I’m fine with Dean Koontz – as dark as his novels can get, there’s hope at the end. Stephen King gets on my nerves, though. Take Christine. Instead of hope at the end, you get this looming threat, that she’s coming back… I don’t like reading books like that, and I don’t like writing them.

          Look at the story of Anne Frank – a real life story with as anguishing an ending as it’s possible to find anywhere. (For those who have never read the eyewitness account of the last time Anne was seen alive – don’t. Just don’t. I can’t even refer to it obliquely, as I’m doing here, years after reading it, without tears pouring down my face.) But, you know, at the same time – her murderers were defeated. Her diary was published, as she’d wanted it to be. She had a huge positive effect on the world. Her father lived, and his willingness to forgive (he actually wrote a letter in support of the policeman who arrested them in 1944, when that man was exposed in the 1960s) was amazing. If I were ever going to write the story of her life, I certainly wouldn’t feel right in sugar coating what happened to her – but I’d include those other details as well.

          #214509
          Weird Jim
          Participant
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            I don’t write thought provoking stuff deliberately, although I do want meaning and the older I get the harder that is to produce.

            If people want the plot of The Sparrow, it’s not hard to find.

            I’m still trying to get an answer to why people read fiction. 405 pages and no feel good at the end is not my kind of read. But it did get the John W. Campbell award.

            Are you planning on reading the Sequel The Children of God? (Did The Sparrow make you thirst for more? That’s the kind of book I like (Liked).

            #214524
            Michael E. Walston
            Participant
              0 Pirate Gold Coins

              Maybe it doesn’t count, since I’ve never been able to finish it. Stars in my Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany–I was pleased to find the hardcover in a discount bin, but I’ve never gotten further than the first chapter when I tried to read it. Just too disturbing for me…

              #214510
              jhmcmullen
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                For me the title is less “you wish you’d never read” than “you’ll never re-read”.

                A lot of the classic literature we read in English class fits that description for me. (Lord of the Flies, anyone?) I did take on A Separate Peace as an adult and it was okay.

                I prefer a happily-ever-after ending, but there is a certain amount of catharsis in a tragedy (“Calling Dr. Aristotle!”) I rarely choose it, though. I mean, given a choice between the two Falstaff plays, I’ll choose Merry Wives of Windsor.

                I realize this places me with the folks who read nothing but Erle Stanley Gardner and Harlequin romances (hemidemisemiphilistines, I guess: we do still read, and above the level of cereal boxes), but so be it.

                Great at theory, terrible at practice.

                #214511
                tiakall
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                  Quote:
                  A lot of the classic literature we read in English class fits that description for me. (Lord of the Flies, anyone?)

                  I’ll see your Lord of the Flies and raise you The Scarlet Letter and anything by Faulkner. I blame books like that for making me retreat for the most part into spec fic XD

                  Quote:
                  I realize this places me with the folkss who read nothing but Erle Stanley Gardner and Harlequin romances (hemidemisemiphilistines, I guess: we do still read, and above the level of cereal boxes), but so be it.

                  Why does that make you a Harlequin-esque reader? Don’t most books have at least somewhat happy endings?

                  #214707
                  jhmcmullen
                  Participant
                    0 Pirate Gold Coins
                    tiakall wrote:
                    Quote:
                    A lot of the classic literature we read in English class fits that description for me. (Lord of the Flies, anyone?)

                    I’ll see your Lord of the Flies and raise you The Scarlet Letter and anything by Faulkner. I blame books like that for making me retreat for the most part into spec fic XD

                    Quote:
                    I realize this places me with the folks who read nothing but Erle Stanley Gardner and Harlequin romances (hemidemisemiphilistines, I guess: we do still read, and above the level of cereal boxes), but so be it.

                    Why does that make you a Harlequin-esque reader? Don’t most books have at least somewhat happy endings?

                    Oh, I picked Harlequin because their writing guidelines (used to; I haven’t look at them for twenty years) specified the happily-ever-after ending. What with absorbing the other lines and creating paranormal lines and SF lines, it might well not be true now, or it might be true for only some imprints.

                    I think that most genre books (that is, “not literature”) books have happy endings, because people for the most part prefer them. It’s an interesting conflict: Left to their own devices, most people tend to want to read happy endings, but the things we regard as classics often don’t have happy endings. Most of the best-regarded Greek plays were tragedies, and I think there is a tendency in The Academic Establishment to regard a tragedy–a downer ending because of the character’s Tragic Flaw–as better than a comedy (in the litcrit sense: an ending that ends happily). Picking on plays for a minute, the ones we had to study in school, such as The Glass Menagerie or Death of a Salesman or Long Day’s Journey into Night had, as I recall, downer endings. (Though I should probably re-read them or see them to figure out whether my memory of the endings is correct.)

                    There is a certain power and ability in setting the pieces up so that it ends badly, despite the attempts of the main characters. And it’s possible that the catharsis inherent in the tragic ending is more powerful, so the story tends to be remembered longer: maybe we want candy but we need spinach. (No offense meant to those who hate candy or love spinach.)

                    This is separate from the endings implied in Orson Scott Card’s MICE quotient, which are matters of plot, not of comedy or tragedy.

                    Great at theory, terrible at practice.

                    #214767
                    Justin
                    Moderator
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                      I agree a lot of the reason people continue to write sad endings is to be seen as ‘literary,’ whatever the hell that means! But, I think there are people who actually want a dose of sadness delivered via art. Last night my 16 year old daughter watched “Dear John,” a typical hit-you-in the-guts, Nicholas Sparks tear-jerker. And she cried at the ending and told me how bad she felt. I asked her why she bothered to watch it and she could only reply because it was so good.

                      Me, I’m still PO’d at JK Rowling for killing all my favorite characters in the last two Harry Potter books.

                      #214512
                      Nomolosk
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                        Heh. As for the way the Topic is worded: A Song of Ice and Fire for one, and The Wheel of Time books for another. Those are both series that I read one or two books of and will not be reading any more. I got through one third of Tess of the d’Urbervills before realizing that it wasn’t going to get any better for the character and stopped reading (I was in high school, but it wasn’t assigned reading, thank goodness). I actually enjoyed A Separate Peace, and The Scarlet Letter, though. The latter gave me fodder for essays in three different english classes ( B) ). Faulker… yeah. Let’s not talk about him.

                        As for the topic drift:
                        Catharsis has its place. There are certain books and movies I like to re-read or watch again whenever I feel like I need a good cry. West Side Story and… huh. Now that I think about it, the books tend to have the saddest parts in the middle and do have a happy ending. Hm.

                        #214769
                        Weird Jim
                        Participant
                          0 Pirate Gold Coins
                          Justin wrote:
                          I agree a lot of the reason people continue to write sad endings is to be seen as ‘literary,’ whatever the hell that means! But, I think there are people who actually want a dose of sadness delivered via art. Last night my 16 year old daughter watched “Dear John,” a typical hit-you-in the-guts, Nicholas Sparks tear-jerker. And she cried at the ending and told me how bad she felt. I asked her why she bothered to watch it and she could only reply because it was so good.

                          Me, I’m still PO’d at JK Rowling for killing all my favorite characters in the last two Harry Potter books.

                          Just remembered a Chinese movie that certainly didn’t have a happy ending,Raise the Red Lantern. Of course, the beautiful Gong Li played the main character. That’s one movie I’d watch again. Another is To Live, also with Gong Li, but not as the MC. It did not have a happy ending, either. Just yesterday I went looking for it on a DVD. $150.00 is more than I’m willing to pay.

                          It is the stiring of emotions that often makes the story worthwhile.

                          #214770
                          Ashe Elton Parker
                          Moderator
                            38 Pirate Gold Coins
                            Justin wrote:
                            I agree a lot of the reason people continue to write sad endings is to be seen as ‘literary,’ whatever the hell that means!

                            My view must be skewed, because when I read a book, I want the ending to fit the story, not necessarily be happy. Some stories can’t have happy endings. One of my favorite fantasies has an unhappy ending (if you don’t read the epilogue, which somewhat leavens the grimness of the ending without completely negating its effect). I don’t think the book would have been as good if the ending had been a completely high note, and I’m sure the author didn’t write the book with the ending she did to try and be “literary.” I think she wrote the ending the way she did because it’s what made sense for the story and she knew an ending where everybody lives Happily Ever After would ruin the whole point of what the MC had to do.

                            It is my hope that, when I write the endings of my stories, those endings fit the stories, whether or not they’re happy.

                            Ashe Elton Parker
                            "Just love me, fear me, do as I say, and I will be your slave." ~ David Bowie as Jareth in Labyrinth
                            ~*~
                            Member since 1998.
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                            #214820
                            jhmcmullen
                            Participant
                              0 Pirate Gold Coins
                              Ashe wrote:
                              My view must be skewed, because when I read a book, I want the ending to fit the story, not necessarily be happy. Some stories can’t have happy endings. One of my favorite fantasies has an unhappy ending (if you don’t read the epilogue, which somewhat leavens the grimness of the ending without completely negating its effect). I don’t think the book would have been as good if the ending had been a completely high note, and I’m sure the author didn’t write the book with the ending she did to try and be “literary.” I think she wrote the ending the way she did because it’s what made sense for the story and she knew an ending where everybody lives Happily Ever After would ruin the whole point of what the MC had to do.

                              It is my hope that, when I write the endings of my stories, those endings fit the stories, whether or not they’re happy.

                              All things occur. We’re not saying one thing happens or not; we’re pointing out some reasons why sad endings or happy endings happen, and not all of them are just because it fits the story.

                              So, I was talking about the following possibilities:

                              • Perhaps it’s an editorial policy that books have happy endings. That’s certainly true for some kinds of genre fiction.
                              • Perhaps it’s an editorial policy that chooses books with sad endings: that can happen if the publisher of the line wants them to be seen as “literary” and had the idea that sad ending=literature.
                              • Perhaps the writer has that idea and has crafted a story that needs a sad ending.
                              • Perhaps the writer is a pantser and has discovered that the ending must be sad to fit the rest of the novel.

                              Some writers have the ending in mind before they write (I have to, or I don’t finish it–I get distracted by another shiny idea). Some don’t. Some just have an inherently bleak take on things: I bet someone could make the unadulterated Care Bears gloomy (“It’s mind control, a kind of rape. Think about it.”) Some writers create both. (The reverse might also be true: when the ending is a downer, the writer takes extra pains with the writing in order to sell a harder idea, so books with downer endings tend to be better written. It’s an idea.)

                              There’s also the issue that what is written is not what is published–traditional publishing is a kind of winnowing, getting rid of the writing they perceive won’t sell. The editorial policy might have the idea that sad endings equal good writing, so it doesn’t matter what any individual writer creates, the things that have sad endings will tend to get published.

                              Great at theory, terrible at practice.

                              #214840
                              Ashe Elton Parker
                              Moderator
                                38 Pirate Gold Coins

                                Okay, I get your point. I was a bit on the tired side when I posted that last night, so I may have been a bit more snotty than I tend to be, and now that I look at it, I think I shouldn’t have posted it. So, my apologies. :)

                                I think what I was reacting to was the idea that authors who write sad endings to books are looking to be “literary” (and that’s a hot button for me because my mom tends to dislike any movie/book/whatnot whose ending is sad or depressing–and complain about it being a “bad” story even if the sad/depressing ending fit the rest of the story–which, for me, translates into defending the endings whenever I come across someone who seems to be dismissing the validity of having such endings). Since I generally don’t read the Literary genre (closest I get is books like Memoirs of a Geisha and other mainstream fiction), and most of my reading is in Fantasy/SF and gay romance with a smattering in true crime and mystery and mainstream and nonfiction, I’ve come across sad endings which I can be fairly certain were written because they fit the story, not because the author was trying for some other genre or effect.

                                Ashe Elton Parker
                                "Just love me, fear me, do as I say, and I will be your slave." ~ David Bowie as Jareth in Labyrinth
                                ~*~
                                Member since 1998.
                                ~*~
                                #214513
                                Soren_Ringh
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                                  I think it has more to do with a writer’s personal preference and style more than anything. Just as some writers have consistently darker themes and others more uplifting ones. There is what Ashe has alluded to as well. Many times a writer hasn’t wanted to kill off a character, but in their eyes the story demanded it.

                                  That reminds me of what Brandon Sanderson said about a story he wrote once where events and characters played out in a way that was a joy for him to write. He said that his eyes will be the only eyes that will ever see it. Not because it held some personal significance, but because it was awful. He got onto the subject of it because of Pixar’s second rule of storytelling which is:

                                  You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.

                                  It took me awhile to understand this fully. I believe Ashe is right. The story is what it’s all about and sometimes that means a less than happy ending, or at least not where everything turned out just right.

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