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ultra-musketeer  ·  4122 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What is the saddest book you've read?

Thomas Hardy's 'Jude the Obscure' is certainly the most depressing. The whole story conveys an impression that the characters are being coerced into repeated sorrow and frustration. It seems to imply that we create our misery simply by neglecting to consider, or trying to exceed, our limitations.

I once heard it described that the novel slaps the reader in the face with a fish - a very large, wet, and plaintive fish, indeed.